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help why is it 95 degrees in Boston today and for the next 5+ days why am I walking around for hours at a time in nice looking attire as I shotgun my resume around Seriously though why do I or anyone else live in Massachusetts, and which front of the house manager can I scream at about it? I wasn't surprised to see some Fabio walking around shirtless in the park with nothing but pants and a waiter's apron on while he was on break. It must be a nuclear nightmare in the less ventilated kitchens. Congrats on a new job Wrought. 
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Jul 18, 2013 00:07
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Liquid Communism posted:People don't stick around when you pay them less than McDonalds' will in a place where the cost of living is triple what it is in most of the country? Shock and dismay. I don't know how anyone lives in NYC anymore or wants to. I entertained the idea once before I realized I'd be homeless inside of a week. Even Boston is only going to be a short stay, year at best, because it just costs too drat much to live anywhere on any sort of working wage.
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Jul 18, 2013 02:46
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Liquid Communism posted:Average salary $24k in a city where a 1-bedroom in the outskirts is going for $1500+? No way in hell. Admittedly, me, my best friend, and her fiancee did come up with a way to live in NYC if we decide to pursue a music career there! It consists of a short bus we converted into a super tiny mobile home with vegetable oil capabilities. That is how we would live cheap in NYC. Since then we decided that cross country travel would be more fun and profitable. We can become rockstars some other way.
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Jul 18, 2013 03:39
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The first thing, FIRST thing I learned and had drilled into me when I walked into the kitchen on my first day as a busser, was that you always firmly and clearly said "BEHIND" if you were carrying so much as a paper cup with a pretzel in it while moving past the cooks and other back area staff. I can't understand why someone would keep slacking on that, all it takes is one stack of metal pans covered in grease so hot it could melt lead to ruin someone's day and create a liability suit big enough to shut down every restaurant in a mile radius.
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Jul 20, 2013 18:14
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Turkeybone posted:I have a friend working as a server in (albeit one of the hottest places right now) Manhattan and he is literally going to make 100k. One hundred thousand dollars. ...I should try sneaking my way into doing server stuff if I manage to get hired at an upscale place next.
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Jul 21, 2013 03:50
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Yaaaaaaay, wandered to a seaside Boston restaurant to hand in a resume and got an interview on the spot. Sure, seems like the other 17 people applying there were as well, with years more experience than me, but it still felt good. Weirdly specific times too -- 2pm-4pm. And of course the resume asked 30,000 pointless and creepily specific things like all semi-chain joints do. Honestly, all they need on application forms for these places is "WHAT POSITION", "HOW MUCH PAY" (None/Zero/Croutons), and "HOW MUCH DO YOU DRINK" to establish how much experience you have already. I'm not gonna cross my fingers, but I can hope. Maybe I can claw my way into server this time.
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Jul 22, 2013 21:50
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Chef De Cuisinart posted:I personally just don't do roux anymore because every other drat person I get an order from is 'gluten free' People turning a legitimate allergy problem into a trendy health-food delusion pisses me right off.
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Jul 23, 2013 21:19
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I'm still acutely paranoid of all heat and hot things in cooking thanks to a 2nd degree burn trying to make pancakes as a kid. Spitting oil makes me reflexively leap for cover. When I worked with the head chef learning some things at the bistro, he immediately noticed my skittishness around the pan sizzling and plainly told me "Whatever happened, stop letting it happen, and don't fear the pan. Get used to little burns." Sure he's right, but easy for him to say. I'm stupidly acute to sensation and pain. I'm still working on not flinching all the same. 
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Jul 24, 2013 01:44
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Whenever I got a chance to listen to music, I'd crank up Pandora and run through a lot of Amon Tobin and artists of that ilk. poo poo lets you forget what you're doing while still being able to do it.
