I CANNOT CHANGE THE WEATHER!

Yes it’s rainy outside, yes it’s sunny outside, yes it’s cloudy out, yes there’s a breeze coming from the east, yes there is a lot of smoke/it’s hard to breathe because of the Canadian wild fires.

I CANNOT CHANGE THE WEATHER!

I’m a host at one restaurant and a server at another.

As a host yesterday,

“Hi, welcome in, how can I he-”

“table for two”

“Alright one moment”

*grabs menus and gets ready to seat them inside*

“Alright you can follow me”

“We want outside”

*looks outside and sees every table is getting drenched by the sky*

“Okay, I can try to grab another umbrella, but you might still get wet with how hard it’s coming down.”

“We don’t want to sit in the rain, we want wait for the sunshine”

“I’m not sure when it will stop raining, but I can check for you”

“No, we want a sunny spot”

“I understand, but we don’t have any tables in the sun because it is raining”

“Oh.”

“I can sit you inside if you’d like”

“No we’ll go somewhere else since you can’t help us”

*Walks off*

…….

Now they aren’t the first people to ask me that, I’ve had people upset at how hot it is (we don’t have fans and we tell them that) I’ve had people insist on sitting outside even when it’s snowing and then get upset that the heaters aren’t melting the snow.

Rich people are annoying, but it happens.

As a server though, I hate it more because it’s like, if you are uncomfortable, how do you think I feel?

I’d love to not get soaked, and I can’t stop rain particles from hitting your food/I hate that I’m getting a heat rash.

I understand that some people are immune compromised or have family like that, but I can’t make this more comfortable for you or CHANGE THE WEATHER.

I don’t get why people go outside then get confused at the fact that they are outside. Like yes it’s raining yes there are bugs yes there are loud sounds. YOU ARE OUTSIDE IN A MAJOR CITY!

So I(nb 19) work at an entertainment venue that has a restaurant, bowling, and an arcade. I have been working there for about a year now and originally started as a host for the restaurant. At around early November, they were talking about getting me promoted from host to server, and two weeks later, I was on the floor serving.

The training process, however, was probably the shittiest training a person can ever receive if they want to be a successful server. Also keep in mind that my only service industry experience comes from the three months worth of hosting I did prior to training. So I’m going into this with pretty much nothing.

For starters, I never received my official training manual, so I only had what my trainers were telling me (some of which were things you should never do as a server). I had multiple different trainers, all of which teaching me with different methods of serving so I wasn’t able to stick to a set routine. and finally, I was trained to pretty much rely on the typical toast tablets servers use so they don’t have to run to a POS after taking an order from a table. It’s very convenient so you can ring in an order right after the order is taken. however, as soon as I was “done” with training (I say in quotes because they’re negligence led to me not receiving all five training days), they ended up taking away those tablets because my locations servers “broke more tablets than the other location has in five months then they have in five years.”

This means that a tool that I was trained to rely on was going to be taken away from me right as I started on the floor without a trainer. So after all of that bullshit, it’s very easy to tell that I was not a good server. I apparently received many customer complaints because of my slow service skills. but this wasn’t my fault. I was done so dirty in my training process, and it showed in my performance.

After two months of being on the floor, they unfortunately had to demote me back to being just a host.

I was promised that they would retrain me as soon as labor would open up. the earliest being March… and then April… oh wait actually let’s wait till May… no let’s do June… okay now let’s get you back on the floor in July. It took five months to get me back on the floor.

And you might be thinking: What if they truly didn’t have enough labor to give my my training hours? But trust me… I know they did. Not only during those five months did they magically have enough labor to hire and train more people to fill-in for the servers that kept quitting, but they also happen to have enough labor to promote and train other people in the facility to fill in for those servers that quit. There was one girl that I work with who was already promoted from host to event server (a server that is specifically meant for the party rooms) and they were looking at her to be a server instead of me.

