Waiter Rant (12 page)

The 10 Percenter

The Foreigner

The Nice Customer

The Cheapskate

The Former Waiter

The Whore

Another thing people don’t realize is that servers don’t keep all of their tips. Depending on where they work, servers could be giving away 20 to 40 percent of their money to the busboys, food runners, bartenders, maître d’, or hostess in what’s called the “tip-out.” That’s normal procedure. Sadly, many corrupt owners and managers demand a percentage of the tips as well—a
practice that is illegal in most states. Most servers, especially if they’re working in a fancy place making serious money, usually cave in. Depending on the restaurant, between tip-outs and bribes, waiters need to earn $125 to $150 in order to take home an even $100.

Waiters aren’t above a little larceny, either. A common restaurant scam is something called the “double tip.” Most restaurants tack on an automatic gratuity for parties larger than six people. If they don’t, they’re assholes. Large parties take up valuable space for longer than two or four tops. If waiters get stiffed by a large party, they might end up working the entire night for peanuts. The added tip is an insurance policy against that happening. Unscrupulous waiters will snag some extra cash by employing a little grift.

Sometimes customers, often drunk, are unaware a gratuity has been added to the bill, so they
tip on top of it
! Waiters “facilitate” this error by writing the total with the automatic gratuity included in big script
on the back of the check
. Then the waiter presents the check to the customer itemized side down, hoping the sucker—ahem, customer—will just glance at the circled total and tip on top of it. It’s dishonest. It’s wrong. When I worked at Amici’s, I did it all the time. The lesson here?
Always examine the check!
There are other little scams waiters can employ to jack up their tips—but I’m not giving away all the secrets.

I’ll bet you didn’t think tipping was such a complicated issue. My friends, I’ve just scratched the surface.

W
aiters depend on tips to survive. As you’ve read, it can be a fairly irregular source of income. You might think it’s a miracle anyone wants to wait tables in the first place, but, trust me, there’s usually never a shortage of applicants. Waiting tables is as addictive as crack cocaine.

It’s the quiet zone between lunch and dinner service. I’m spread out in the back with an espresso and my copy of the
New York Times
. The staff’s clustered around me, chattering away as they eat their midday meal. The door chimes. The sound of silverware scraping against plates comes to a halt. I look over the top of my paper, half expecting to see another adulterous couple skulking around the front door.

Standing in the doorway, however, is a fresh-faced kid no older than nineteen. He’s not eating here. The staff breathes a sigh of relief. Lunch break uninterrupted, the noise of people eating refills the air.

“I’ll bet he’s looking for a job,” Imelda says, digging into her pasta.

I sigh deeply. I had a busy morning and was enjoying my little moment of Zen. Annoyed, I fold my paper, place it on the table, and walk toward the front.

“Hi,” the kid says, extending his hand. “Are you the manager?”

“I am,” I acknowledge. I tell the kid my name and shake his hand.

“I’m looking for a job,” the kid says. “Do you have any openings?”

“We do. Let me get you an application.”

“Thanks.”

I kneel down behind the hostess stand and rummage through the plastic filing cabinet where we keep the applications. Fluvio is terribly disorganized. File pockets overflow with scores of forgotten résumés and applications. Fluvio doesn’t look at 10 percent of applications people drop off. The secret to getting hired at The Bistro is catching Fluvio on the odd afternoon when he’s actually here. If he likes you, you’re hired.

I find an application and ask the young man to fill it out.

“You make good money here?” the kid asks, as he fills in the required fields.

“Depends on the day,” I reply.

“Oh,” the kid murmurs. “Which days are good money?”

“Fridays and Saturdays. We also have a strong Monday and Wednesday night.”

“I’m available on weekends.”

“We assign shifts based on seniority. It takes a while for new people to get to the really good shifts.”

The kid looks crestfallen.

“But you never know,” I say, trying to end the conversation on a light note. “I’ve got a waitress having a baby. Maybe something’ll open up.”

“Thanks,” the kid replies. After a few minutes he stops writing and hands me the application

I skim over it. The kid’s a student at a local college looking for extra money. He’s worked summers at a deli but has no fine-dining experience. Sometimes not having experience is a plus. A newbie to the restaurant world’s a tabula rasa that can be trained to do things just the way The Bistro wants them done. The downside’s the amount of time you have to invest bringing the restau
rant virgin up to speed. I’ve spent weeks training new servers, only to watch them throw in their apron to become professional yogis or Pilates teachers. That’s a pain in the ass.

