Hello, I've been serving for a little over a year. In that time, I've grown from essentially clueless to "very strong." I can come into a shift and approach the day with ease now, and I'm really happy cocktailing on the weekends. However, despite it being the shift they've had me on for most of my time, my least confident is closing the restaurant on Sundays.
I seriously loathe it. Because I'm the last waiter out, they have me in the first section. It's 8 tables, plus in the case of a lot of big parties (standard for Sunday), I take the first table that's sat in our banquet area. During dinner rush I could have up to 8 tables including a 10+ top. People's behaviors are also really different and they demand so many little things. I can usually be over capacity and still feel under control when I'm in the bar, but it is so easy to lose my spot and rhythm on Sundays. I start to forget more and more things until everyone's just getting shit service.
But that workload is a standard for the business. Almost all the other waiters have been there for years, and they tell me about how they have to handle 12 tables at once during lunch sometimes. The owner is looking for volume so we don't start a waitlist until there are literally no more places to seat them. We're not a particularly fancy place, it's a family mexican restaurant that's not so cheap, but also meant to feed families hot plates. On this day, the most Latinos come in and they often dislike that I don't speak Spanish. The worst part is that business has been fluctuating so much that they can't afford a 4th person on the clock, so we're effectively understaffed in the unpredictable cases we get busy.
Am I just inadequate? I don't feel that the efficiency required to make these dinner services hitchless is something I'm capable of. Has anyone gone through this before?