r/Serverlife

Hi need advice for upcoming Waitress Trial shift (UK Based), they've given me a dress code and items to bring. Just need to know how to act, what to do and what to expect. Also need to know basic waitress stuff.

I've done research but wondering if there's any specific advice out there

im a server in vancouver bc and i tip out 6% of my sales from my tips. i feel like the take home isnt as much as i thought it would be before i became a server, based on what i had been seeing online.

can anyone share their own experiences?

Hello everyone, just wanted to give you a bit of a story time and also just a heads up if anyone is ever as dumb as I am to not do what I did. About a little over a year ago, I got my first ever restaurant job, at a very busy restaurant in Santa Monica. I started as a host. I hustled and worked hard to work my way up to becoming a server. I did it, and I think I’ve been a pretty good server. People would mostly leave great reviews about me (although I did have off my off days where I’d give attitude lol) I wasn’t perfect but I knew how to upsell and give good service. Our pool was extremely high and sometimes I’d only take home 20-30% from my tables. Anyways, we had some bad management that was taking money from the business. HR launched an entire investigation on everything, and started reviewing cameras. During the messy management era, some servers and bartenders (me included) got access to manager codes and started to use them for comps and voids without asking management. Sometimes, I’d use a chefs code when he wasn’t even on shift thinking that they don’t check. We use toast at our restaurant, and obviously I knew everything is logged, but there were so many things happening that weren’t “by the book” that I didn’t care. I made a lot of mistakes that I now regret, I wish I could take them back. I’ve been dishonest, and I guess now that the day that I knew was coming is here, I don’t know what to do next. I guess my question to you all is, is there a way to get another serving job after being fired from one for doing something you shouldn’t have? I really have learned my lesson, and I just want to do things the right way. Honestly I’ve been wanting to leave the restaurant anyways, I just didn’t have anything lined up yet. I see people saying how difficult it is to get a serving job, and my worst fear is having to be a runner or busser or host (I’ve never been a busser or runner and I definitely do not want to be)
Anyways to all of you employed, don’t take it for granted and don’t be stupid like me if you ever do get access to a managers code. Any advice regarding what I can do as I don’t even have enough money to cover my rent or basic expenses right now… Thank you all

So, for a little bit of backstory, there used to be this regular who was clearly an alcoholic.
A couple of months ago we witnessed him get a DUI in front of our restaurant (before he had even come inside. He had parked, and the cops had followed him in).
After we witnessed that this guy came into the restaurant a couple more times and was clearly intoxicated. However we didn’t realize he was intoxicated until after he stood up to leave. I’m talking walking sideways, slurring his speech and stumbling into things. This is only after we had served him two to three glasses of wine, so there was clearly something else going on. Maybe he drank somewhere else before hand, or maybe he was on pills/drugs. None of us could really tell, we just know that this guy was way more wasted than he should have been given how much he had been served.
My general manager, and my assistant manager, both decided that we would no longer serve him alcohol, although he would be more than welcome to still eat at our place. After my assistant manager told him we wouldn’t serve him more alcohol we did not see him for at least a month and a half to to months.
Until tonight.
Tonight I was the shift-lead and was working with only the bartender (Super slow Sunday). I told the bartender “Hey, that guy’s back! Remember, we can’t serve him any more alcohol.” He told me he didn’t remember anyone telling him that. Then he proceeded to serve him a glass of wine. At that moment, I felt extremely uncomfortable, and I felt like I was put into a really awkward situation. I felt like I needed additional guidance, so I called my assistant manager and told her the exact situation. She told me that I should speak to the patron to tell him that that was going to be his only glass of wine, and if he had any more questions he could either speak to my assistant manager or my manager when they were in tomorrow morning. My assistant manager told me that she would speak to the bartender next time she saw him. I am friends with this dude(the bartender). We have worked together for years. I felt like I should give him a gentle heads up about that, and so I relayed this information to him and told him that he would probably be spoken to about it, and that it wasn’t a big deal, but that he put me in a super awkward situation. He got extremely pissed off, and refused to talk to me about it. He completely shut down, and asked to leave. mind you this was about an hour and a half before we closed so he literally left me all by myself for the remainder of the evening.
I am super sensitive and started to cry. I feel terrible about the situation. I wasn’t trying to get him in trouble. I talked to my assistant manager because I did not know what to do and I needed guidance. I feel awful. I don’t think he’s gonna get fired. In fact he probably won’t because he’s otherwise a very reliable employee, but he was super pissed and now I just feel awful. Now I am second-guessing everything about what happened.
I’m second-guessing talking to my assistant manager about it. I wish things had gone down differently, but I do know I did the right thing.
I don’t really know what I’m looking for right now. I think I just need some additional guidance and maybe some validation.
it’s hours later. I’m still crying about it.
Has anyone else had to ever deal with anything like this before?
I want to talk to my general manager about it tomorrow, but I’m afraid of escalating the situation.
What would any of ya’ll done in my situation??