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Jul 25, 2013 18:59
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Yaaaaay another interview lined up for Monday. Watch me get this job which is an hour commute away instead of something in my local neighborhood. Oh well. Money is money right now, as long as the tips are hot. The place does look pretty heavily occupied, but who knows with how the economy is going again of late. Hell, I don't even know what I'll be interviewing for, it's for "General Help" which could very well mean "Dishwashing Slave" or "Living Stool For The Manager To Do Lines Off The Back Of"
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Jul 28, 2013 07:33
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Well that seemed to go well. Guy was already 4 coffees in and shaking like a discount space shuttle when he interviewed me, so I feel that me being on 5 hours sleep and no food balanced it out. Place seemed classy, only 8 months old and gearing up for the fall season. It's their first restaurant, they seem to usually be one of like 20 music venues, half of which are in NYC. Seems like a nice crossover, since they often cater to their own venue next door. They're even hiring for backwait/busser/runner stuff, so fingers crossed. Guess the only problem is that they're open until 1am, and the T stops running at midnight, so we'll see if I can pull this off without walking for 3 hours back home every night. ...I never did ask if he was hiring full or part time. Cripes. I hope I don't end up with one shift one day a week or something. Regarding Chicago, is it just me, or is it one of those major cities nobody ever wants to talk about? "New York City is king, Los Angeles is an awesome shithole, Portland is hipster central, Boston is full of elitist smug pricks, and... what? Chicago? No. We don't talk about Chicago." As if it's populated by automatons or humans who somehow hosed up enough that they have to live there now.
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Jul 29, 2013 19:38
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No Wave posted:Chicago's really neat. What's most remarkable about it to me is that it strictly dominates Boston. It is better in every single way and worse in zero ways, except I guess being 4 degrees colder on average during winter months. Oh, I do live in Boston already, it's why I'm looking for work here, hopefully before I have no money left to pay rent. I always felt this joke article summed up the place pretty well. http://www.theonion.com/articles/pretty-cute-watching-boston-residents-play-daily-g,31554/ I mean for crying out loud most restaurants and bars close at 2am, and the T doesn't even operate past midnight. God drat wannabe baby city.
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Jul 31, 2013 02:34
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Same goes for anyone in Boston who wants or needs a fervent busser who has also done barbacking and some serving, and will work like Satan himself has a pitchfork at my back. God drat, I only applied to 5 places today but it felt like 20 with all the walking I had to do. I gotta start sending thank you emails and doing callbacks tomorrow. Everything is always smiles and handshakes and such but you never know if they even give a drat.
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Aug 1, 2013 22:50
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Sweet sauced poo poo on a griddle, I think I did it. Had an exhausted day, caught a busser listing that went up on craigslist. Called to see if they were open, studied their website, zipped down two hours later with a resume. Talked to the owner and he told me to be back the next day at 4:30 for a trial run. So off I go, and I hope it means I get the position and something close to full time. I actually felt dumb when he asked me if I had any sick days at my last job, and I just blurted out the truth -- no, not one. Which I know sounds absurd but he seemed to believe me, and it was true, which is weird when I think about it. I'm not sure how I avoided any plagues considering how gross that bistro was. Either way, this place is $7.00 an hour plus tips instead of $3.00 like my last gig, so if it gets any kind of appreciable traffic, this may be the job for me! I am so so relieved, though I should keep it in check. Dude may just decide I'm not slick enough for the position, and maybe being hired so quickly is a bad sign. But then, it IS a training/test day.
