The Service Industry

The holiday season seems to bring every type of individual out of their houses and into restaurants for celebratory meals. Amongst the diversity of colorful characters is an overabundance of inexperienced weekend-diners(1) who bring Sunday-tips(2) into PF Changs. For instance, yesterday night a woman with far too much botox injected into her face, a man overly enthusiastic about the presence of Amstel on tap, and their two All-American catalog looking children came in and asked for chicken nuggets and fries. Let me remind you that I work at a restaurant that serves Asian-American food-- the definition of Asian-American in this case, if you've ever spent time in the US, does not mean all-American burger joint, but American influenced Chinese food-- so Chinese dishes with prepared in such a way that offer a glimpse into the culture of the United States. In short, not McDonalds. To accommodate the demands of this table, I managed to modify one of our dishes (honey chicken made with no sauce) and put an order in for pseudo-chicken nuggets. While the family was enjoying their appetizers, the sweet American poster child boy who's picky stomach could only eat "chicken nuggets"started to scream and throw shit across the table because he was growing restless in anticipation for some Ronald produced food. After dodging two chopsticks which were speared at me, I put a super-rush order on his dish which came out in less than three minutes (Thank you, Mike). I even brought ketchup to the table as requested by mother Barbie (ketchup.... chinese restaurant... really??). Throughout the meal, I had to replace their two kids kids-drinks three times each because they kept dropping them underneath the table. When I brought the dessert tray over for the All-American family to look at, the little prince threw (--as in just short of body slam) his body at the tray I suppose in hopes of claiming each choice for himself. At the end of the meal, the mommy dearest paid with a gift card and left me a ten dollar tip... on a ninety dollar meal. If you're ever a guest at my table and I end of the meal explicitly saying "here's your change for your bill of X amount"-- that means I clearly think that you need need the money more than I do if you're going to short me so much that I end up having to pay out of my pocket at the end of the night when I'm checking out.

As servers at Chang's, company policy is that we can only force gratuity on parties of 8 or more. Yesterday, I had a seven top come in and ask for individual checks. After asking for separate checks, they each ordered a water. Then, in roughly five minute increments, they would individually put in soft drink orders, making sure to catch me when I was talking to another table, or right after I had just ran to get something for someone else at their table. They also refused to order until some "Shirley" character arrived-- apparently the birthday girl. She didn't arrive for an hour. When they finally did order, there seemed to be a group consensus that clearly all Chinese restaurants served the exact same dishes; as a result, they started to describe random dishes that they've eaten at other establishments that offer Chinese food and try to put those down as their orders. With all the patience in the world, I- as best as I could- tried pairing their descriptions with what was actually on our menu. In the end, the best compromise I could get out of them was to modify each of our dishes so that orders came out like "Buddah's Feast (one dish) but with Cantonese shrimp (a separate dish) garlic sauce instead of stirfry sauce, add shrimp, and extra Kung Pao Chicken (yet another separate dish) brown sauce with no peanuts on the side." In the end I got a four dollar tip on their eighty some dollar meal which lasted going on two hours long.

The next story I have for you, I wasn't actually present for, so much of it may just be hearsay. Apparently some guy sat down at the bar with a gift bag of stuff, presumably coming in after shopping at the mall. He then ordered a few beers. When they arrived, he got up from where he was sitting, walked out with them. The bartender assumed that he would be back because he had left his gift bag there. He didn't. When the bartender looked inside the giftbag, it was nothing more than a bag stuffed with paper.

That is not to say, however, that decent people and kind souls hibernate during the holiday season. For two or so days I kept getting ridiculously nice tips (as in 35-50% gratuity), so I guess all the ridiculousness I dealt with last night was arguably just karma. There are those people who are super friendly, hold great (but courteously short) conversations, and are really easy going who I want to just give free food to because they fuel the perseverance necessary to work in service industry. The perfect costumer will return the server's readiness to serve by being prepared to present the entire order when asked. If and when they need something throughout the course of the meal, the perfect costumer will kindly make sure that all favors are listed at one time so that the server isn't sent running suicides between the kitchen and the other end of the restaurant. At the end of the meal, tip calculation should not even be an issue as the costumer will have already taken into consideration how much money they have on hand-- meaning, they ordered a dish within their budget that would also enable themselves to offer a suitable tip (which at PF Chang's is usually 20%). If they are super nice and cognizant of the functioning of the food industry, they will leave a cash tip (but no coins) so that the waiter can lose less during tax season.

Dorothy, you ask, why are you so pressed on how much tip you receive? Because servers are not paid per hour. We "receieve" a little over $3/hr, but see absolutely none of it as it all goes towards taxes. At the end of the shift, we have to pay out 3% of what we sold-- not 3% of what we made in tips-- to the back of the house for the food runners, etc. Also, servers have to pay an additional $3 per shift for silverware. Therefore, if you do not tip me for the food you ate (as is the case for many foreign costumers), I end up paying out of my pocket. What, Dorothy? That's craziness! Yes, dear readers, it has nearly happened before. July 4th 2006, I believe, I had exactly one table before I was cut because it was just that slow. The bill came to be just over fifty dollars. They gave me a nine dollar tip, not bad. But because of the circumstances, I had walked out with less money than what I came in with (if you factor in gas money). What happened? I had to pay $3 for silverware to the back of the house + 3% of what I sold (you round up, so I had to pay 3% of $100).

When I hit a lull, I like to ask other servers if there's anything I can help them with; I expect to end up busing someone's table, perhaps greeting a party for them, or running some food for the food runners. Apparently, in the midst of holiday madness, this is not the case. Perhaps as a result of the slightly unbearable costumers, the service staff occasionally exhibits signs of insanity. After asking one gentleman if there was anything I could get for him, he responded with "Jesus." After asking a costumer the same question, she said "an epidural".

(1) As opposed to week-day regulars who have enough familiarity with the food service industry to know waiter-costumer etiquette. Weekend-costumers are high-maintenance, cheap, and obnoxiously rude.

(2) On Sunday afternoons and evenings, usually around the time church lets out, an influx of properly dressed families come in, act like typical weekend-diners, and offer very little more than a verbal tip at the end of the meal.