|
It's a bit different where I work. We're a private club with ~600 members and yearly dues are on the cusp of 5 digits. Our customers think they're king shits because of it. I get to serve people that I absolutely despise with an enforced no gratuities rule in the club constitution. Health care for a family of 5, 10 years of full time and good hourly pay, and a cakewalk schedule make grinning and bearing it a lot easier. Being done on a Saturday night at 10pm because 90% your members are 65+ is pretty ok.
|
#
?
Mar 15, 2014 21:12
|
|
|
|
| # ? May 10, 2024 08:14 |
|
|
Oh yeah, we all just laughed at it. The insanity of guests is pretty well known, I just like the "I came into this business to abuse their amenities without purchasing anything and when the bartender suggested that I must actually purchase something to be there I threw a tantrum on the internet." Pffffft. "Customer service"
|
|
#
?
Mar 15, 2014 21:12
|
|
|
So I start a two-week voluntary placement as a kitchen porter on Monday. Spoongod watch over me.
|
|
#
?
Mar 15, 2014 22:01
|
|
|
Had a couple servers stiff me, the bar, a good ~20% and loving ~50% of my tips tonight (each, individually, respectively). How do they think they can get away with that? And how long have they? I'm pissed, and if I didn't care so much about the restaurant, I'd stiff their tables half their drinks too. I don't give a gently caress if you think it's bullshit to tip me 10% on a $5 beer "just for opening it," that's how it works here. And I did way more than 'just' open that beer to actually get it out to the table. They're essentially reaching in my pocket and claiming my cash (which gets split up quite a bit anyway, btw) as their own. What do you more experienced bartenders do to get back at cokehead narcissistic severs, while maintaining your professionalism and impeccable customer service? Switch wines around on the ticket so they look like idiots when they drop them to the table? Sounds fun but small potatoes. I can't justifiably not make their drinks or push their tickets to the end, because on a 400 cover night I'm loving over everybody, not just the server. I've been expo, I know that much. Tonight I'm ok without the extra $7 I would have made. But I know it is a consistent occurrence, and $7 definitely adds up. In the end, I do it because I love bartending, but seriously, gently caress selfish servers and selfish people in general.
|
|
#
?
Mar 16, 2014 11:26
|
|
|
If you can prove the numbers, take it to FoH management. If they're stealing from you, they're probably stealing from the business as well, and that sort of thing is pretty easy to prove once you know it's happening.
|
|
#
?
Mar 16, 2014 20:14
|
|
|
Hey all, I was in here a week or two ago(?) talking about my anxiety over leaving my job as assistant manager. Well, I've got quite an update: I got my terrible GM to quit  Before her vacation was over, all of management had a meeting with the owner, and he was upset about what he heard. We set goals for her to improve within a month, and if she was unable to meet them, she would be fired. At the end of the meeting, I told the owner I was leaving for another job and he was very supportive and said that I could keep my job until my new one is ready to open, whenever that may be. We had a scary loving meeting with her present that was basically an intervention, but about being an unfair incompetent meanie instead of drugs. She cried but pulled herself together enough to later corner another manager and yell at her about betrayal. I told the owner about it, and he confronted her about it the next day, while all three of us were there. She was trying to claim it was all made up because the female manager had it out for her, and I casually piped up that it was actually me that brought it up. At this point I think she knew she was hosed and ended up barely showing up for work over the weekend. She claimed to be sick, but all of her symptoms sounded like anxiety,haha. If she was smart, she would have known she was hosed when the owner was interviewing candidates for her position at the restaurant while she was there... She put in a two weeks notice yesterday through email, and then had a phone conversation in which the owner told her she did not have to fulfill her notice. I'm basically acting GM currently and will be helping the new guy get acclimated until I start at my new job. I never thought I would get a chance to successfully lead a coup d'etat! I wonder if that will look good on my resume.
|
|
#
?
Mar 17, 2014 15:08
|
|
|
I think you should at least get a gold star for using the phrase "coup d'etat"
|
|
#
?
Mar 17, 2014 15:27
|
|
|
My pay is a week and a day late so I called in sick. Going to call my boss later and quit! 
|
|
#
?
Mar 18, 2014 00:54
|
|
|
bowmore posted:My pay is a week and a day late so I called in sick. Going to call my boss later and quit! Check your local labor laws as well, you can likely have the state go get your drat money for you.
|
|
#
?