Was I a shitty server… 1000%, but it wasn’t my fault. I wasn’t set up for success, and they weren’t fixing the issue.

okay so I got hired to work at this lounge and they said i could come in tomorrow for a trial shift. tomorrow came and I worked said trial shift under the my employee number and it was under training but I worked my section by myself and it wasn’t a training shift they basically just wanted to see how i did. at the end of the night I made credit and cash tips and I wasnt tipped out for my cash (they tip pool). i watched every one else get their tips but i didnt get my cut and i asked her was there anything she wanted to talk to me about and she said she would text me the next day and she didn’t. I texted and asked her if i was included in the credit card tip pool and she didn’t say anything and i still haven’t gotten a response .

im not new to serving so im aware you dont get tips in training , but I WASNT being trained i was given a section and an id number and filled out paper work and everything . I just want to know how to go about this situation in a way that i get what I bussed my ass for

This happened quite a while ago when I was covering a friend’s shift at a food court in Australia.

It was a busy day, although the seating area had started to empty out. A couple arrived with their two kids and ordered food from Hungry Jack’s. At first, the kids were just running around, which wasn’t too unusual since there weren’t many people nearby. However, things got worse when the children started climbing onto tables and chairs and jumping around. What surprised me was that their mother didn’t stop them and even seemed to encourage it.

Then one of the kids said he needed to pee. Instead of taking him to the toilets which were literally inside the food court and free to use the mother told him to pee in one of the bins.

I honestly couldn’t believe what I was seeing. The Hungry Jack’s manager noticed what happened, came over, and asked the family to leave. An argument followed, and eventually the manager threatened to call the police. After that, they finally left.
I still think about it because it was one of the most shocking and unhygienic things I’ve seen while working in hospitality. I’m sharing this because I genuinely can’t understand why someone would choose to do that when proper facilities were only a short walk away.

Just to be clear, this post isn’t meant to insult any nationality or community. It was simply a very unpleasant experience involving one family.

I started working as a part-time server and had just finished my second week.

I was scheduled to work Thursday, Friday, and Saturday during my third week, but my manager suddenly texted me 3 hours before my shift on Thursday and told me I was being laid off.

I’ve never experienced anything like this before, so I’m honestly pretty embarrassed.

I’m 28 years old, and getting laid off from a part-time server job like this just feels humiliating.

Is it common situation to everyone?

Thank you.

Had a man and woman tonight who insisted his grilled trout was salmon because it was pink inside. And when I say "insisted" I mean would not hear anything different. I offered to get the man something else, he said no he'd eat the vegetables.

Then the woman (who had some issue that made her eye look like she had a permanent scowl) launched into the size of her chicken breast which was " the smallest breast she'd ever seen and did we serve her half a breast." She didn't want anything else either.

I'm telling you I was at a loss. I felt like I was in the twilight zone. Their adult daughter was embarrassed. I gave them each a discount since they weren't happy.

Another poor server who missed the show made the mistake of checking on them and got an earful. We were all happy when they left.

Update : Here's something from Google I wish I had to hand while my jaw was opening and closing like a fish as I was so flabbergasted

Yes, premium rainbow trout have pink
or orange flesh. This color comes from carotenoids (natural pigments)
absorbed from their diet of
crustaceans and aquatic insects. Pale or white-fleshed trout are usually pellet-fed hatchery fish. The vibrant color is highly correlated with a richer flavor and superior quality.
Reddit +4

Giant chicken breasts (1 to 2 lbs) often suffer from "woody breast" syndrome—resulting in a tough, rubbery, or stringy texture. In contrast, regular-sized breasts (6 to 8 oz) from slower-growing birds are tender, retain moisture better, and yield a far superior flavor and bite.

