Life with Landry's: First Day

So, in the past few days, many things have happened.

Thursday, I went in and took my written final exam. It. Was. A. BEAST. It took me nearly 4 hours, 5 glasses of Dr. Pepper and Sprite/Lemonade, 2 garlic bread loaves, and 10 cracker packages to sit through it and finish it. It must have been at least 20 pages long. It took me so long to finish it that I couldn't do my server audit that same day, so I had to come back in on Friday (my first day) and take it. Good thing. My brain might have set off the fire alarm at that point. I hope I did all right though. If I didn't get at least a 90, I have to take that sucker all over again.

Friday, I came in for my first day of official waiting, although I had to get through my server dry audit first. Mike the GM was going to be auditing me, and was already at a table in the corner. No pressure. Or so I thought.

As I turned the corner, sitting next to Mike was - Surprise! - Paul the floor manager. "Oh great," I thought. "Any mistake Mike isn't going to catch, Paul is going to pick it up in a heartbeat. I better get on top of my shit." I mentally looked over the cheat sheets I had come prepared with and took a few deep breaths. And in I went.

Turns out, I knew my stuff, but I think I had placed too much importance on one audit and in my nervous tension, started leaving out stuff in my script. Like forgetting to pull in the condiments during my opening welcome, or mentioning that I would bring a salad with the entree, or taking the opportunity to suggestively sell (up-sell) during scripted pauses. And I'd always know what I did wrong, immediately after I left Mike and Paul for the server's station. I smoothed out my mistakes as best as I could, and I did hit a lot of positives, but the 75% of positives I ended up with weren't enough to pass. So I'd have to retake my audit the next day. Awesome.

But was I still going to be serving? Paul and Mike were really understanding and forgiving, and stationed me two tables for the night. Oh boy. I looked with envy at the "normal" stations with 4 or 5 tables in the nice areas. Oh well, it's all I had to work with on my first day.

A few hours later, I was kind of glad they did only station me two tables. I worked one table first, and I had a few nit-picky mistakes again with them, the same kind I had with Mike and Paul. Gotta remember that for next time, I kept thinking. I got it right with the next table, but then my first table left and within seconds a new table was sat. So I had two tables sat within 10 minutes and suddenly I was in a slight "shook" mode. I was running things back and forth, within 10 minutes of each other, and I was consolidating tasks wherever possible. But it got kind of crazy at some points where I would be finished tending to a table and so I'd pause to chill, thinking I was safe for a moment, but then remember, Oh great, I forgot to grab that other table another glass of wine and some more dressing. And then I'd have to run back out.

By the end of the night, I had waited 4 tables and made almost $40 in raw tippage. But everything stopped with this one jerkwad Middle Eastern guy and his way un-hot date. I'll just say she was one of the largest catches I've ever seen. If I had to reference anything, it'd be like Captain Ahab pulling in to dock with Moby Dick. But the way the guy carried himself, you'd have thought he was a high roller. Just the opposite. Coming in acting like he was the shit, he and his date ordered two sodas and two entrees. No drinky-drinks, appetizers, specials, add-ons, desserts, or anything else. And they sat there, chatting away for a whole hour past the time I closed their check, for a grand total of two and a half hours, and left ten minutes before closing time. I tended to their every need and more, the entire time. The tip on a $50 bill and more than 2 hours of agonized waiting? A Lincoln. Asshole.

Besides that, my other tables were really nice and had tipped me pretty well. My first table gave me more than 20%, despite my slight mistakes. I averaged about 18% my other 3 tables, but Asshole went and single-handedly destroyed the average. And left me more than an hour behind on my sidework. Thanks to him, I was supposed to leave around 11:30, but couldn't even finish until after 1 AM. If he ended up laying out Moby Dick in bed that night, I hope her sheer fattage crushed his frugal little Middle Eastern balls.

I worked tonight (which went fantastically better) and I'll be working tomorrow night, but it's 3:30 in the morning so I'll leave my stories for another day. Sidework is poop.