I had a classroom training shift at noon, so for 5 hours I was sat at a table with a trainee going over flashcards and taking tests. I had a steak and broccoli for lunch and then started my night shift at 6 in the very back of the restaurant. I had 3 tables before I was sent home.
It was a 10 hour shift and my body was exhausted but my mind was doing cartwheels.
I woke up and went to the doctor to get an order for a blood draw to prove that I had all of my childhood vaccinations. The school needs me to prove it for the clinical portion of the class.
I went home, ate lunch, changed clothes and went to deposit our rent check and get my blood drawn at the diagnostic clinic. I was ridiculously early for my shift, but I didn’t want to go home and then turn around and come back, so I got to work 2 hours early.
I was training again tonight. It was the guys final shift before being allowed to take 3 tables. I have a pedometer in my phone, and we walked 16,000 steps, or 8 miles tonight. My trainee walked a lot more, I didn’t bother following him as closely as I usually do because he was doing such a good job. I was all set to pass him until the very last table. I heard him take a beer order on some Japanese girls. He rang in the beer order and I asked him if he had checked their ID. Without trying to sound racist, Japanese women age much different than American broads. Without looking at an ID, you can’t tell if they are 17 or 40. The girl did not have any form of ID. Had he given her the beer, and had she been an undercover alcohol enforcement agent, our restaurant and the bar next to us who shares our liquor license could have been shut down, I could have been fined, fired and faced jail time. Not properly checking ID on guests who appear under 30 is an automatic fail for the training session. The trainee understood completely, but I still felt bad because he had done such an amazing job up until that point.
I went home around 11:30 and went straight to bed.
I woke up at 10 and went to Taco Bell for breakfast. I didn’t really do much for the rest of the day until I went to work.
I was training tonight, and I was scheduled to do cash deposits. It was my trainee’s final training shift, which I loved because it meant all I had to do was follow her around and observe to make sure she could handle taking 3 tables.
I stopped taking tables around 8:30, and spent the next 3 hours in the office doing cash deposits. I got home around midnight and went straight to bed.
I woke up at exactly 10 again today. I was proud of my self for waking up right at the top of the hour. I rushed to the bank to deposit my paycheck so I could make my student loan payment and then went home and had the rest of the pad Thai for breakfast. I finished the movie I started yesterday morning and slowly got ready for work.
I left the house at 2 and went to the college to drop off a copy of my CPR and first aid cards and then went to work and had shrimp tacos for lunch. I was training someone tonight. He has serving experience, so I didn’t have to waste time going over how to talk to a table, which was refreshing. One of the hosts asked me if we could take a party of 8 in the very back of the restaurant. I didn’t want to, because that meant extra walking, and I don’t like how large parties take up so much time.
The restaurant died around 8:30, and I was home by 11, which is unusual especially if I am training. I stayed up for a while watching documentaries on underground sloth fighting in Peru.
Today’s post is going to include shared writings between my niece and myself. I will talk about what I did, she is going to write about what she did, and then we will collaborate for the ending.
We kept my niece up until almost midnight hoping that she would sleep in. At 7 we woke up to my niece asking if she could use the bathroom. I couldn’t be mad because when I was her age, I would have either held it until someone woke up, or gone outside. I never have felt comfortable being in other people’s houses, I always feel like I’m intruding. I explained to her that this is her house for the week, and she doesn’t need to ask to use anything. We also explained that if she woke us up that early again, she would be in the cargo hold of the next plane going to the mainland.
I was unable to weasel my way out of my training shift this morning, so I was there at 10 to do classroom training with two new girls. On my way to work, I stopped by the eye doctor to order new contacts, and then I went to my regular doctor to ask why my prescriptions weren’t authorized yet. When I arrived to work I met with the day manager and then got ready for my trainees. We started off doing training on the computer, and then instead of sitting down at the booth to go over menu items in a classroom setting, I had them follow me into the kitchen where we watched the food come out of the window. I got bored of watching food go out to tables so I had them follow me out on to the floor and I had them clean tables and run drinks.
There was an orientation going on in the back section, and I interrupted them to have my trainees practice their table greet. I then had them take the pretend orders to the computer and pretend to order everything. We finished off the day by them taking tests while I stared out the window wishing I were at the beach. I ended the training session at 3:30, the exact time I was scheduled to finish even though I could have spent three more hours helping them learn what they needed. I rushed home to change and then sped off to Waikiki to meet up with Rebecca and my niece. I found them in front of the Duke statue when they were reapplying sunscreen.
My uncle had just left for work and I went outside to try to get pictures of geckos, my aunt was reading a book on how to get tan, which she was apparently doing the opposite considering how pale she is. I’m like 100 shades darker. So we went to our scheduled destination (aka the nail salon) about half an hour after my uncle left.
Once we got to the nail salon we picked colors and asked about ocean water proof acrylics they said something about this gel that they could put on my nails, but the rest got lost in translation because the accent that one of the employees had was very thick. She couldn’t English good.
Rebecca got her fingernails done first, so I got my toes done. The design I got wasn’t exactly what I asked for, but it still looks good. They put fireworks on my big toes with an orange background. On the rest of my toes they put one thin white stripe, one thin blue, and one thin red. I’d asked for stripes like the American flag for the fourth of July, but got something that still looks good but not very fourth of July-ish.
After we got our nails did, we hopped in the ocean. We played in the water waiting for people to bump into me because there were so many people there. When my uncle finally arrived, I was excited to have someone to play in the water with.