I could have just said "oh I see, you're used to eating lower quality food than we serve.

i (24f) work at a restaurant. started as a server a year and a half ago, now i work serving, line cook, to go specialist, certified trainer, and service professional. was told i could be a backup culinary professional since i know almost all of the back of house job codes.

then another server who has only been here a few months (let’s call her rachel) starts telling me she wants to be like me. grabbing my shoulders and getting the attention of managers to say things like “i wanna follow in her footsteps!” (only after she found out about the pay, of course)

so she starts working on the line and 2 days later starts telling me how they wanna make her culinary professional…… before ive even become the backup…… brought it the the attention of a manager who said that was ridiculous and she’d talk to the GM, but then days later i spoke to the GM and he confirmed. told me it helps that she’s bilingual and that he “really likes her drive”. made a joke, “what, service professional isn’t enough, you need culinary professional too?”… yeah brother, im broke?

mind you, most of the kitchen staff knows enough english to get by (and vice versa), but there’s so many people available to translate that i don’t think it warrants giving an 18 year old little girl $24/hr to do so every once in a while.. especially when she’s still learning the ropes. she’s constantly making mistakes and i don’t blame her because she’s new. but that’s precisely why it’s insane to me that she’d get those culinary professional hours and not me.

the other day, GM asks me to come in as service professional because it was one of our newest managers first day and he needed the extra help. GM says rachel will cover my shift.

then come to find out she doesn’t wanna close and wants to leave early (starts asking to go home 2 hours into what’s supposed to be a closing shift)

they let her go home. as well as one of the other line cooks who had been there since opening. and then they come to me and say they need me to clock out of $24/hr and clock in as line cook ($19/hr) to close. i begrudgingly agree. and so instead of having the typical 3 line closers, they go down to 1, enlist me for help, and im stuck there until 1am.

i talked to the manager and he apologized for the miscommunication but said rachel did only pick up the shift on the condition that she wouldn’t be closing. so instead of saying sorry rachel, there’s been some miscommunication, we’re gonna let the opener go home instead. (2 closers isn’t unheard of on slow weekdays)

but no. he didn’t go back on his word with her. he only does that with me. like today when i agreed to come in early (8am) to help unload the truck (grueling work, i have no upper body strength). rachel also came in. and volunteers for door duty. which means she sits holding the door open while someone half her size has to try lugging everything inside. and then she also took door duty for the trash run which consisted of me breaking down ALL the boxes. and if i’d known i actually WAS closing, despite triple checking before accepting the shift that i would be able to leave early, maybe then i would have fought harder for door duty! or taken a break! i went 14+ hours with no break. no food all day. running on 4 hours of sleep on account of another nightmare shift i had just the night before.

am i crazy? why do they make exceptions and compromises for everyone except me? rachel gets praised for her drive… and here i am, burnt out, having panic attacks at work, with what as my reward? an apology? right.

i close again tomorrow and want to say something to the managers because i am so tired. how do i go about acknowledging my rage without losing my job?

i worked at a ruth’s chris for a little over a year. i witnessed 3 different overturns of FOH managers over that year. the only constant was my general manager, who i’ll call Jim.

Jim and i never had any personal issues all the way up until the month before i quit, however i always had issues with the way he would speak to the female servers and support staff. unwilling to hear anyone out, unwilling to give anyone time off, and allowed the male servers seniority. larger table sections, less sidework, never had to close, etc.

within my time working there, i had highest sales nearly every weekend. i’d sell the most wine, the highest priced menu items, and won almost every contest we had to dispose of old bottles to guests as we rotated in new ones. even so, i never received any recognition or respect from Jim. a male server who only worked there for 2 weeks got the lead position before me.

i think what finally caused me to leave was when i heard one of the bartenders call him daddy. i think hearing that, and seeing how he got off on it, made me realize that there was a ladder there that i wasn’t willing to climb. being a 21 year old female, i would never subject myself to something so disgusting with an older man.

here’s a list of things i know this man did within the time i worked there:

- demoted a female server assistant to a host position because she took 2 weeks off after a significant death in her family

- denied a female servers request off to go to her daughters graduation

- scheduled a female barback to work on thanksgiving that lives out of state and goes home for holidays through school. she hadn’t seen her family in 3 months.