I picked up a part time server job recently. First time doing anything like this, and I'm doing food runs most of the shift.

The first couple days were mostly sore feet and tired legs. I figured I'd get used to it.

By day six though, my legs and feet were hurting way more. My knees and calves were the worst, especially that night.

I also noticed a few tiny purple spots around my knees and lower legs. I don't remember seeing them before I started this job. I'm guessing six days of standing and walking around is a shock when I'm used to sitting most of the day, but those purple spots have me a bit concerned.

Anyone here had something similar when they first started? Did your body adjust after a couple weeks, or did you have to change something with breaks or compression socks?

Trying to figure out what's normal stuff and what's worth getting checked.

Hi guys I just started this new serving job and I’m really nervous. Not to sound dramatic or anything but I have social anxiety and bpd and I genuinely need help with handling negative social interactions. There’s no way around bad customers or rude people I know but do you guys have any tips or advice on how to handle it? What are some things I can do that gives me an advantage? What are some things I need to know that could make me a 5-10 server to a 8/10 server? I know cuz 10/10 isnt possible for a new server. I know ill make mistakes and I know I’ll probably end up in the bathroom crying my eyes out most days but if I can minimize it it would be amazing. Any advice is helpful!!

I started working there 1 month ago and my boss makes me hate that place. I don’t know if I’m just being sensitive so let me list a few things that happened. He’s also the owner of the place and works there 7 days a week so I can’t avoid him

-1st shift he told me I might scream at you don’t take it personal

- 2nd shift I was asking question about where some stuff were because he just quickly showed me on my 1st shift he would always say, “ I already showed you, I already told you”

- Said he hated people like me bc I said I didn’t want to have children(I am 19F) and called me selfish

- asked in a what if situation if my bf owed money to someone and that someone would hurt us I’d sleep with that person in exchange of being safe

- is always passive aggressive. For example when he says smth and I can’t hear what he says he would repeat in a very aggressive tone. And I admit I often don’t hear him because he doesn’t speak loud and there’s always music at the restaurant.

- talks behind everyone’s back even his own family that works in the kitchen for him.

- i mistakenly sold the labeled beer because he wanted I sell the unlabelled one so that when the inspector comes, he sees the labelled one remaining. I thought he wanted I sell the labeled one so he has time to go label the other ones. He then proceeded to talk in Cantonese to the other worker about my mistake. I know he was talking about me because I heard the name of the beer and he always did the same thing last time that I made a mistake too

- while I was taking order, the kitchen rang and when I came back to punch in the order he said in an aggressive tone: “ this been sitting here” (talking about the order that was just done) to which I replied “it just rang while I was taking the other” and he said “ just work quicker” I had the whole restaurant to myself and I’m the busser, waiter and bartender

-crashed out on me because I poured too much wine. We are supposed to pour until below the curve and I poured a little over since there were 2 glasses for the same table I tried to equalize them. He saw it and made me pour it back into the bottle of wine using the pitcher we use to pour the soya sauce. He then accused me of trying to sabotage the restaurant by pouring too much wine to people bc I seem unhappy working there. I am unhappy bc he screams at me every shift btw. And said the way i work is not normal because i was going to give too much wine. I just explained that i didn’t want to waste it bc we are not allowed to pour it back into the bottle. And he kept saying why not etc.

Am I just being sensitive because I expect him to speak to me normally instead of just being aggressive all the time? Or It’s normal environment in restaurant

I’m brand new to the industry as a host for a little less than three weeks. It’s a little over 20 tables and gets pretty busy most nights. When I work I am the ONLY host and the ONLY busser. The servers seem to see bussing tables as a very occasional afterthought. Management and servers have made it clear that it is primarily MY job to bus all tables.

That’s fine but when it gets busy and there’s people coming in and coming out steadily it gets hard to seat people and bus tables as fast as it needs to be done. Someone will step in and seat someone if they need to but I catch a lot of attitude for it. I’ve had one server tell me I’m bussing them too slow and to make that a priority. Then the next day say I need to make seating a priority.

