How to be a Man (Step 4)

Step Four: Service

Here’s some old "Dad’s Advice" for you: Work as a waiter at some point, even if it’s only a few months (fast food joints don’t count).

Despite being old as the hills, or maybe because of it, it’s good advice (often advice that has survived two or more generations is good advice, think of it as an advice filtration system). I worked in a bar/restaurant for a year or two while I was studying and it teaches you a lot. Working under pressure with constant deadlines (busy nights serving tables before the customers start whinging), working as a part of a team (despite Sarah refusing to talk to Jason because they broke up last night), being able to order another round of drinks for table 12 while remembering how table 6 wanted their steak cooked and which sauce they wanted. You get the idea, there’s a lot going on and you learn to keep on top of it all. Incredibly you can dress all of this up later in life as résumé filler, all the crap people like to see in a job applicant; "proactive" "team-player" "mostly-sober" "wears pants" etc.

This also helps you develop "people" skills, a term commonly used to replace the rather longwinded "dealing with people you don’t know and probably don’t like without resorting to smashing an overcooked steak in their stupid, fat faces" skills. Waiting tables and tending a bar give you a great view of wider society. You meet old married couples out for dinner, mums out for a coffee, teenagers on a first date and big families who have given their kids cocaine before letting them loose in the dining room (they’re going to smile at their "excited little darlings" even if you trip over one while carrying 4 bowls of soup).

One of the most important things you can take away from a job where you are the servant of others for a pittance of a wage is a sense of perspective. You gain a greater understanding of how a restaurant works and who is responsible for mistakes. I’ve had a customer abuse me because I told him the restaurant policy was that only children under 12 could have the "kid’s fish and chips". He was completely reasonable about this and proceeded to abuse me and the place I was working, I had obviously offended him and the last ten generations of his family. My bad. My response went something like this:

*pointing to my staff uniform shirt* "Mate, do you see this shirt?"
‘Yeah? What about it?’ *obviously assuming I’m about to jump up him*"Does it look like I make the big decisions around here, or that I get paid minimum wage to wait tables and cop abuse?"
‘Oh, right...’ *obviously deflated*
It’s amazing how quickly people feel bad for abusing you once the realise the truth; you’re getting paid the absolute minimum your boss can get away with before it becomes illegal and the working conditions are often less than ideal. In this instance read "less than ideal" as meaning "over-worked, under-staffed, zero recognition, stupid, repetitive and demeaning".

That said, you can have great fun and you learn a lot that is important later in life when you’re the customer, like if your steak is undercooked, there’s a good chance the chef stuffed it up and you probably shouldn’t blame your waiter/waitress, if you’re food is taking a while or you have to wait for a table it might be because the place is really busy. This happens sometimes when people all decide to eat at the same time, scientists refer to this phenomenon as "dinner". Once again, don’t blame the poor kid who just wants to make it through another 10-hour lunch-dinner shift alive. Besides, if you’re nice he/she might ‘forget’ to put your next round of drinks on your bill.