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.