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Aug 3, 2013 02:24
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Welp, I'm awake at 3pm and here to say I did it. I got the job. I only had to do two days of training instead of three, and the owner simply told me to come back Thursday to get my apron, and I'm on the schedule now. This place is the next level compared to that lovely sorry bistro. Which is to say, it's a normal restaurant that crosses its t's and dots its i's. This guy does NOT gently caress around, the amount of opening and closing prep is intense. I'm doing my best to make the waiters happy and ingratiate myself, and I'm ready to be pretty torn apart after a month of this stuff -- I have to run up a flight of stairs for patio work at least a 100 times a night, so thighs of steel, here I come. I guess what helped is that at the end of last night, the owner came up to me. He told me that his parents do not speak english, but they liked me and thought I worked hard from what they saw; suddenly it made sense to me why there was this plain clothes old man lurking in the kitchen and glaring at me all drat night. I guess I don't get the idea of slacking on this sort of job. There's so much to do and you want 8 hours to go by as fast as possible with happy waiters, so just standing around and diddling myself never crossed my mind. Either way what a god drat relief. I can finally sleep at night and hopefully make enough to cover rent, since I'll be working 5-6 days a week it looks.
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Aug 5, 2013 20:18
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I was cut today because there's too much rain and the patio is closed. drat it. I hope business picks up soon, I'm already afraid of tips so meager I won't even be able to cover rent. EDIT: Good luck cods! You'll nail it.
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Aug 9, 2013 19:25
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Kenning posted:Take 2/3 of every set of tips you take home and put them in a jar in your room. That way you have some cash to toss around, but you end up saving enough for next month's rent. That's the plan. I think the hours and minimum wage alone should be enough to cover rent and basic expenses (I got lucky with a place that has ALL utilities included, save for internet), I just hope that tips skyrocket next month when everyone comes back to college and the city is flooded. Otherwise it'll be another case of making money just to keep making money with no gains. I've also decided to record down what I get tipped by who every day, like the last job. It's interesting to see the trends and get a feeling for who likes me and who doesn't.
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Aug 9, 2013 22:36
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Ok so I hope working from 4:30-11:30 and then having to get right up at 7:30 for another 8 hour shift doesn't become a regular thing. I didn't work today but I can't really sleep and I need to be up in 6 hours. I don't mind working 6 days a week for 10 hours a day as long as the times are a little consistent. I imagine they're just testing me out for the morning shift though. I suddenly see why an intravenous drip of red bull is so common in these settings.
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Aug 10, 2013 06:50
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Anyone got good sneakers to recommend? The Scholls shoes I bought, paired WITH scholls inserts, are not going to cut it. I found out I can wear sneakers anyways and if I'm going to be running across a hard surface for 7 hours a day and up and down stairs, then I need some god drat soft strong sneakers.
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Aug 18, 2013 22:31
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Hooray, had one day off today, another Thursday, since I gently explained that working 6 days in a row is a liiiiittle much to do for three weeks straight. I need some time to acclimate and do stuff that isn't sleep, poo poo, eat, and run to work as fast as possible. Least I have some great sneakers now to save my feet and back. I plan to ask if I can do waitstaff stuff, since it's clear to me that bussing is never going to go anywhere. They really like me here, so I figure I can sneak into it by showing excellent knowledge of the menu and laboriously studying the habits of other servers. MY ultimate goal is bartender. I feel like the relationship between bartender and customer is much more equal than between server-customer, but I'll climb the ladder one rung at a time. Also I think I managed to get a dude fired Sunday and another is going back to Ireland and uh I'd like to not be stuck as the ur-busser among a constantly rotating circle of incompetents and no-cares until my legs shatter.
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Aug 20, 2013 02:54
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Vegetable Melange posted:Barback if you want to bartend. The work is crushing but the payoff is real if your bosses aren't assholes. Don't work drunk, even if your bartenders pour you crazy shots. I plan on barbacking first, yeah. And I can't get an education. I have no money and no interest in 4+ years of college and a massive load of student debt with zero way to pay it off in a still-dying economy. I WANT to, but I don't want to just end up with debt and no income. This is the best I can do for the next few years as 40 slowly approaches and my options wither. I feel like bartending would be a comfortable start. Don't worry about drinking. I already had my bout with nasty on-the-job staff-approved alcoholism at the bistro, and really don't care to repeat that cycle of sheer self-disgust.
