Sometimes as a server We have this unfortunate curse of trying to be friendly and getting our foot stuck in our mouth. Either you say something without realization or you just...blurt something out. I have two stories, each being an example of these.

Story 1: The Awkward Moment
On a Saturday night I had table 1 want to pay for table 2's ticket. I went to table 2 and said, "That table over there wants to pay for your ticket, it's your lucky day!"
The man looked at me, gingerly placed his hand on my arm and said, "Miss. We buried my brother today."
Oh man.

Story 2: Verbal Diarrhea; The blurt out.
I had a guy keep asking me where my heritage was from. The WHOLE time. As it grew annoying, I started ignoring him and talking more to his fellow meal-mates. He kept saying things like,
"So are you egyptian?"
"No."
"What about Italian? Persian?" Greek?"
"No. No. And no."
"Oh I know! Are you Jewish? You look Jewish."
As I got angry the words left my mouth before I could filter them
"Well are you stupid? Because you look stupid."
He didn't leave me a tip. though his buddies all left a GREAT one.

So I'm usually a very very congenial and wonderful customer. Having to deal with idiots all day who are the pickiest eaters in the world makes me a wonderful patient patron to all restaurants. But recently I had to deal with a completely idiotic server.
One of my best friends, Cecilia, and I went to a little adorable cafe specializing in pies. We were really looking forward to eating pie, but knew since we hadn't eaten anything all day, we should probably get something solid. Cecilia ordered Mozerella Sticks and I ordered a plate of Garlic Cheese Bread. Well I ate about half my bread and told the waitress I was ready for my pie. She looked at me disapprovingly. I sat there. She finally spoke.
"Ma'am I'm not bringing you your pie until you finish your food."
"Excuse me?"
"You need to finish your meal first."
"I came in for pie. I want pie."
"Well you can't just waste all that food."
"I can if I pay for it."
"No. I won't bring you pie until you finish you're meal."
We continued to argue for about five minutes until out of frustration I yelled, "Okay. Look. Get me your manager NOW!" She stared at me...well...glared at me and very angrily stormed off. About two minutes later she brought me my pie.

I didn't quite know how I should act after that. No wonder customers go to a restaurant with the idea that their servers are out to make their day worst. Mine was! At least I got my pie.

As I've mentioned before, sometimes waitressing can be very boring. The days that are slow kind of send you into bouts of boredom, especially when you've cleaned and re-cleaned everything. So what do you do when you're that bored? You find ways to tease and annoy your co-workers. This particular our target was someone who wasn't working, Craig.
As we were standing around the restaurant I picked up my phone to text, of course making sure no managers were around. Texting is a big no-no at my work. I am friends with Craig, but he's very gullible and trusting, but not in the naive, sweet way. He's gullible and trusting in the stupid, ignorant kind of way. So I sent my first text to Craig.
"Why aren't you at work?"
"Am I supposed to be?" He answered back.
"Yes. You were supposed to be here at eleven."
"No I wasn't. You're a liar."
"Craig, we're slammed. We're short one server, because you're not here. The managers had to step in and take tables."
"Are you serious? Kate, really are you serious?"
"Yes! Why aren't you here? If you don't believe me, text William and ask him." William was standing right behind my shoulder reading these as I texted. Soon he received a text from Craig.
"William, Am I supposed to be at work?" William smiled as he sent his response.
"Yes! Where the hell are you!?" Craig's next response came to my phone.
"I still don't believe you." So we wrote him into the schedule, took a picture, and sent it to his phone. There was no response, so I thought it was over. At this point, the small rush we did receive was over and we were all standing around again. In walked Craig...more like rushed actually. He stopped and stared at us all staring around. If he did the math right, there were four servers, not three, and we were not slammed.
"What's going on?" He asked. We all just looked at each other and smiled.
"I hate you all. I HATE YOU! What is wrong with you guys!?"
"What? Come on. This is funny." I said.
"What's so funny about this?" he cried!
"That fact that we actually got you to come in to work!"
"I was busy!"
"Doing what? Playing video games?"
"Maybe!" He said, then turned around and stormed out.
After we all had a good laugh, we stared at each other and decided to get back to work. After a few minutes I got a text.
"I left in a hurry, could you at least tell me what time I come into work tonight?" Craig asked?
"Sure. You come in at three thirty."
"Gee Thanks."
"No prob."
I smiled to myself as I sent the text. Craig wasn't scheduled until five. :)

I am amazed at some people's lack of common sense or lack of thinking sometimes. Things that seem obvious to me apparently are not to others. Let me give an example of this.