Mar 18, 2014 00:59
|
|
|
Dimloep posted:Oh, they were ordering food. That was the "running restaurants out of a banquets kitchen" part. It kills me that we even bothered to put a kitchen (and I use the term very, very loosely) in the pub when it's only ever been a storage area. And that the bartenders offer customers the room service menu as well as the pub's menu. This. I had to work a job morning banquet, morning a la carte, and morning buffet in a hotel/conference center for a few years, and I couldn't explain well enough that the menu is the menu, and that while I'm doing two college basketball buffets, alumni buffet, full a la carte orders, a brunch, lunch in the bar, and what the gently caress else all at the same time (not to mention I haven't started prepping for the next day's events), I just need some kind of goddamned cooperation to keep things from jamming up. Just, please please don't make me take out mis en place for different meal times, or things that are not supposed to be available right now. Bartenders, while usually a cook's friend, just don't want to hear this, especially in the morning/afternoon when they're just doing Sudoku and popping Yeunglings for two customers.
|
|
#
?
Mar 19, 2014 19:30
|
|
|
Having been on both sides of that particular problem...suck it up and make that mussels app for lunch. The barkeep feeds you all the draft beer you can drink, no? The only reason that dickhead doldrum regular tips $10 on a two-beer lunch is because he can show off for his buddy by ordering off-menu.
|
|
#
?
Mar 19, 2014 20:51
|
|
|
pr0k posted:Having been on both sides of that particular problem...suck it up and make that mussels app for lunch. The barkeep feeds you all the draft beer you can drink, no? The only reason that dickhead doldrum regular tips $10 on a two-beer lunch is because he can show off for his buddy by ordering off-menu. This was a job where we were not even allowed to eat on the premises as paying customers if we were employed there, much less go for drinks (they called the GM in to get special permission when I brought visiting family in for a meal). I'm sorry, but when I'm feeding up to a 650 house count by myself, I can give less of a gently caress if the bartender's bored, and wants me to pull out the entire lunch mis en place in the middle of me doing several banquets and feeding the full restaurant. Under other circumstances, I would, but under those ones, I made my rules.
|
|
#
?
Mar 19, 2014 21:15
|
|
|
Ending my first week as a kitchen porter tomorrow. Anyone got any advice on the whole "Standing up for eight hours a day" thing? My back is loving agony.
|
|
#
?
Mar 19, 2014 23:24
|
|
|
Learn good posture, don't be fat, and get used to it.
|
|
#
?
Mar 19, 2014 23:26
|
|
|
Get a broomstick, poke your elbows out behind your back, hands at about your hips, and thread the broomstick across your back and through both arms. There's probably a better way to describe it but that's what my old acting coach had people with bad posture do.
|
|
#
?
Mar 19, 2014 23:30
|
|
|
pr0k posted:Having been on both sides of that particular problem...suck it up and make that mussels app for lunch. The barkeep feeds you all the draft beer you can drink, no? The only reason that dickhead doldrum regular tips $10 on a two-beer lunch is because he can show off for his buddy by ordering off-menu. Doesn't work like that in a corporate hotel. The bartender/server is just a dickhead and only cares about their tip. We've got some lifer servers that make 10-12/hr, plus 150-250 in tips most days, and they'll still sell breakfast after noon, and lunch before ten. Never do a drat thing for you, but god forbid you don't want/have time to make hollandaise and get out the breakfast prep for that one hungover guy they told could definitely have a benedict at 1:30PM. I'd bend over backwards for any order if I got a beer out of it, most times I don't even get a thankyou.
|
|
#
?
Mar 19, 2014 23:54
|
|
|
VogeGandire posted:Ending my first week as a kitchen porter tomorrow. As a bigger, taller dude, I prefer Skechers for kitchen shoes, the bigger and more heavily padded, the better. Add inserts as well, and make sure to fully bend your knees when you get the chance. Otherwise, just keep your posture, and stretch when you get home.
|
|
#
?
Mar 20, 2014 02:26
|
|
|
Oh hey I didn't know there was a restaurant thread around here. So I'm about to graduate culinary school and I'm working in a friendly high volume buffet. ~2700 people breakfast and dinner. Everyone works together and the atmosphere is generally positive. It's the only restaurant I've worked at that's not quick counter service. I made some good impressions and some good connections and despite my limited experience, I've got a job lined up at the top restaurant in town. I've shadowed there a few times and while everyone's mostly friendly there... I get a lot of ribbing and jokes at my expense. I imagine it'll escalate once I transfer, but I don't really know what to expect. The last new person was a few months ago and they were very happy to have fresh meat to distract everyone else. I've got some thick skin, but I've also never been in such a high pressure environment like this. Does anyone have advice?
|
|
#
?
