Rawne1980 said:
I don't tip.
Granted we have a minimum wage in the UK but still .... they carried my food from the kitchen to my table, how the fuck is that worth a tip *well done, you can put one foot infront of the other while carrying a plate ... who's a special little one, here have some money for a lolly".
The job isn't really that simple. You need to be constantly monitoring what is going on. You need to keep a record of every person who is in the cafe, what they ordered, when they ordered, how long they have waited, when they get their meals, when they finish eating, what special needs might come up before, during, and after their meal. You need to be able to understand when a problem might occur and fix it before it becomes a problem, eg if a meal docket has somehow been lost. You need to be able to effectively communicate to the kitchen what a customer wants and requires if it isn't just straight off the menu, and you sometimes need to persuade the kitchen staff to do what the customer wants/needs like a lunch at 4:30pm or breakfast after 11:30am when its quiet. You need to manage table bookings and people waiting for tables to be available, you need to make it work when a booking for 2 decides to show up with 7 people on your busiest day of the year ;/.
You have to let rude and unreasonably nasty behaviour from customers role off your back and not effect you, this can be hard when you are young and have some big bully screaming down on your head because his medium rare steak wasn't 100 degrees celcius in the middle, or some lecherous disgusting prick decides to grab your bum when you are 17 and working alone, but you can't show a sad face to another customer because it really isn't their buisness to care what is going on for you it is your job to always be smiling and happy, and make them happy too, no matter what is going on at work or in your personal life.
All of these things become harder when it is more busy, but it isn't just e-z abc 123 to get a good flow of everything happening correctly, and keeping every customer happy. You need to be able to read the expectations of each customer and meet them to the best of your ability, even when the customer doesn't tell you anything and just expects you to be psychic. You even have to explain to people why the people who ordered before them got their meals first.
People get extremely angry over tiny things, or just simple mistakes and it can be really hard to make them happy again. Like saying "Are you guys ready to order?" can be seen as extremely rude from some customers because the use of the word "guys" offends them. You even get people being really offended because you call a long black a long black and a flat white a flat white because they see that as racist.
But it can also be fairly rewarding to make a person who comes in grumpy and angry leave happy and smiling.
For you, you are perhaps one of those easy customers that comes in, orders off the menu, and expects nothing more than a smile and politeness. Some people need to tell you all their problems, or just like to have a nice chat about various things, some people are really picky about what they like to eat, or have allergies/dietary requirements. Some people are on really short time frames and need something to come asap. Some people need to be spoken to or treated in a certain way to keep them happy. While none of this is the hardest stuff in the world it still isn't the easiest. Managing people can be difficult, managing the flow and order and the way and order everything needs to come out is not e-z p-z anybody can do it durr!! It normally takes 2years to train someone to be up to speed and able to handle everything that needs to be handled, and even after that people can still make mistakes, and some people will never get or understand what is required.
But anyway in my country waiting staff are paid a normal wage and tips are not needed, the expense of the food factors in the cost of the service, so you need to make the cost worth while by giving good service and it is just your job and what you are paid to do. I earn enouph to support myself through uni(this wouldn't be possible without saturday and sunday penalty rates though, which they want to cut here
), I don't need tips but they are nice to get. At the place I work we just split them up when each staff member will get $50, mostly it's just small change we get but sometimes you get crazy tips from people, I remember once getting a $27 tip for a $23 meal. I don't really ever tip myself, I'm a broke student who can't really afford to go out for anything besides coffee ;/, but it isn't actually needed here anyway, it's just a nice extra.