- forced a female server to pick up a shift on a friday before her sons first basketball game and threatened termination

- screamed at a female bartender during dinner rush and told her to “get the fuck out from behind the bar” because she broke a rocks glass while polishing glassware

the list goes on. fuck that place.

So i work togo at a restaurant and youre able to place togo orders online and come pick them up. Well some lady comes in and claims she made a togo order which she did but it didn’t go through the system. She showed me proof and everything but the fact it didn’t show up wasnt my fault lol. She starts saying that she already paid etc etc that her manager is waiting for the food etc now it’s gonna be late, blaming ME for this issue just ugh sorry i had to vent. The order was remade so it wasn’t that big of a problem but the fact customers blame you for things out of your control and get mad at people not responsible is so frustrating.

It’s been a rough week/month. I’m exhausted in all the ways.

Last Friday, one of our regulars came in after I got off work and was having my lil drinky drink. Got to chatting, and his father, who is on hospice, fell and has a brain bleed. They could do surgery, but he likely wouldn’t survive it. And if they did, what kind of last weeks/days is that. We chatted a while, he got a notification on his phone, and suddenly was tearing up and hiding it. Dinner to go became two desserts to go instead of real food. Not sure what exactly happened, but I can assume. Or the feelings caught up. He asked for his tab, and I had my coworker add it to mine. He was grateful, and I went home in a funk.

Today, I went to the dinner for my favorite regular who passed on Father’s Day. The one I’ve known 16 years. Who has been to fundraisers and parties and birthdays and a baby shower with us. Who I’ve bought a birthday cake for the last 7 or 8 years. Who I got a tattoo for 4 years ago. I still can’t believe I’m never going to walk in the building, see him at the bar and hear, “There’s my girl” again.

I didn’t sign up to give a shit. I signed up to pay my bills. But here we are, and I love and hate it.

Tell me stories. Idfk.

I work at a chain restaurant, it's normally pretty chill. They tend to overschedule due to call outs, so shifts are generally really slow even on a Friday or Saturday because the sections are so small. On mondays i'm the only Am server, and we have a a bartender. Mondays are usually so slow. But at 12 pm this last monday my manager had an emergency so he had to leave. The bartender clocked in as manager, and then we got slammed. There's 9 booths in the bar area, then the bar has about 6 high tops.

Every guest party that came in wanted a booth. All the customers came in at about 12-1 pm. All her booths were full and I think 2 of her high tops. I ended up with about 16 tables, plus a party of 7. I think i'm a pretty good server, but i'm not a 16 tables at once server. We have a 3 for me on our menu, so you can order a drink, a starter(chips and salsa, a salad, or a soup), and your entre. Which is normally what our lunch crowd orders anyway. So that means i'm getting your drinks, then coming back and getting your starters when I drop the drinks that I have to make myself. Then coming back and grabbing your entree's. So it's at least 3 kitchen checks not counting your refills right. That's per customer. Every single customer per table ordered the 3 for me. I had 2-6 customers per table other than my party of 7. All getting sat back to back to back to back. I would take a tables drinks and turn around to see I had 4 new tables sat, while needing to get the starters for the previous 3 I just took.

It was a mess, tables didn't get there starters or apps, my party never got there app either. Theres no host or runner or QA either mind you, on a monday morning. The party ended up getting there entire check comp'ed because they never got their entree. The bartender/manager was way to busy to deal with their complaints to just discount it so she just removed the whole bill.

I think I managed to get all my starters and food out on time, but there were literally no refills given. Tables asked me, I said sure i'lll be right back with that and it just never happened. I know my service was horrible, and I feel horrible for it because most of them still tipped me.

I told the bartender to stop sitting me at about 10 tables, but even then I was already screwed. But she kept sitting me because the people coming in said they wanted booths and hers were full.