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Aug 20, 2013 06:46
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I already had that problem today. One of the servers is a very dry and frankly anti-social guy. He doesn't say hello when you greet him, doesn't make small talk during down time, and makes lots of little mistakes because he crumbles under pressure, and then takes it out on EVERYONE by acting pissy and snide and picking apart everything you do, talking down to you. I'm giving him three strikes before I snap back and let him know I don't appreciate his inability to control his own anger because he isn't a good server. I don't even know why he's in this line of work. Either way I manage stress by just grousing to the right people and then shrugging it off, everyone else there likes me and is good people, even the terrifyingly tall Bulgarian waiter who looks like he's ready to heft an axe to one of us. But he's blunt, doesn't gently caress around, and I can respect him, unlike the other weasel.
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Aug 22, 2013 06:48
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Sjonkel posted:I remember talking to one of the other servers one day, and he gave med the simplest and best advice I could ever get: Don't take things too seriously. Do your best, learn from mistakes, but accept that you'll mess up. And when you do, try to brush it off and continue doing your best. That's what I learned, and it makes things a lot more fun, or just not as soul-wearing. We're just providing food to people, this isn't trauma care or prison sentences. If I make a mistake I just try to take it in stride. Break a glass? Yell "JOB OPENING" and clean it up. Forget enough bread at a table? Tell them "I've made a dire mistake for which there is no forgiveness, so let me go get some more." -- get them laughing a little. Try to do the same with the servers while helping them out. I just ignore the little things that other people do that bother me, since I just sit there and realize *I* probably do a dozen little things 'wrong' that drives other people nuts, but whatever, we're all too busy to really have a time for that stupid poo poo to get in the way. Wrought, you sound like a threshing machine, and I applaud your iron guts to be able to not take poo poo and just weed people out. You sound like you'd be fun and terrifying to work under.
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Aug 22, 2013 18:09
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I'm just glad the busser I got fired apparently had it coming. Everyone could tell from my sudden changed mood one day that things were going poorly, and they suddenly vented at me about how poorly the other busser did all the time. When the boss asked me at the end of the night if he was worth keeping around I just held up my hands and said it wasn't my place to say, it was my third time working with him in as many weeks and I really didn't feel like I has the authority yet to pass such judgment. But a hostess talked about how he ignored her all night and also sprayed disinfectant and laughed when the wind drifted it into a customer, and suddenly the guy is gone. Wonder why!
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Aug 23, 2013 08:15
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So I had a dream last night that I was in a kitchen telling the head chef that if they needed help, I had some prep cook experience. Only this kitchen was some sort of strange fairy tale nightmare of dirt floors, steaming equipment, and hundreds of grim cooks moving constantly in a labyrinth. Also the head chef was literally 10 feet tall and androgynous and terrifying as they judged me. Is that the secret? Are all head chefs actually giants of power and wrath? Was I simply seeing what was real with all the glamours of Nod stripped away?
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Aug 23, 2013 19:44
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Dear Boss: When you ask me if I am working six days, and I say I should probably do five this week since I am sick and worked through the day while sick and whacked out of my rear end on cold meds and don't want to risk MORE sick, it is not clever to sign me down to work a double on Saturday. I noticed. I can do it and will for fat loving tip stacks, but I noticed. ps stop hitting on barely legal patrons and anything in a nice dress and spending hours giving them free drinks, you're married you creep. Not that it ever stops your type. pps giant Bulgarian waiter who I can barely understand orders from, I know you hate me but I am going to win you over anyways (for the $$$)
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Aug 26, 2013 04:56
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I am starting to get reaaaaally nervous. It's been 3 days in a row I've gone home early or seen half the staff cut for the day because of how incredibly slow it was. One server gave me $3 in tips after a 7 hours workday. If poo poo does not pick up this month, and hard, I'm gonna have to look for another job. I hope I can wiggle my way into server or bartender over busser, the owner does seem to like me, but I don't much care to put myself out there and then see someone far more attractive and young hired. Like ok I get it dude, you cheat on your wife and like to hire 19 year old bartenders who giggle a lot. I want to make more money. If you want me to suck your dick to get it, just loving say so.