Mar 20, 2014 14:40
|
|
|
Lots of jokes will be made at your expense. Get some thick skin, make some jokes, and work hard. Ask questions, remember the answers, because I hate having to tell the new guy how to make X item the 3rd time this week.
|
|
#
?
Mar 20, 2014 14:47
|
|
|
You'll either learn scathing wit of your own to dish the poo poo right back at them, you'll develop a smiling stonewall that makes them feel like idiots for constantly trying to rib you, or you won't handle it and will drink a lot and have a mental breakdown. That's what I've seen so far. One thing this industry teaches you really well is how to quickly tell the difference between thoughtless friendly BS, and genuine malice. I meet the genuine malice with a hard bite of my own, and it shuts it down and we move on with life. The thoughtless ribbing almost becomes a comfort after a while.
|
|
#
?
Mar 20, 2014 16:16
|
|
|
pr0k posted:Having been on both sides of that particular problem...suck it up and make that mussels app for lunch. The barkeep feeds you all the draft beer you can drink, no? The only reason that dickhead doldrum regular tips $10 on a two-beer lunch is because he can show off for his buddy by ordering off-menu. gently caress a whole six pack and a pound of that. The menu is the menu for a reason, and off-menu poo poo in mid-rush is a sign that your bartender needs a trip out back and a sound beating with a rubber hose. You don't ask him to make fiddly cocktails from your own recipes he's never heard of for you in the middle of bar call rush, he should give you the same courtesy.
|
|
#
?
Mar 20, 2014 16:28
|
|
|
I've never worked in a place with specific menu times where if a ticket came in for a different menu time/item the kitchen wouldn't just turn around and say "gently caress you" unless I asked them beforehand.
|
|
#
?
Mar 20, 2014 17:44
|
|
|
Yeah, if someone wants something we don't even have in house at my club, a porter is running to loving Savenor's and buying that poo poo off the shelf and coming back. Private clubs suck because the membership is our only clientele and we're expected to bend over backwards for their every whim. It's very much the Boston version of Downton Abbey.
|
|
#
?
Mar 20, 2014 17:48
|
|
|
BigBoots posted:So I recently entered the hospitality industry, first as a dishwasher, now as a prep cook. I've been wondering if a turnover rate of 1-2 people per week (mostly FOH, though our line cooks have a high mortality rate as well) is average. I've done a bit of research, but I was hoping to hear from people who work on the front line as well.
|
|
#
?
Mar 20, 2014 19:40
|
|
|
Lets bring back shoe chat now that someone realized my "black nonslip shoes" are actually "black nonslip combat boots" and I need to buy some.
|
|
#
?
Mar 20, 2014 20:06
|
|
|
Chef De Cuisinart posted:Doesn't work like that in a corporate hotel. Plan Z posted:we were not even allowed to eat on the premises as paying customers
|
|
#
?
Mar 20, 2014 20:48
|
|
|
ohemgee posted:we lose servers and hosts all the time. last summer the hosts would last an average of two weeks. a good chunk of servers stop showing up after their first week of training. i think a lot of people see it as a combination of an easy job/easy money and then get their wake up call. At the job I have just over a week left at there was a stretch where we were losing hosts in a no-call no-show fashion immediately after their first paycheck. A lot of servers bounce shortly after training (or burn out, but the same net effect) too. Friend of mine got sat down in the office and fussed at for asking the scheduling manager when he was supposed to sleep and eat. (minor paraphrasing for pronoun purposes/grammatical cohesion) but i got outta there suckaaaazzzz No more corporate insanity and bureaucratic hoop-jumping! Just the regular kind.
|
|
#
?
Mar 20, 2014 22:15
|
|
|
MAKE NO BABBYS posted:I've never worked in a place with specific menu times where if a ticket came in for a different menu time/item the kitchen wouldn't just turn around and say "gently caress you" unless I asked them beforehand. If it's slow, and I've got a good thing going with a server/tender, I'll make something special for their employee meal, or off-menu for special customers (I used to make poached eggs on hash for this one old veteran who'd come in at random times of the day). If someone saunters up asking for super-special poo poo during rushes or when everyone's working, I tell them that they're not eating different from the majority of customers.
|
|
#
?
