The worst things about being a waitress

Please stop asking for excessive amounts of ranch dressing


As I finish my final year of college, I continue to work at a job that will not be my career. Currently, I am a waitress at Quaker Steak & Lube, a sports/biker bar located in several states including Ohio and Pennsylvania. At first, I didn’t think there would be that many worst parts of being a waitress… I was wrong.

The table guilt trip

I don’t think anybody has ever said that phrase before, but it’s my only way to explain the situation. Unlike some restaurants, occasionally my Quaker allows us servers to pick up random tables as they walk in. Like anybody else, I am always eager to seat whoever I see in hopes of getting a great tip off of them later. Then, it happens. Another coworker is also waiting by the door to seat the same people as you. Even though it shouldn’t be a big deal who takes that table it ends up being one. “You’ve got four tables and I have three so these people are mine.” “I need to make $100 tonight to pay my rent, I need this.” Being a waitress, I hear all of these guilt trips on a regular basis. It’s like even if I earned the table by being up there first, for some reason my coworkers earned it more through some sympathy-driven reason.

Messing up an order

Now it happens to everybody, but sometimes it puts you in a hole you can’t dig out of. You’re mad, the customers are mad, your boss is mad, and even if you fix the order and the cooks remake the meal, the customers are not going to want to wait or will leave you a crappy tip. Sure, maybe you deserve the crappy tip after messing up an order, but sometimes it’s an accident. For instance, during my first week of serving I forgot to order a burger for one guy at my 9-top. After trying to explain to the man that his food would come out a few minutes later, after I actually put the order in, he said “I don’t have time for this. I have to go to work. My wife will take it when it comes out.” Even worse, I found out the eight other people with the guy were celebrating his birthday. Even when the burger finally came, he was gone and there was nothing I could do.

Shitty tips on excellent service

Simply stated, some people are jerks and these people take out their bad moods on you regardless of how your serving was. These people will be needy, and even though you do everything right, they still don’t try to be nice to you or tip you well. Then again, you might have customers that are easy to serve, seem to enjoy your service to them, and they turn out to be jerks once you see the tip – I had one of them last week. It was a family of five, I brought everything out on time and consistently smiled to them and brought them every little condiment and drink refill that they could ever want. Still, they tipped me horribly. Their bill was $93 and they left me a $7 tip. I was already livid when I saw this, but it only got worse. They paid with a gift card in which I could still see their remaining balance on it, $77. Unless these people needed that money for something vital, I can’t understand why my tip wasn’t higher.

Inconsistent cash flow

This one is really an issue for those waiters who rely on tips for income. One day, I can make $100 in a six-hour shift, but in the next six-hour shift I might make only $50. Even though my service affects the tip, the amount of people that come to the restaurant obviously does as well and sometimes the restaurant is really dead. This week I kept track of my sales and on a Tuesday six-hour night shift I made $140, but the next five shifts combined I made less than $100. Even though I had a great section, the restaurant was dead.

Ranch dressing

Lastly is ranch dressing. Unless you work in a pie or ice cream shop, you hate ranch dressing and every one at your tables loves it like it’s a free meal. Even in my restaurant, which specializes in award-winning wing sauces, people constantly ask for that white stuff. No matter how much you bring over, they ask for more and more.

I am a server by choice, therefore, I can’t really complain about the worst parts of my job because I chose my job and choose it everyday. Yeah, sometimes I don’t want to give people a gallon of ranch or a smile after they tipped me terribly, but I always do. Even though the job can have it’s worst parts, it comes with the best parts, meeting new people and working with them to survive another shift.