Our store was dead tonight. We hoped to pick up a lot of people out Christmas shopping, but it appears they didn't want to leave the stores for supper. We went on a wait once for about 10 minutes.
Tonight was spaz night for a number of servers. Our schedules are usually posted late on Thursday evening, and viewable online by Friday. So for many servers, the first time they see the next week's schedule is Friday night when they come in to work. Quite a number of people had mini-melt downs because of their schedule for New Year's Eve/New Year's day. It'll be interesting how it all shakes out over the next week as people swap shifts etc. I've always made EXCELLENT $$$ when working New Years, and I always get off before midnight UNLESS it's a Friday or Saturday night because I close frequently those night, which means I often am just getting off work as the stupid ball drops.
I'm beginning to think some of our hosts might be mentally challenged. On a couple of occassions tonight I saw them watch people walk in the door, and then walk in and seat themsevles in the sections where the bar is located. These are normal sections, that the hosts are SUPPOSED to be seating. The host's job is to greet people as they walk in, and seat them or direct them where they need to go, even if that is just 3 feet away to the bar to buy gift cards. Instead these young wanna be beauty queens are too busy talking to each other to A) Hold the doors open like they are supposed to B) Greet each customer as they walk in and C) Make sure the customer gets to where they need to be. I'd say a couple of them should be paid less, but I'm not sure that's possible. Perhaps it's a "you get what you pay for" type situation. It's amazing how simple their jobs usually are, and how frequently they still manage to screw it up.
Tonight when I came on the floor, all 3 of my tables were open, set, clean and ready for customers. As I walked in the door to the restuarant, there were 15-20 people in the lobby waiting for a table, because of the new system. These 20 people were standing, looking at empty tables, seeing servers with very little to do because their 3 tables were all full and happy, but yet these guest could NOT get a table. Rather, they get to wait 15 minutes to sit in the table that has sat there empty the whole time they waited in the lobby. I got my first table shortly after coming on the floor. The other two tables sat empty, while we had a list of 7 tables on wait at the host stand. 20ish people waiting, me standing there with nothing to do, because we have been told that under NO CIRCUMSTANCES are servers to approach the host stand. I could have taken a couple of tables and sat them myself in my section, got guests taken care of much more quickly, made more money, and made the guest happier, but instead I'm locked within the confines of a completely asinine corporate system. A system that had to be thought up by a bunch of people who have never actually made their livings waiting tables. I can say that confidently because anyone who's paid their bills off of tips on the table would have stabbed anyone in the heart for suggesting this worthless inefficient system. So for 20 minutes, we had guest standing in the lobby, while I doted on the only 2 guests I had.
I need to start carrying a bull horn at work so I can just yell at people when they do and say stupid things. I think having a bull horn holstered would be a good conversation starter, and would be handy when dealing with greeting large parties. It would also help when I want to get the attention of inattentive parents who let their children run through our dining room. I could use it to scream in the ear of morons who just let their children scream and cry and misbehave, ruining the dining experience for dozens of other people. We should have Super-Nanny shows running on screens at every table, or at least a cart with a TV on it we could roll out and place next to them, and hand cuff them to, and require them to watch before they are allowed to ever take their children out to a resturant that doesn't have stuffed characters and a play land.
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