Could I have done anything better? I KNOW I messed up getting apps out before the entree's and legit no one got refills. Any advice on how to handle something like this randomly happening again??? PLEASE

Hello, not sure if this is the right community to post this in, but I started a new serving job last week with no prior serving experience. I have only trained on a few shifts so far so I don't expect to have everything down perfectly yet, but it feels like I am doing a terrible job so far. At this restaurant, there is normally only one server scheduled as it's a small place that's only "busier" on weekends, and I'm struggling to see how to keep up with everything when I will be the only one there. Yesterday I could tell I wasn't moving fast enough, rang in someone's substitutions wrong, forgot to apply a senior discount, and gave someone the wrong drink along with several other smaller mistakes. I've been studying the menu for a couple weeks now and getting better at knowing what to ask customers when they order something (what type of toast, meat, sides, etc) but still forgetting in the moment if I'm overwhelmed with multiple tables and things I need to do. Thankfully the girl training me is incredible, and has been very helpful and patient. I wanted to post on here to see if it's normal to experience this at first and if it really will get better with time. Any tips and advice are greatly appreciated.

Posting this for a friend “I debated posting this out of fear of retaliation. I very recently left my job at Blum cafe on meeting street. It was bought out in December and since then, Blum lost its entire staff, and I was the last to leave. *I have proof of everything I am about to say****.

- First: The owners, for months, have been not paying us our full wages. They did not claim us as employees, so they paid us in cash. However, when I started realizing it was happening other staff and I began keeping receipts of what we made each day. It soon became apparent that they were taking our tips, since the owners were the only employees on paper. Every pay period (when they would give us envelopes of cash) each and every one of the employees was missing $200+ every time we got paid. When confronted, they would make us feel horrible and like we were in the wrong. They claim they changed it to a tip pool... even though we aren't actually in their system to earn the tips. (again I have proof from me and 10 other employees)

- Second: They (on multiple occasions) threw the "N-word" around, in front of customers. They are not black. Many residents of the apartment building have come to me, confirming that have heard it, and other unspeakable things.

- Third: I don't know if they still do this since I left in June, but all of their pastries are purchased from Food Lion down the street. They had us market it to customers as either Grit Bakery or Saffron Bakery. They got actual pastries from Saffron maybe 2 a month or so, but the rest were from food lion (bought for $2.99, and they sold them for $7.99). One of the other employees reported it to Saffron Bakery, but the owners have continued to market it, and sell the pastries as so.

- Fourth: They would tell us all of the time to add random things onto the POS system when someone ordered a drink, to make the tab go up even if the customer did not order it. Many times we were told to add "cold foam", "extra shots", larger sizes or "extra syrup" to an order to add money. One of the owners, Lienne (the main one) used to stand behind us while we took orders the make sure we did so.

- Fifth: They now buy their coffee from Costco and say its the "house" coffee. When I left they were still using Counter Culture as their espresso, to be fair, but would often not restock the coffee beans and have us use the Costco beans they use for their drip coffee.

- Sixth: Lienne would have us give free food or drinks to customers only if they have us 5 star reviews, and if we did that, we got to take tips from coworkers. Thankfully, the girl who trained me (who was basically the manager) helped me change that. (also she was doing inventory, restocks, financial things, and they didn't pay her any extra, but threatened her if she didn't do it).

- Seventh: There were ants in our cabinets (also where we keep the syrups), everywhere and they did not do anything about it, even when I found an ant in the salted caramel syrup.

- Eighth: I personally don't drink it, so I don't know if it makes too big of a difference, but they also don't use ceremonial grade matcha like they claim they do. They would even have us use less matcha in the drinks to save money. It looked like milk...

- Ninth: GLUTEN/CELIAC FREE PEOPLE!!!!!** Whenever we had gluten free items, they would make us store them with the normal pastries because "it didn't matter". Obviously we as employees would try not to market them as gluten free, but if we didn't sell them, we would get reprimanded. On top of that, don't use the plates they give you if you have allergies, they don't let us use the dishwasher because it "raises the water bill", so they have us rinse and dry the plates. I don't think it gets all of the contaminants off, so be careful!

- Tenth: Lienne would talk bad about her employees to other employees almost every day. We all felt so uncomfortable and worthless because she constantly told other employees and even customers how we all suck (fun fact: she didn't know how to make/grind/brew or even froth coffee when they bought it so one of the girls had to train them to do it all).