That’s why we normally hire people with a couple of years under their belt. There’s a downside to hiring experienced staff, of course—they often come in full of piss and vinegar and try to change the way things have been done for years. I’m not against reform or new ideas, but hotshots like that are usually after my job. They don’t last long. Eventually they quit. Trust me, I have my ways. Fluvio isn’t the only one who can act like a bastard.

“Okay,” I say. “I’ll give your application to the owner. If he’s interested, he’ll call you.”

“Thanks,” the kid says. “Any idea how long that’ll be?”

I feel for the kid. He needs money, but he’s not a good fit for The Bistro. It’d be cruel to hire him.

“If you don’t hear from him in two weeks,” I reply, hoping the kid reads between the lines, “then he’s not interested.”

The kid shows a flicker of disappointed understanding. “Thanks, sir,” he says sheepishly.

“Good luck.”

I watch the kid walk down the street. I feel bad for him, but I have to think about what’s best for the restaurant. I keep my eye out for competent and quiet professionals, the smart waiters who keep their mouths shut and their eyes open. When jumping to another restaurant, these people don’t rock the boat. They know patience is the key. Within months talent and good work ethics push them to the top of the heap. Grateful managers feel compelled to award them with moneymaking shifts. If that doesn’t happen, a professional waiter looks for greener pastures.

My espresso’s gone cold. I head into the back to brew another one. As I listen to the steam press through the grounds, I wonder for the millionth time why anyone would want to become a waiter. The University of Chicago recently did a survey of twenty-seven thousand Americans about job satisfaction and happiness. Clergy
and firefighters were at the top of the job-satisfaction list. Waiters were at the bottom. Considering the shit we put up with, that’s no surprise. For me, that survey’s findings are laden with personal irony. Like most little boys, I wanted to be a fireman when I grew up. When I got to college, I studied to be a priest. Now, at thirty-eight, I’m a waiter. I started out heading for the top of the list, only to end up on the bottom. Where did I go wrong?

People who become waiters fall into three distinct categories: people trying to become something else, people whose lives are falling apart, and people stuck somewhere in the middle. Tucked within those categories is a small and distinct subgroup, the professional servers, people who make waiting tables their life’s work. I’ll admit those three categories are kind of broad. Waiters often find themselves with one foot in one category and one in the other. I’ve personally been in all three categories simultaneously.

The first type of server is the one you’re most accustomed to seeing. These are waiters who, when not fetching lemon for your water, are busy trying to become something
else
. They’re going to college, pursuing dance careers, writing the great American novel, sculpting, drug dealing, modeling for pornographic Web sites, and, of course,
acting
. Lifelong waiterdom holds little appeal for these individuals. The only reason they’re working in a restaurant is because the money and schedule allow them time to achieve their long-term goals.

Because university registrars take perverse pride in designing Byzantine class schedules that offer mandatory courses available only when Neptune’s orbit intersects Pluto’s during a leap year, students’ academic calendars are notoriously chaotic. Since restaurant jobs have more flexibility in scheduling than other jobs, many waiters are college students. It’s a natural fit; students take classes during the day, work in the evening, and party into the wee hours of the night. Sleep? You’ve got to be kidding me.

Money is also a big factor. There are few jobs outside waiting tables where workers can make so much money in such a short
amount of time. A normal evening shift usually lasts eight hours. A good waiter working an upscale establishment can clear $200 a night, sometimes more. That’s $25 an hour! Not all servers reach this level, of course, but even if they clear only $100 a night, that still works out to almost $13 an hour. That beats the hell out of working at the college bookstore or delivering pizza for minimum wage. Outside of drug dealing, dorm-room prostitution, and creating Web sites like MySpace, waiting tables provides the biggest financial bang for the least temporal buck.

After the students comes the artistes—the endless procession of models, painters, writers, and actors—who struggle to make ends meet as they chase their
American Idol
dreams. I remember one waiter, an aspiring screenwriter, who shamelessly pitched his script to every unwilling customer he thought might get him a shot at Hollywood. He had a brilliant idea, so it was tough to watch his zeal turn into measured optimism, devolve into cynicism, and finally ossify into “c’est la vie.”

I’ve encountered a few “actors” along the way as well. One girl I worked with did foot-fetish films and cable TV porn on the side. She won’t be winning any Academy Awards, but hey, you can’t knock a girl for trying. It’s small wonder why so many struggling actors wait tables—it’s a great place to hone your thespian skills. You try selling “Chilean sea bass garnished with endive marmalade” with a straight face. Think of it as culinary method acting, complete with imperious Europeans screaming at you. All this talk about waiters and acting reminds me of that old joke.

“My son’s an actor in New York.”

“Really? What restaurant?”