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Sep 2, 2013 23:05
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Ok, that's it. Looking for a new job while still at this one, I am not going to be jerked around by some borderline pedophilic failing businessman. Am I wrong? To feel insulted and skeeved out that I get told by him "you can become a waiter when you find a busser to replace you" -- not him, not a manager, not a hiring posting, but ME. I have to find someone to replace me if I want to be allowed to upgrade to waiter. I thought he was joking but he's serious. I don't have the loving TIME or know anyone here yet to do that. And I'm not making any loving money, boss -- I get $5 each from three waiters most nights because nobody is coming to eat. And why the hell did he hire a 19 year old bartender girl, and a 19 year old busser, have them work one week, then not assign them hours the next week, prompting them to quit and find other work? Was it a passive-aggressive way of firing them? Did they not suck his cock when told? I'm already tired of seeing pretty women walk in every day and get free drink after free drink as he chats them up. I just feel frustrated as hell, and I dislike being as overworked as I am. I'm used to 6 hour hard working days, not 9 hour dragging ones with little to do but try to appear busy. It's also hard with the staff speaking so many different languages, it makes communication in the heat of the moment very hard, which seems way too important to muck up in this business.
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Sep 12, 2013 23:08
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My best wound so far was at the place I was working at now. Upstairs on the patio there's a shelf we have to stock with upstairs stuff; plates, silverware, kitchen goods, etc. So of course the shelf was old and small and nobody ever moves when you need to bend down 20 times to get stuff. Especially not when you reach to pick up a bucket under it, and pull your hand up to find the back of it torn wide open by a rusty screw poking out. 4 rusty screws, actually, there used to be a shelf and it was torn out without the screws being filed down or caulked over or nothing. Shoulda been my first sign this place was up its own rear end. Healed well enough at least, despite massive blood gouting.
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Sep 15, 2013 04:11
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It's also about who you know, not what. I got a fellow busser who does it for shits and exercise from his day office job. Told me if I can blow the $100 for a few days of bartending school, he'll hook me up to be a bartender with a friend who owns like 3 places. So that's my next move, and I gotta be fast with winter setting in.
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Sep 29, 2013 02:45
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Ok ok I won't go, I was told by a co-worker that he knew a guy who'd hire if I had that as a baseline experience, that's all. I'll just keep aiming for a waitstaff job somewhere else starting tomorrow, hopefully I can get in somewhere before the holidays.
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Sep 30, 2013 00:52
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Naelyan posted:If you trust the guy, it might be worth the $100 to get the job. Just don't ever tell anyone after you get hired that you went to bartending school. I mostly trust him. More than anyone else at that sinking ship. I figured I wouldn't mind eating the $100 cost to make some better money and then bounce. I didn't plan to mention bartending school ever, no.
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Sep 30, 2013 01:03
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Would you all say it's most worthwhile to pursue a career in the hotel side of things, then? I see that said a lot in the thread, and it makes me wonder if I should focus mainly on hotels for seeking out a server or bartender position.
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Sep 30, 2013 22:55
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I just want my CHANCE to be a waiter or bartender so I can call things awful and go back to a desk job, but I can't drat well get one. Searching for a job while you have one is hard, even with cut hours I got now -- it's blatantly clear I will be losing money every month now on rent and expenses thanks to that, but the guy is still more concerned with hiring attractive women as people quite left and right (another 2 quits this week) than he is with running a business intelligently. That he trusts none of his employees really doesn't help either. It appears you need to either be a very savvy and determined human, or a very gross and loving stupid one, to run a restaurant.
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Oct 28, 2013 20:52
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At the least, the waiter from Africa who speaks French who got fired for political reasons has texted me saying he wants to get me a job as a waiter at a place so busy even he can't handle the workload. I'll handle it. Gladly. After hearing one server go "wow I only made $150" today I'll loving TAKE it. I'll work all the holidays too, if only because I like any excuse to not spend time with my family.