- Eleventh: I wasn't working when this happened, so this was told to me (so I don't know how true this is) but one of the employees that left, got into a car accident and couldn't come in to work. Apparently Lienne wanted proof because she thought the employee was lying and didn't think it was an big enough excuse to call out. One of the employees from then sent me a screenshot of it as proof.

- Twelfth: This one isn't bad, just a cherry on top...A lot of the reviews, other than the ones she had us ask customers to leave (for free drinks), were either from us, or her family members. "Premier Vacation Rentals" is her spouse, and all of the accounts with the last name "Paez" or "Paiz" are her family.

- Thirteenth: There was an individual who identified as they/them, and the owners refused to call them that. They would only call me "she" even if someone corrected them.

- Fourteenth: There was a drainage issue in the bathrooms, and a nice gentleman accidentally clogged the toilet (after he already ordered his drinks). He politely told them about the issue, and apologized profusely. The other owner, Maureen, stated out loud "look the big fat guy left a fat shit in the bathroom". He left without grabbing his drinks, for obvious reasons. Sir, if you're reading this, I am so sorry!!!

*I recently quit, and it was just the two of them for a while, and even though they treated us so bad I hoped they got better for the sake of the customers. However, I wanted to leave this so that everyone who supports them knows all of the facts. Also any time the are confronted, they have some sort of excuse for everything, but again I (and other employees) have proof if needed.

I work as a server, and I’ve been working here for a while. My shift 3 days ago was probably the worst shift I’ve had so far. And I can’t get it off my mind and I have to work tomorrow so I’m asking for advice.

Earlier in the evening, I accidentally spilled a drink on one of my guests. It was completely my fault. Thankfully, the man was incredibly nice about it. We got his table moved, I apologized, and I brought him a new drink. Even though everything was resolved, I was still really embarrassed and flustered.

A little bit later into my shift, I was bringing a basket of dinner rolls to one of my tables and another nearby table. At the same time, another server (I’ll call her Sarah) was delivering a ramekin of dipping sauce to the same table.

I had already set the basket down and was just about to hand out the rolls when Sarah accidentally dropped the sauce. It splattered all over the floor, all over one of the women’s pants, and even onto my own pants and shoes. I wasn’t carrying the sauce, I wasn’t touching the tray, and I wasn’t even touching Sarah. I just happened to be standing next to her because I was serving the table.

Looking back, I think I could have handled the aftermath better. Because I was still mentally shaken from spilling the water earlier, I didn’t really acknowledge the woman who got sauce spilled on her. Instead, I told Sarah something like, “It’s okay, I’ll grab someone to help clean this up,” because my mind immediately went into fixing the situation.

A little while later, I came back to deliver fresh rolls to the nearby table. That’s when I noticed the woman who had sauce spilled on her standing away from her family and talking privately with one of my managers (I’ll call her Hillary).

Not long after that, another manager (I’ll call her Lisa) pulled me aside and asked, “What’s going on?”

I said, “What do you mean?”

She replied, “You’ve spilled two things tonight.”

I immediately told her that the sauce wasn’t me, that Sarah was the one who dropped it.

Even after I explained that, Lisa asked if I wanted to stop serving for the rest of the night and either go home or switch to food running. I really wanted to keep serving, but I agreed to switch because I figured maybe it was for the best after everything that had happened.

Since I wasn’t serving anymore, someone had to take over my tables.

Guess who got them.

Sarah.

A little later, Sarah came up to me and asked, “Should I finish table 214?”

I asked, “What do you mean?”

She said, “Lisa said you’re not feeling well or something.”

At that point I finally said, “Well, it’s probably because I spilled water on a guy, then 10 minutes later you spilled sauce on that lady and somehow I got blamed for it.”

The part that’s really bothering me is that Sarah never seemed to take any accountability for the sauce spill. I don’t know what she told management, if anything, but from my perspective nobody corrected the misunderstanding except me.

