One of the best parts about being a salaried employee is that you don't get called in for random shifts on the weekend. At least I don't, but y'all stay safe out there. There's nothing worse than preparing for a nice long day of doing nothing than receiving a call from your manager. When I worked at a dog bakery, I was always the person saying “yes” to picking up this one girls shifts. If it sounds like I was being a pushover, it's because I was a pushover. For me, it was hard to leave money on…

There are many

Working at a restauran t isn't for the faint of heart. For some reason, before I got my job at a Mediterranean restaurant on the Upper East Side, I thought I was a natural-born server. Describing food to people is basically my hobby, and if I could get paid for it? Dream gig. I was so, so wrong. Before reaching server status at this restaurant, I had to do some time as a backwaiter. Backwaiters are glorified busboys. They're integral to the operation, gracefully pouring water and pulling empty…

Anyone who has worked as a waiter knows that people who don't tip are the worst. In the United States, many waiters only get paid $2 hourly and, therefore, only survive on tips. Some restaurants don't even pay their servers an hourly wage. This is basically common knowledge at this point, so for most people, not tipping is simply out of the question. But there are always those people who get angry for the insistence that they tip. I find that these come from two camps. The first camp is Boomers…

A Utah teenager recently went viral on Reddit for posting their schedule for their part-time job . They are expected to work 32 hours a week, including four 6-hour shifts directly after already going to school for 8 hours. I know there are probably a bunch of angry people reading this and thinking, “that's not very much work! If this teen would hike up their bootstraps, they would be able to work these hours and finish their homework with no issues.” In some cases, they might be right. When I w…

She deserved it

As a business owner, coming up with a solid name for your establishment is pretty damn important. You don't want to be serving burgers as a restaurant called “MacDonalds,” and you probably want to avoid something as basic as “Burger.” You can choose to reference what you're selling, or go by the name of a family member. Some hip spots will take the name of the business that failed at the same location (probably due to gentrification) or some twee combination of animal and tool, like “Stag and S…

Servers are going to another dimension when they walk from your table to the kitchen…

If you're an Anthony Bourdain fan, or have worked service, you may have seen this quote pop up during your internet travels: ‘You can always tell when a person has worked in a restaurant. There’s an empathy that can only be cultivated by those who’ve stood between a hungry mouth and a $28 pork chop, a special understanding of the way a bunch of motley misfits can be a family. Service industry work develops the “soft skills” recruiters talk about on LinkedIn — discipline, promptness, the ability…

Taking things literally

Anyone who has worked at a restaurant, bar, or combination of the two knows that pests like fruit flies, gnats, and roaches are no joke. Any sort of infestation can do damage to the business's reputation and can cause major drama with the Department of Health. While a bug here or there is something that's hard to avoid, if a bar or restaurant is overtaken by flies or visible roaches, things must be really, really bad. Any self-respecting business owner would call in professionals to handle a pe…

Serving is a thankless job. Often caught between a horrible boss breathing down their neck and a table of customers from hell, a server only has a paycheck and tips to look forward to. One redditor vented to r/antiwork about their sister's shady employer , who had the nerve to charge her $200 after her table decided to dine and dash. So, not only did she miss out on a good tip, but her job was putting her into debt. Redditors in the comment section were rightfully indignant, urging OP to report…

In bad taste

Letting regular people write restaurant reviews was largely a mistake. And I say this as a recovering Yelper. Before I started working in the restaurant industry, Yelp was an outlet for me. It allowed me to share my Very Important opinion with other citizens. I'd write paragraphs about a breakfast burrito, cringey raps about the best pizzeria near my office. And while I mostly wrote favorable reviews of establishments, occasionally I would go in on a spot that was disappointing in both the food…

I've never quit a job . Perhaps it has something to do with the fact that I can endure a situation far longer than is healthy for me. Lord knows I've spent years in relationships that didn't serve me. I slogged through the toxicity because change is scary. I once stayed at a job for seven years even though they only gave me a single raise, and forced me to work in a non-heated, building with no electricity in the aftermath of Hurricane Sandy. I want to be more like the people who throw in the t…

So many bosses want excessive access to their employees in manners that cross some boundaries. On the first day of my first restaurant job, I asked one of the assistant managers if I could leave at 9 PM since, on the schedule, my shift ended at 9 PM. He laughed at me, said, “it's good you didn't ask that when the manager was around,” and we continued working. At the time, I felt like such an idiot because I had never had a job before, so I assumed all jobs were like that. Now I just realize thi…