Ever since I got back from my wonderful and amazing vacation (thanks Jane and Boy!), life at the crappy corporate chain has just, well, sucked. Scheduling has been totally screwy, communication between the different areas of the restaurant has been nonexistent, everyone has been slacking in their sidework and teamwork has been pretty much nonexistent.
Last night, we had a cook that had been with the company for years simply walk out. Being relatively new at this store, I didn’t know him well at all except to know he was good at his job, something I’ve found to be uncommon in our kitchen. The restaurant promptly fell apart. Ticket times rapidly rose to over a half an hour, about double what is normal for most restaurants in our chain.
The best part? My section had a clear view of all the chaos. With our restaurant having a semi open kitchen, every one of my tables could clearly see the screen flashing a big neon “Hey the food is late!”
Today was little better. While the kitchen was staffed well enough, our hostesses seem to be complete idiots. My day started off waiting for almost 2 hours before getting my first table… then promptly getting two more. Three tables at once. Lovely. Shortly thereafter my section finishes filling up. As happens when you get double or triple sat, they operate on the same schedule. You get their drinks at the same time, their orders at the same time, their food is ready within minutes of one another… and they all pay and leave at the same time. Treating them as essentially one table with separate checks makes the whole process much less complicated. The problem is after they leave, in the middle of a rush, you’re suddenly the only one with open tables. In my case today, three. So of course the hostesses triple seat me again. And again. I spent my shift constantly being double and triple sat. Good thing I’ve been doing this a while. Still rather annoying though, to say the least, not to mention further proof of how poorly run and disorganized the entire restaurant is.
And so, job hunting I go.
*sigh* Again.
I’ve never worked in a restaurant, but family members have and I know that it’s really hard and demanding. Whenever my food is not well-cooked, I also remind my self that the wait staff isn’t responsible.