If you haven't been able to tell from the story with Butch Cassidy, my family owns a restaurant specializing in mexican food. (yes i realize a fajita burger isn't mexican, but we have some unique items on our menu as well.) We are more tex mex, but we have a few genuine items on our menu that make me want to vomit (mojara and menudo). Yes, my job is a fun filled fiesta. But when you go to a mexican restaurant, normally you're going to order things like burritos and enchiladas and quesadillas and stuff like that. So please explain to me why I had the following conversation at my table:
"Alright, are you ready to order?"
"Can I get a side of sweet and sour chicken?"
Awkward pause. "No, you can't actually."
"Okay, I'll just take the sweet and sour platter then."
Even longer awkward pause. "Sir, this is a mexican restaurant."

Alls I'm sayin is: Enough Said.

I will never understand the mentality that allows people to be openly rude to a perfect stranger. Especially a perfect stranger who handles their food. I will never understand the mentality that people have of truly believeing that their servers are out to make their lives miserable. This is a common misconception.
As waitresses we do not create the prices on the menu, we do not create the rules we are forced to follow, we just want to keep our jobs. I did not create the menu at my family's restaurant, but I have been working there almost ten years and I know it back and forth. Let me explain my thoughts.
I got to work like I do most days, wearing my uniform, a few minutes late. I put on my nametag, tied my apron, filled up my waterbottle, and got to doing my sidework.
Kelly was there opening like she usually does, trying to talk to me about her latest drama, half of which I would sometime discover she made most of it up. While pretending to listen to her about the latest guy she slept with and the drama it ensued, I wondered if she truly knew how much everyone at the restaurant hated her stories and constant drama. She was a great server, and all around a good person, but she has a knack for attracting and causing drama, and it didn't make the workplace a pleasant place. She has a real diva complex. She thinks she's the best server in the restaurant and therefore thinks it's her restaurant, and she can do whatever she wants. This causes a lot of drama between her and the managers.
I started taking my first table, happy to get away from Kelly.
The first couple of tables I got were mediocre, non-responsive to my fake, but genuine appearing personality. All waiters have a personality they put on when they are at a table. Their voices go up a few pitches, and they act like they're talking on Sesame Street. I had a few more tables, acting difficult, some rude, some difficult, but none were like Butch Cassidy.
Charlie, the adorable host I've known since he was a little kid, told me I had a new table so I headed out to take care of them.
As a waitress you learn to hide your emotions from your table, they're always right, they're always the greatest table you've had. Inside I sighed as I approached the table. It was a family and their friend. The dad was a skinny bald guy, tanktop and baggy cargo jeans. The son had the look of a typically social awkward pre-pubescent full of angst and no idea how to talk to people. Their friend was this poor kid in ten years. The mother was kind of larger, manly face, manly hands, manly mullet, huge saggy boobs, giant NASCAR t-shirt and short short shorts. Her arms and legs were full of the tackiest tattoos I've ever seen. She was completely Butch.
I introduced myself as their waitress, Kate, and she introduced them as well, naming her self "Cassidy." All, right Butch Cassidy, what can I get for you to drink? Now at the restaurant we serve Pepsi products, and some people have a flipping cow, because they won't drink anything but Diet Coke. She was one of these people. So after apologizing for the lack of Diet Coke, she pouted and said, "Fine, bring me a damn water."
As she ordered her fajita burger I repeated her order back to her. She nodded her consent. But when it came, that was another story coming.
"There's onions and tomatoes on this burger."
"Yes, there is. Did you not want onions and tomatoes?"
"I said that, damnit!"
"I'm sorry, I repeated the order back to you, all you said was no peppers. Don't worry, I can take this back to the kitchen and they'll fix it right away."
"No, I'm starving. I'll eat it. It's just that I'm allergic to onions and tomatoes."
"Well Ma'am, I don't want anything to happen to you, let me go have it taken care of, it won't be long at all."
"Just get out of here. I'll eat the stupid burger you messed up."
So I walked away to tend to my other tables. You let your tables eat for a few minutes then you go back to check on them. So that is what I did.
"How's everything tasting?" I asked in my cheery voice, over the last dispute.
"Where's my sour cream and guacamole?" Butch Cassidy asked me.
"The Fajita Burger doesn't come with either of those."
"It always has. Always."
"Ma'am I'm sorry, but I've never served the burger with sourcream or guacamole."
We continued to argue to the point where she was yelling and I was getting defensive. I went to talk to a manager who agreed it would be best to just give her a side of sourcream and guac for free. So I offered it to her.
"No. I don't want the burger anymore."
"I understand your frustration, but we're willing to give you these sides for free this time."
"No! I don't want it anymore. I'll just starve!" She yelled, pushed her plate away, and crossed her arms like a five year old throwing a temper tantrum.
"You know what? Fine. You do just that." I took her plate and stormed away. I figured I wasn't getting a tip anyway.
I was right. No tip.
Lucky she didn't want her sides with her burger. It may have been the first time I would have spit in somebody's food.