That underscores the bitter reality many artists who wait tables struggle with on a daily basis. When asked what they “do,” they usually reply, “I’m an actor,” or “I’m a writer.” For the first couple of years that’s okay—but, after several years working in the restaurant biz, if the bulk of your income still comes from waiting tables, you’re a waiter. Don’t get me wrong. I admire people who struggle to pursue their artistic dreams, but when a guy claiming to be a
writer has been a server for years and is still working on the draft of his first novel, he’s living in the deluded zone.

Sometimes when aspiring photographers or sculptors realize they’ve been waiting tables for too long, that’s the kick in the ass they need to get out there and hustle up their own luck. Many waiters, through effort and by dint of hard work, leave the restaurant behind to pursue their dream careers. Occasionally lightning strikes and a waiter goes from waiterhood to superstardom “overnight.” My favorite story is of Erika Sunnegårdh, a forty-year-old aspiring opera singer who spent eighteen years waiting tables in the Bronx, hoping for her big break. Eighteen years is a
long
time to wait. Singing at funerals to keep her voice in shape, Erika was getting close to throwing in the towel. Having never appeared onstage in any opera
anywhere
, she tried out for a role in Beethoven’s
Fidelio
at the Metropolitan Opera. Awed by the majesty of her voice, the producers asked her to understudy for the performer singing the title role. In classic Hollywood fashion, the star fell ill on the day the performance was being broadcast to 10 million radio listeners, and Erika stole the show. Now she’s an opera star. I wish every aspiring singer and dancer I’ve met in the restaurant business could hit it big, but, as Simon Cowell mercilessly informs us every week, that can’t always happen.

The next category of server, people who don’t know what do with their lives, is the type of waiter I most closely identify with. It starts out innocently enough. You lose your job, have a nervous breakdown, get paroled, or have a midlife crisis, and you have no idea what to do next.

I think there are many waiters like me, sitting on life’s fence and trying to figure out what they want to be when they grow up. Before age and limitations start creeping up on you, waiting can be a fun life. When you’re in your early twenties, it’s a blast, but then, when you’re in your forties, it can be horrifying. I partly blame my predicament on that crack-cocaine quality of waiting tables. Here, the schedule and easy money are important. Whereas with college students it’s a means to an end, for the
Hamlet waiter it’s a narcotic, seductive influence. If you skip college and go into the restaurant business, the odds are good that you’ll be making more than a college graduate for quite a while. I made more as a waiter than I ever did as a low-level flunky in corporate health care. After a few weeks of profitable shifts you begin to think, Hey, this isn’t too bad. Of course, as time goes by, your friends’ incomes will outstrip yours and leave you in the dust. Out of all my college-educated friends, I earn the least amount of money. Don’t even talk to me about 401(k)s.

The schedule’s also a biggie. If you’re a night owl like me, you’ll take to the restaurant business like a duck to water. I like getting up at eleven o’clock and going to bed at three. Night is my natural element. My synapses fire up when the moon’s hanging in the sky. Since most people are off when I’m working and vice versa, there’s never any line at the movies, and finding a parking spot at the mall’s a snap. Waiters begin to pity nine-to-five wretches with their miserable traffic-filled commutes and weekends spent running errands. Living outside the normal flow of the workweek, waiters get to see how crazy American life can be. Of course, we can develop a smug sense of superiority about how we’re somehow above it all. I certainly did.

Being on the outside of the mainstream, however, is fun only when you
choose
to be on the outside. When it’s no longer a choice, when you wake up one day and realize that you have to wait tables to survive, the “waiter mystique” wears thin real fast. Most people who waited tables in college look back on their serving days with a twisted sense of nostalgia. That’s because, in the back of their minds, they knew they were getting out. Longtime waiters who successfully escape to other professions look back on their time in the restaurant trenches the way shell-shocked vets look back on heavy combat. “Yeah, I met a few good men along the way—but I’d never want to go back.”

Of course, some waiters do very well in this situation. My brother springs immediately to mind. He’s been in the restaurant business since he was sixteen—almost twenty years. Along the
way he’s done it all. He’s been a dishwasher, busboy, server, headwaiter, and manager. He’s hired and fired people and gotten fired and hired himself. He’s been punched, kicked, groped, insulted, and kissed.

My brother never planned on being in the restaurant business for so long. Like me, he’s still trying to figure out what he wants to do when he grows up. Unlike me, however, he didn’t wait to get on with his life as he tries to figure it out. It took several years, but he finished his college degree, got married, bought a house, and had a baby—all while being a waiter. This guy didn’t sit around and cry “woe is me” and wait for the perfect situation to start his life. He threw himself into life’s slipstream and ended up doing all right.