Now they’re putting me on expo as well. So I will be the sole seater, sole busser, and main expo runner the next upcoming couple of shifts. I just feel very overwhelmed and under appreciated. And I’m brand new. I get I’m at the bottom of the pyramid but the comments I get from the manager and the servers make it clear they think I’m utterly incompetent. I do what I think is a good job and then I’ll hear “did you not get trained in this?” From the manager. Like no that 16 year old kid who spends more time on his phone than working you had train me for two hours on a slow night did not show me every situation and solution I could encounter.

I also make $14 an hour no tips. Well if I do expo I get a small percentage so there’s that but not enough to make any real change. I want to become a server but I can’t stay a host much longer for only $14 an hour, and they keep cutting me by around an hour every night. it’s completely not livable for me and I’m losing money. It also just feels like A LOT for a job that I thought was just supposed to be seating people.

This was my first ever serving job and I knew there were a lot of red flags but I honestly enjoyed it for the most part. Even though there was shady shit going on like wage theft, people consistently doing drugs on the clock, the manager fucking employees, servers stealing tables, ect probably all kind of normal for this industry I assumed so I just kept my head down and did my job.

Anyways, there’s obviously been some stressful moments leading up to this but nothing I couldn’t handle or let roll off my back. Today though, wow I’m just still astonished. So it was pretty busy all tables were taken up except for one in the middle, we don’t have any of those stands to put trays on so if it’s heavy we just put them on tables. So, I was taking out a 3 tops food, which for context I worked at a southern dinner/ breakfast spot so every side comes on a separate plate and everyone gets individual breads ect, my point is it was actually like 8+ plates and very heavy. So as I was going out my manager was cleaning said middle table (surprising he was actually doing something for once) It was completely cleared he was just finishing wiping it down, so I put my tray there. Maybe I shouldn’t have but I did oh well. And he looked at me all pissy and was like hurry up then, so I replied with deal with it. Yes a bit snarky but I laughed with it and that kind of the culture here everyone says sarcastic comments to each other and pokes fun.

So, as I’m going back to the kitchen he comes up to me and is like “don’t ever say that to me again that wasnt funny.” And I said okay I’m sorry, kinda confused cause I didn’t even think it was a big deal. So I went to my work friend and told her about it and was just kind of like that was ridiculous hes dramatic. Nothing even that wild, but I guess he heard. So, he comes up to me yelling where genuinely every employee heard, and probably some customers saying how childish I am for talking to my coworker and that he’s not ridiculous and I’m disgusting for putting a table on a dirty table, like repeatedly yelling disgusting. Then is all like remember I’m the manager I will fire you. During all this I’m just looking at him kinda wide eyed shock just repeatedly saying okay I got it, im sorry, I getcha, ok. And he just kept berating me. Im probably not capturing it well cause I tend to kind of blackout during situations like these, so my memory isn’t the best I just know no one has ever talked to me like that except my momma.

The funny part of it all to me though is he immediately walked up to the hosts to talk shit about me, even though he was just saying hed fire me for doing it haha. So yeah I took a breath, thought about it, grabbed my shit and walked out. Maybe rash, maybe not even valid I’m not sure yet but it felt empowering to just say no, I’m not going to be spoken to like that. Like genuinely if he had just come up to me and had a normal conversation about it we would be cool beans but oh well, I already have a couple interviews set up for jobs actually in my career path so it all works out in the end.

This happened a few years ago but for some reason it just popped into my head again. I was new to this restaurant (but had already been in the industry over a decade) which had a few older ladies on the serving staff - I’m talking 60+ years old.

One night I’m doing my side work which included stocking the server stations. So, I’m carrying around packages of napkins and filling up the piles on each station when one of the older gals comes up to me and says “just make sure you’re rotating the napkins.” I don’t even remember how I reacted in the moment, but I just had to laugh to myself once I was alone.

Is it me, or is that a very nitpicky thing? I’ve never before then or since done it, and every other co-worker I’ve told thought it was silly to even mention.

How about you all? What is some of the most random or nitpicky feedback you’ve ever received from another server?

I feel like switching serving jobs is harder than it sounds because almost every restaurant requires weekend availability. My current job requires weekends, but basically every new serving job I look at does too, so I’m not sure how I’m supposed to transition from one to another.
I definitely don’t have the money to just quit my current job, start somewhere new, and hope it works out. Especially because we all know the training period at a new restaurant is usually a week or two of barely making anything.
I’d also want to make sure the new place is actually better money before fully leaving.