Last night was one of the slowest nights I can remember. When you've been at work for two and a half hours and you finally get your third table, that is slow. Slow nights are terrible for servers. The average server in Utah only gets paid 2.15 an hour. (with the exception of some high end restaurants in Park City and Salt Lake.) So for a job where you pretty much depend on your tips to be your wages, a slow night is torture. And when there are too many servers on, you're definitely not making anything. And last night, there were too many servers on.
I also believe that when it's slower, you get lower tips. I don't know why. I give my tables my full attention in this situation, so if anything, they should be tipping me more. But last night was a night full of a few tables who tipped 2-3 dollars. Even my 8 only left me 10%.
William and I closed together last night. I love William. He's this great kid that has been working there since he was a busser. He's one of the few who remembers the greats who have moved on before us to bigger and better and higher wage paying jobs. Like Wendy's.
Slow nights can drag on for an eternity, moving at a glacial speed. We deep cleaned quite a few things, cleaned off shelves, wiped down things that never get wiped down and cleaned...and then we looked at the clock and only an hour had passed.
I did have fun teasing and torturing our sweet new little host, Luis. I like telling him he needs to do things and when he looks at me and goes, "Seriously?" with his sweet little worried face, I just go, "No." with a monotone voice and walk off. His sighs of relief are usually loud enough to follow me down the hall. But when there's no tables, and you walk out with no money, then how do you not go insane? I wanted to go insane last night!

So Why? Why am I keeping a blog of waitressing? And Why do I still waitress?
I waitress still because it's a somewhat reliable job. I'm good with people. Most of the time. I'm good at putting on the show that is required at a table. After working at the restaurant so long, I better understand the song, "Be our Guest." Taking care of your customers requires you to put on a show. Your food comes out in a presentation, the way you put down their glass, the way you hand them their food, the way you take an order, the way you introduce yourself, the way you get them to get something besides water. Everything is an art. And whether you like it or not, your servers are trained to manipulate you. The good ones, you don't even know you're being manipulated.
The difference between me and other waitresses, is that I love food and genuinely care about my customer's dining experience. So I'm not going to suggest the special of the day if I think it's disgusting. (My manager and I had a row about that at a employee meeting. He said sell the food, I said, no.) I love to eat out and although I tend to be critical of the way things are done in some restaurants, the point is that I love to eat. I love food. And I want food to be more than getting nourishment, I want it to be a culinary experience of bliss and enjoyment. I could have easily lived in the days of Pompeii where gluttony was an art and eating was a day long activity. Although going into the bathroom to throw it up to make room for more isn't exactly my style. And i do have to be careful of my weight when eating so much.That's the biggest problem with working in a restaurant. Food is so readily available, that you just want to eat and eat. The problem is that I'm not one of those skinny girls who can eat and eat and never gain a pound. So although i enjoy food, I have to be careful what I do eat so i don't end up looking like the next contestant on "The Biggest Loser."
I once lived with a lady who was a huge health nut. I mean, to the extreme. I was so surprised that someone could so easily take the pleasure out of eating as much as she did. She made eating miserable. One time she bought these noodles that were supposed to be really healthy whole wheat, but some how gluten free. I thought they tasted like I was eating balsa wood.
As to why I'm writing my blog: Servers put up with a lot of crap. And in restaurants there is a lot of drama. So I feel a need to write them down. I dont' know who reads this blogger crap. I don't know who even cares, but hopefully those who do read it, will gain a little more respect to the persons who HANDLE THEIR FOOD! (HELLO! COMMON SENSE)So I don't know who is reading this. Maybe it is just a place to vent, but right so: I'm gonna do it.

Hi! I'm Kate. I'm a waitress. I've been working in this restaurant, here in northern Utah, for pretty much my whole life. My family owns it. Now most people assume when i say my family, that my parents own it. No. My aunt and uncle own this restaurant. But what most people don't have in common with my family, is my aunt and uncle are my other parents, and my cousins are like siblings. My aunt is my mom's little sister, but sometimes it just seems like my grandparents had quintuplet girls. They all act the same, talk the same, and laugh the same.
Anyway, that has nothing to do with me being a waitress. But I started as a busser when I was thirteen and continued to become a hostess then I ran the to go window for a whole summer. When i returned home from my two year college, I became a server and have been doing that for the last five years. You'd think working at a restaurant gets old after a while. Well I'm here to tell you, it does.But I'm still here. I've left and come back so many times. Maybe because of the fact that when you're good at something, it's easy to fall back on it. I'm good at waitressing. I don't mean to toot my own horn, but toot toot. I'm not saying it's my calling, I'm not the Rachmaninoff of waitresses. I'm not going to be doing this for the rest of my life (hopefully), but it is nice to always have something fall back on.