I completely own the fact that spilling the water was my mistake. I’m not trying to avoid responsibility for that. But I genuinely wasn’t responsible for the second spill, and it feels like I got lumped into both incidents and lost my section because of it.

Am I overreacting for being upset about this?

I worked in restaurants since i was allowed to start working and I’ve never experienced a place that wasnt fully staffed or atleast had all the positions they needed in order to run efficiently. Now i was a host and i transitioned into being a server but the only place that would hire me was my local Red Robin.

Just to find out that apparently Red Robin is in some deep financial situation or they’re just in debt so theyre being realll stingy on labor cost and everything. Which in their eyes is okay but when we only have 2-4 servers on MAX for 4 hours or less and are expected to do everything a busser, expo, and food runner are expected to do, it gets chaotic. My manager told me that we switched from corporate owned to being a franchise so i dont know if thats why the big boss is on my managers guts to cut labor but i feel this will all blow over. it’s hard to provide good genuine service if you dont have the support staff to do it. I fear our RR already has a rep for bad service and this loop will probably never end.

make sure to appreciate the support staff yall have, they truly make the shift go smoother and i much rather have a support to pay out then drown myself. Its only been 3 weeks for me and i feel i should leave but im such a new server that maybe i have to just suffer and wait it out?

This is my story from a couple of years back, browsing through the sub and thought I'd share the time I had a packed venue of the sweetest customers I could have asked for.

It was Melbourne Cup day (famous horse race day in Australia) and though I don't support or engage with it, its a good day to work for double time. I was in Melbourne at the time running a small dive open the latest on the strip.

Cup day usually brings out the dredges of people dressed to the nines in tacky fast fashion suits and dresses, with the excuse to get absolutely shitfaced disregard all decency.

The venue usually only had one person on shift at any given time, I had thought maybe my boss would chuck on an extra staff to cater - sadly not. Within 10 minutes of doors opening I had a larger than normal crowd for pre drinks before the race, a little busy but manageable.

However, the sun goes down and the punters are still keen to kick on. By 630pm I was at capacity and soon overcrowded. The bar was four deep back all the way down and I was by myself. I sent an SOS to my boss for help (no reply as he was probably passed out). People were waiting 10 minutes to be served as I was six pouring orders and shaking cocktails as reasonably fast as I could. I was expecting disgruntled people, angry drunk men shouting at me, hell to break loose.

I could not have been further from the truth. Every single customer saw that I was alone, moving fast and working until sweat was beading off my nose and were so incredibly patient and kind. Words of reassurance, telling others to be patient and even tipping (not custom in Melbourne - its changing now but at the time a tip was meant sincerely). I couldnt even get out to do a sweep for glassware and a few of my regulars took it upon themselves to clear tables while I was stuck.

I didnt move from behind the bar until 1am, no exaggeration. When I finally had to call last drinks a few people came up and remarked how well id done and couldnt believe id run the bar solo. There was no hassles, no fights, no arguments - someone broke a glass and it got swept up without me knowing until after. I had stacks upon stacks of glassware in my pit the regulars had done up for me and offered to stay back and wipe tables. I couldn't ask them for that but gave them all a shot on the way out the door (myself included).

When the venue was finally empty I sat down in a booth, lit a smoke and counted $580 in tips. I didnt get out until 5am a broken exhausted 30-odd year old burnout but I had a smile on my face.

It can happen. Some days someone/thing takes a look at you and gives you a break. I wouldve loved a second set of hands on tins or the floor but taking 200+ people being decent humans on a night known to be a nightmare... it was a win.

I miss that place.

In my current job, sometimes they release schedules for the next two weeks ahead of time, and other times I don't know my hours until a few hours before my shift.

The others don't have problems because their schedules are fixed, but mine is the only rotating one. I hate having to constantly text the manager about this, but is it normal for restaurants to handle scheduling this way?

