There seems to be no catch
So I went in to work my restaurant hostess job on Friday and saturday night and sunday brunch. The only catch seemed to be that they'd lost about 5 employees all at once and needed quick replacements. The new waitresses that I talked to said that they, too, had been hired on the spot with little consideration of their credentials and with little detail given. At least one of them corroborated my opinion that that was strange, saying "I'd always thought it was hard to get restaurant jobs in New York...I've applied places where they expected you to provide headshots with your resume." I tried to feel out the other staff with the "how long have you worked here? How do you like it?" questions. The rundown the bartender gave me was that most people either work there for a week or work there for years. "It's not as much money as some people are used to and they usually figure that out pretty quick."
I could see how it could be pretty disappointing for the servers working for tips...even on Friday and Saturday night people were trickling in at maybe an average of one table per 15 minutes and there were 4 servers on. At one point almost 40 minutes passed without a single person coming through the front door. The only busy time seemed to be Sunday Brunch, although compared to the last restaurant I was a hostess at, it was still a cakewalk. And there's a funny thing. I have not been a restaurant hostess for 8 years and yet I picked it back up like I never stopped...I just had to memorize new names and table numbers. I even found, when my first party came in, that after I asked how many people, my automatic next question was "smoking or non?" I caught myself before I said it (there is no smoking indoors in New York), and just kind of paused awkwardly like "s....uh...right this way." I guess if you repeat something a couple thousand times, time does not erase it from your vocabulary.
Often I have these fantasies of traveling back in time. Not physically, but that I can somehow transport my mind with all my present knowledge back into my body at a different time in my life and totally turn around situations that I struggled with then. My first day, I kind of felt a little like I was in one of those fantasies...that my mind had traveled back to 8 years ago with all it's current information. 8 years ago, I didn't really grasp what my job was, but this time I know. I've said before that I never understood what a work ethic was until I worked for myself. I always saw jobs as simply doing what you're told for a designated number of hours for a designated amount of money. I never really got that my job was to fulfill a function within an organization toward an overarching goal. If you asked me eight years what my job was, I would have said "Sitting people at tables, giving them menus and answering the phone." Now I'd say "to make customers feel welcomed and taken care of and, where possible, to facilitate the jobs of the servers with the overarching goal of satisfying the customers so they'll continue to patronize the establishment." I have fun working by pretending that the restaurant is mine. Even on day one, I was starting to muse on how hard or easy it might be to maneuver myself into management.
But there's another interesting quirk. The serious asian guy who hired me, I'm still not sure if he's an owner or a manager, but either way, his management style seems to be extremely laissez-faire. Half the time I was working, he wasn't even there and I had no earthly idea who was in charge when he was gone. I figure objective one is simply to insinuate myself into the team, then I can start nosing into heirarchies. From what I gathered, though, the people who worked there for a long time seemed to be there because they enjoyed the laid back-ness. When it was slow and half the staff was just hanging around the bar reading the Onion, the manager would come by and just shrug like "whatever..." instead of hustling them off to do work. The rest of the staff seems nice. I was really anxious before I went in on the first day because I knew that I was going to have to try to make nice with a whole new group of strange people. The fact that I was anxious, though, was all the more reason I thought I needed this job. I've only been getting more isolated and socially awkward, so something had to be done. Still, I find that when I'm chatting with co-workers, I don't want to disclose any information that might lead anyone to believe that I might be interesting. I don't know if this is my new defense mechanism or what. Maybe because boring people don't provoke any strong emotions, so boring people don't get mixed up in drama.
Anyway, it's kind of hard to explain that this no-brainer job that pays fifty bucks a shift is making me really weirdly happy. That doing simple, active work that doesn't fill me with soul-crushing depression is really satisfying. It's nice to feel tired and have my feet hurt so that when I go home and take off my shoes and get in bed, it feels like a reward. I suppose I might get sick of it, but I think I'll stick with it for awhile.
I could see how it could be pretty disappointing for the servers working for tips...even on Friday and Saturday night people were trickling in at maybe an average of one table per 15 minutes and there were 4 servers on. At one point almost 40 minutes passed without a single person coming through the front door. The only busy time seemed to be Sunday Brunch, although compared to the last restaurant I was a hostess at, it was still a cakewalk. And there's a funny thing. I have not been a restaurant hostess for 8 years and yet I picked it back up like I never stopped...I just had to memorize new names and table numbers. I even found, when my first party came in, that after I asked how many people, my automatic next question was "smoking or non?" I caught myself before I said it (there is no smoking indoors in New York), and just kind of paused awkwardly like "s....uh...right this way." I guess if you repeat something a couple thousand times, time does not erase it from your vocabulary.
Often I have these fantasies of traveling back in time. Not physically, but that I can somehow transport my mind with all my present knowledge back into my body at a different time in my life and totally turn around situations that I struggled with then. My first day, I kind of felt a little like I was in one of those fantasies...that my mind had traveled back to 8 years ago with all it's current information. 8 years ago, I didn't really grasp what my job was, but this time I know. I've said before that I never understood what a work ethic was until I worked for myself. I always saw jobs as simply doing what you're told for a designated number of hours for a designated amount of money. I never really got that my job was to fulfill a function within an organization toward an overarching goal. If you asked me eight years what my job was, I would have said "Sitting people at tables, giving them menus and answering the phone." Now I'd say "to make customers feel welcomed and taken care of and, where possible, to facilitate the jobs of the servers with the overarching goal of satisfying the customers so they'll continue to patronize the establishment." I have fun working by pretending that the restaurant is mine. Even on day one, I was starting to muse on how hard or easy it might be to maneuver myself into management.
But there's another interesting quirk. The serious asian guy who hired me, I'm still not sure if he's an owner or a manager, but either way, his management style seems to be extremely laissez-faire. Half the time I was working, he wasn't even there and I had no earthly idea who was in charge when he was gone. I figure objective one is simply to insinuate myself into the team, then I can start nosing into heirarchies. From what I gathered, though, the people who worked there for a long time seemed to be there because they enjoyed the laid back-ness. When it was slow and half the staff was just hanging around the bar reading the Onion, the manager would come by and just shrug like "whatever..." instead of hustling them off to do work. The rest of the staff seems nice. I was really anxious before I went in on the first day because I knew that I was going to have to try to make nice with a whole new group of strange people. The fact that I was anxious, though, was all the more reason I thought I needed this job. I've only been getting more isolated and socially awkward, so something had to be done. Still, I find that when I'm chatting with co-workers, I don't want to disclose any information that might lead anyone to believe that I might be interesting. I don't know if this is my new defense mechanism or what. Maybe because boring people don't provoke any strong emotions, so boring people don't get mixed up in drama.
Anyway, it's kind of hard to explain that this no-brainer job that pays fifty bucks a shift is making me really weirdly happy. That doing simple, active work that doesn't fill me with soul-crushing depression is really satisfying. It's nice to feel tired and have my feet hurt so that when I go home and take off my shoes and get in bed, it feels like a reward. I suppose I might get sick of it, but I think I'll stick with it for awhile.