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Nov 11, 2013 03:34
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Another day where I almost, ALMOST just walked out of work to never look back. The french waitress pulled me aside and told me to not think about my boss being a micro managing lunatic, and to instead think about her.  Thankfully he was being a dry anus to everyone, not just me. He spent more time telling me how to do my job (4 months after hiring me) than letting me DO my bloody job. He's also again changed the menu (third time in as many months), this time to a cheap, plain-white paper no-folder deal with no decoration like it was a friggin' cafeteria. He still keeps overassigning servers to each shift, and he spent half the night making the barely legal new hostess taste a ton of wine and talking reaaaaaal close with her while his wife worked in the office. Classy guy. A wonder his business is about to go under. Anyways I had my first interview at P.F. Chang's down the street, and they seemed to really like me. The server there told me to be patient and call back in a week if I didn't hear anything to gently keep the pressure on; he impressed on them that I'm not nice, but also a hard worker, which I really appreciated. I'm riding a lot on this, since it seems even at my shithole job a server can pull a $100 a night on a BAD night, which would be a fortune for me. I need it fast. I got one month of savings left I can use before I'm out on the streets. I feel that if I can ace a server spot in time for Thanksgiving, Christmas, and New Year's, I'll tuck in a small fat wad to coast me through the dry months until I figure out what to do in the summer.
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Nov 14, 2013 12:34
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Splizwarf posted:Black August, it maybe goes without saying but please don't drink or get high or otherwise out of strict control between now and Christmas. Hands and feet, eyes and ears, keep 'em safe. No worries. I've sense enough to stay ramrod straight; the only thing I want to abuse until winter ends is sleep. Frankly I won't have time to get drunk or high, and I like it that way. I don't LIKE it being slow instead of gasket-blowing busy, because the crushing boredom and temptation to complain with coworkers or turn to narcotics to keep my sanity bottled up gets too great. I mean after, like, weeks straight of that kind of slow, not just one or two days. I guess it's a bit of a horn toot but I actually feel some pride in my work ethic, it was enough to get this waiter trying his best to score me another job at a better place, where he told them straight up I'm a hard worker and worth the while to hire as a server. So I suppose I'm doing something right. Y'all couldn't pay me enough to ever step foot in the kitchen as anything but a prep chef in a tight spot, though. No loving way, all of you chefs and cooks were born of something that Nietzsche's Abyss just spat the hell out and didn't let back in.
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Nov 14, 2013 16:16
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Got a second interview set up Wednesday, so hooray for that. I'll goddamn shoot myself right then and there if they make me a backserver, though. I guess I come from the opposite spectrum where years in an office job ruined me with depression and boredom, and being in this sort of industry has made me thrive instead.
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Nov 18, 2013 23:51
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Vegetable Melange posted:Gotta start somewhere, and no better way to appreciate the intricacies of fine dining thank working as a backserver. I've already done that though. I've been a busser, ran food, served water, got the bread, cleared dishes, seated people. I want to be a bloody goddamn actual server and speak with customers and make good tips, instead of scraping up $5 per waiter while they complain they ONLY made $100 that night.
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Nov 19, 2013 00:48
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| # ¿ Apr 26, 2024 06:37 |
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I had my third interview. Someone who was supposed to be there wasn't, so it got cut short halfway, with the promise to call me back in a day or two for the finale. I am 99.99% sure they want me, I was even told I'd be 'wasted' as a busser and they want me as a server, and got the lengthy mandated company spirit spew about what it means to be a server. Corporate, but I don't care, if it's busy and I'm making hundreds a day I'll take it. Especially since the holiday is about to start; I'll miss Thanksgiving, but Christmas and New Year's are right around the corner.
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Nov 23, 2013 08:29
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