Prankster Prince

My last post was pretty glum but I actually have a funny story about the restaurant today.

So everyone was shocked when we saw a paper posted on the staff bulletin board about a new promo going on that was promoting baked potatoes. This is confusing because we don't even have potatoes in the kitchen. Everyone was confused and annoyed that they would be doing this type of promo. My friend (who is also one of the managers) and I had gotten the message sent to us at the same time of a picture of that post and we thought it was super weird because we don't even have potatoes in stock.

Word got out that this was all a big prank created by one of the managers yesterday. Some were in on it and some still don't know it's fake. It's created a bit of fun in the atmosphere.

My friend had called me and told me that she overheard staff laughing about it and discovered it was fake and I was shocked that the manager would do this. Little did she know that my friends and family know me as the Prankster Prince (shout out if you ever watched the childhood cartoon Recess). I prank everyone. Never would I do something that I wouldn't want done to me but I thought she deserved to have a little taste of her own medicine.

I worked the lunch shift today and it was very quiet so I thought it was a good time to do it. I made sure she could see that I was about to take a table's order and when I finished, I went to her and said

"Hey I up-sold three baked potatoes and I can't find the button on the computer to ring it in"

And she burst out laughing. The bartender didn't know I was lying and they were in stitches thinking that I actually fell for it. She told me to go tell them it wasn't real and they chuckled the whole time I walked away.

I hid for a couple minutes and went back to the manager with watery eyes and started crying saying

"I told them and they got so mad and started freaking out. They asked what kind of management tells their staff about false promotions and they are making a huge scene" - I was full on crying at this point.

She jumped up and said she is going to go talk to them and I could tell she felt SO BAD. Halfway to their table I had to grab her and tell her it was all a huge prank. The whole staff watched the entire thing play out and they were talking about it all day.

Everyone was shocked that I could cry on cue and while I played it cool, I was shocked too.

Hope this made you laugh as much as it made me!

xoxo

- A

Just not cut out for it

So I've been back at my summer place for a week now and I must say, I'm not getting back into the swing of things.

I've been getting extremely overwhelmed and stressed out and tonight I actually had a breakdown in the middle of the rush and started crying in the middle of the kitchen/main side stand in front of all of the staff.

I'm just so frustrated. I have been serving since first year.. which means I've been serving for 4 years now. Mind you, I've served on and off and at a bunch of different places because I move away for school and home for the summers. But I'm still a weak server. At this point I think I've come to terms with the idea that I just suck at serving. Some people can do it and others can't. I'm one that can't. My friend has been serving for maybe two years now and she handles so many tables and gives good service and keeps a cool head. I get 4 tables and I start panicking.

While I know that I don't plan on turning serving into a career, I don't know if I should just walk away from it all-together. Serving is a career for many people and they can make more money than people sitting behind a desk. I'm not blind to the stigma around serving as a career. I commend you if you do this for a living. It takes a strong, smart, collected and quick-thinking person to be able to handle this profession.

I need the money desperately for school but if I'm a weak server, I know I'm a burden for the rest of the staff and that makes me feel shitty. I know how annoying it is to have a weak link and in this case, I'm the weak link.

I hope I figure it out I guess. Thanks for the read. I needed to flush it out because I've been tossing and turning for the last hour going over the stress of tonight's shift.

Hopefully now I can get some sleep and prepare to do it all again tomorrow.

xoxo

- A