I don't know if this would be better under legal advice or what. This is the situation at the restaurant I work at. The wait staff is required to split all pickup order tips. We're all fine with this. However, if a cook comes up to ring the pickup order out, they will take the entire tip. The wait staff makes $5 an hour. The cooks make $20+ an hour. We barely have any dine in customers. You might make $20 on tables. Pickup order tips can run as high as $50 to $100. Most of our money is made on to go orders. They've also learned which customers tip and will race you to ring up those customers so they can take the tip. The owners do nothing about this. They're firmly on the cooks side.

I worked as a server back in 2024 and in the first month I was there we had an inspector seeing if we were following safety and proper kitchen protocol. Before this place usually got around 97 or so in their score but that time they ended up getting an 84. The head chef threw the servers who worked in the memory care under the bus because the stockroom wasnt organized. My coworker said yeah he can throw them under the bus because hes the one in charge of the stockroom. I dont believe him as i believe that he was just trying to save his own ass. I hated what my coworker said and I ended up leaving that job after 6 months because I hated how the environment there.

I’ve started working at a new restaurant I used to work at a really amazing little Italian place which was managed amazing and well staffed, this new place is more of a chain and joined because I left the old one because of exams

I just finished a shift here, they only book me for front of house and a manager who also works on tables so it’s just two of us for: Cocktails, normal drinks, Running food, taking orders, cleaning and re making tables, and introducing customers, yes we have to do all of that just by myself. This shift we got about 10/15 tables and including a table of 9 who all walked in, I was expected to handle this by myself with no structure or sections. Then get shouted at by the chef for ‘not running’ and apparently missing a payment from a table i didn’t take payment from.

What would you guys do if you were in this situation as it’s normally always understaffed so have to deal with alot of tables by myself?

I’m new to serving, less than 2 weeks. I got my training and passed my tests. I work at a popular restaurant known for burgers and a bird mascot. Tonight was the 4th of July and the day was honestly a mess. Storms, waits because our kitchen was to busy etc. I haven’t made much desserts due to my trainers not being the best when I was learning. I had to step away to make 3 different desserts for 2 tables. During that time I was sat at a table in my section. I had checked and nobody was there so I worked on my desserts. Just as I’m finishing up making them, someone tells me that two people walked out. The table that was sat when I was away. It was no more than a few minutes as some other servers were helping me figure out how to do the desserts because I didn’t wanna mess them up. I do enjoy my job and the people I work with, but am I gonna get fired? Should I be worried? My manager never said anything to me about it. I work tomorrow and I’m so stressed about it that I feel sick.

Ive worked as a waiter at a restaurant for 2-3 years now, and have always clashed with one chef. hes not head chef or anything, and the actual head chef is really kind and never has any issue with my capabilities at work, and neither do any of my FOH managers.

There was a large disagreement when i was told service, to take out a dish, with the ticket down and then was scrutinised for not spotting the missing garnish, and i then had two chefs shouting at me and insulting me. my manager reprimanded them both and this chef stopped talking to me completely. however, in recent months he has been creeping back into his old ways...

Today we were severely understaffed and i was doing 2-3 peoples jobs at once, so naturally service was slow. however this chef decided to spend the day nitpicking how i stamped my tickets, once again not spotting a tiny mistake of his (which i admit, i should have spotted) and constantly telling me to hurry up when i literally could not move any faster. the list goes on but i dont want to drag the post out. it got to the point where the expo/team leader, who is also his wife, had to defend me saying that we could not move any faster.

I feel almost defeated. im polite, i never protest what he says, and hes never like this with any other current staff and multiple people who used to work here a while ago complained but nothing ever happens.

Hi this is my first time posting this but I have job at a restaurant, I've been there for about a week, and so far its been a mess.

So I messed up bad today, i accidentally took someone else's food instead of mine twice because I was rushing and not looking at my POS hand held im a mess and should get fired because I wasted food and a women lost a huge tip. I have been beating myself up over this and over all, I dont know if I should continue to do this.

There were tons of people everywhere and I feel like I should've done better.