Mar 20, 2014 22:51
|
|
|
Fuzzy Pipe Wrench posted:Lets bring back shoe chat now that someone realized my "black nonslip shoes" are actually "black nonslip combat boots" and I need to buy some.  SHOECHAT!!! WOOOOOOOOOO!  I got new shoes today! They're black leather high top steel toed bitches on wheels (figuratively, that'd be dope if they were those wheelie sneakers though) and I got new insoles for my new shoes and everything! These shoes rule! My old shoes have 9 months of asskicking on them and don't owe me a thing but the leather is in tatters where it is not otherwise worn paper thin! Those shoes suck! My new shoes have great ankle control and lace up real nice with a satisfying swishy motion which is not important really and yet! They also have tons of toe room where my other shoes were a little cramped and made unsightly chafing marks after a few consecutive 14 hour days 'round about the holidays! Let's party!  pr0k posted:Oh, nevermind me then. I have small-kitchen bias. IME small kitchens own except for the part where people who tend to purchase small restaurants try to run them, and then, well, *flails arms wildly* Chef De Cuisinart posted:Doesn't work like that in a corporate hotel. The bartender/server is just a dickhead and only cares about their tip. We've got some lifer servers that make 10-12/hr, plus 150-250 in tips most days, and they'll still sell breakfast after noon, and lunch before ten. Never do a drat thing for you, but god forbid you don't want/have time to make hollandaise and get out the breakfast prep for that one hungover guy they told could definitely have a benedict at 1:30PM. Q: How many servers does it take to look at a cook break down the buffet line with no covers in the house? A: One to watch, two to supervise.
|
|
#
?
Mar 20, 2014 22:56
|
|
|
The irony of shoechat is the only correct answer is "crocs. yes. those crocs. seriously."
|
|
#
?
Mar 20, 2014 22:58
|
|
|
Crocs crew reppin'.
|
|
#
?
Mar 20, 2014 23:04
|
|
|
I've had the same pair if crocs for a year now, and can probably get another 6-9mos out of them. Best $40 I've ever spent.
|
|
#
?
Mar 20, 2014 23:07
|
|
|
Shoechat: Danskos unless you have flat feet. End shoechat. Begin shoeslapfight.
|
|
#
?
Mar 20, 2014 23:34
|
|
|
Flat feet, 6'0", 200 lbs. Crocs aren't gonna cut it for me. I rock Skechers that resemble small black pillows with those green-topped arch supports. I've had the same pair for 2 years, and feel better than my new running shoes.
|
|
#
?
Mar 21, 2014 00:56
|
|
|
My Keens have lasted me a year, and they are starting to break apart. On average I am wearing them in kitchens about 80 hours a week though, and they have been super comfortable. Downside: $115
|
|
#
?
Mar 21, 2014 01:15
|
|
|
I rocked Crocs when I was a fat gently caress, there's no excuse not to wear that hot neon orange.
|
|
#
?
Mar 21, 2014 02:47
|
|
|
Cercies posted:My Keens have lasted me a year, and they are starting to break apart. On average I am wearing them in kitchens about 80 hours a week though, and they have been super comfortable.
|
|
#
?
Mar 21, 2014 02:52
|
|
|
Wroughtirony posted:Shoechat: Danskos unless you have flat feet. End shoechat. Begin shoeslapfight. Danskos are definitely the most comfortable for me but I wish the loving soles weren't so thick. I feel like I'm tottering around on platforms or some poo poo. I have a really nice pair of birki clogs as well that I tend to prefer just because of the thinner sole even though the fit is a bit worse.
|
|
#
?
Mar 21, 2014 06:34
|
|
|
Nothing like walking into work while AM crew is getting reamed by the bosses.
|
|
#
?
Mar 21, 2014 06:46
|
|
|
|
| # ? May 10, 2024 08:14 |
|
|
Hauki posted:Danskos are definitely the most comfortable for me but I wish the loving soles weren't so thick. I feel like I'm tottering around on platforms or some poo poo. I have a really nice pair of birki clogs as well that I tend to prefer just because of the thinner sole even though the fit is a bit worse. I love the pair of berkis I got but I've always like wearing clogs and the slightly too large fit feel nice. I was wearing crocs but the inserts on the soles kept falling out after like 6 months.
|
|
#
?
Mar 21, 2014 06:47
|
|