My niece and I spent a few hours being tossed around by 4-5 foot waves that smashed us right up on the shore. The waves would crash, and then when they started flowing back out, they would crash into the waves coming in, which created some choppy conditions. We headed home around 6 to shower. I was the last one to shower. I should have gone first because anyone who had showered after two girls have gone before knows that there will be no hot water, and hair everywhere. Everyone was hungry, and no one wanted to decide what they wanted for dinner so I grilled up some sausages and chicken while my niece went outside to taunt the geckos.
After dinner the three of un went to pick up my prescriptions which finally got approved and then to get mochi for desert. There was a street fair going on, so the line was incredibly too long. Once we had the delicious mochi in our hands, we headed home and went to sleep.
I woke up at 8:30 and was annoyed that I couldn’t spend more time wrapped in the soft, welcoming arms of the sandman. I made breakfast and started watching a movie until I grew restless and went to water my lawn. Upon investigation I realized that the birds have eaten all of the seeds I had planted. My options were: buy a shotgun and stand guard in a vigilant guard, buy a tiger or puma to eat the birds, or bury the seeds deeper in the soil. I didn’t want to go all the way to the gun store, and who really wants to stand guard of 5 square feet of grass. Our apartment doesn’t allow pets, so a large predatory cat is out of the question.
I finished my gardening for the day and went back inside too help Rebecca clean the apartment in preparation of our guest who arrives tomorrow.
I got to work early and had lunch. I managed to get the Sunday shift covered before any managers told me I had to train. I was training again tonight. It was the same guy I trained on Sunday. He did a really great job talking to the tables, and all the customers loved him, but there were too many small things that built up which led me to believe he might need to repeat this stage of training. I felt awful about making him repeat the stage because of the fact that he was actually trying. As one table was leaving, I asked them how he did, the guy had nothing but great things to say. As they were heading out the door, the guy found me, shook my hand and said “your trainee did a really good job. I never tip more than $5 but I hope you guys split what I gave you.” I figured he had left $10, their bill was around $100, so it was not unusual to get 10%. When we were clearing the table I looked at the receipt and saw that he had left $40.
The problems he was having were things like forgetting to ring in orders, not noticing empty cups that needed refills, forgetting to bring boxes or sauces when they were asked for. It bothered me that he was doing so much, and making me a lot of money but I was going to have him repeat the stage. I gave him my trainer meal, and split the $40 with him and gave him a lot of encouragement as I broke the bad news. He seemed to understand. I think with an additional practice shift, he should be able to make it on his own taking two tables for a while.
I got home around midnight and finished my movie and then went to bed.
I woke up at 10 on the dot, I was proud of myself for such an accomplishment. The accomplishment wasn’t sleeping through until double digits, but waking up right at 10, not 10:01, not 9:59, but 10:00. I made leftover fajitas for breakfast and then Rebecca went to school for a meeting with the yearbook staff.
I watered my garden, and called the doctor about refilling my blood pressure medication again.
I got to work early and had to eat lunch in the hallway because there was a table eating in the very back section and we aren’t supposed to hang out where the customers can see us. I was able to get my Sunday night shift covered, but I still have to go in on Friday morning and do a classroom training session with some new servers. My niece is here for 7 days, and I have Tom spend 6 hours inside helping new people memorize the menu.
I was training tonight, she has been a host for some time, but I have never talked to her. She had studied her menu, which was nice because I didn’t have to explain everything I was doing. I started the shift working the tables and explaining everything I was doing, and halfway through I let her do the table greets and take orders. She managed to sell one of the rewards cards, so now I am off the list of people who have to take the mandatory training session with the general manager. I found out today that our restaurant is the top seller of the membership cards. I asked if the other managers were threatening their employees like ours was. People laughed, the manager pretended not to hear the question. At the end of the night, we all had to pull pages out of the menu and replace them with new ones, it took forever, and nobody was happy about it. While I was in the office turning in my money, I noticed that there was a new schedule written in which I was to be training somebody on Sunday night. I have already given the shift away, and for them to change the schedule mid week and expect me to come in during a week I had requested off blows my mind. We have lost 6 trainers in 3 months, almost all of them have jumped ship and started working at other restaurants. We have lost 4 chefs in 6 months, not just line cooks, but head chefs, kitchen managers. Since I have started, we have lost 7 front of house managers, and countless other servers and hosts.
I got home around midnight and tried to clean up the living room bunt it was too hot so I watched a movie on Netflix.
I woke up at 9 and Rebecca and I got ready for church. I fell asleep on the way there.
After church we went home and Rebecca made lunch and I got ready for work. I was training tonight, which I didn’t mind as the trainee had obviously studied and knew the menu. We were in the back of the restaurant with what I called the “JV Squad” of servers. All of the good servers were on the lanai, and we were surrounded with new people. We had a party of 22 people who were in some sort of choir, who felt it necessary to sing during their meal. Once they were done, they wanted to sing a song to the three of us who had served them. It was just as awkward as when people sing “happy birthday” to you. I didn’t know if I should sing along or just stand there.
Once the choir was gone, we got back to waiting tables. I let my trainee take over and I stood back and helped when he needed it. He did a fine job, and I passed him on to the next stage. I ended up leaving around midnight, and went home and straight to bed.
Today is the 15th anniversary of my high school graduation. I remember falling asleep during the ceremony, which was fitting because I slept through most of my classes. There was one day in particular where I managed to take a nap during each of my 6 classes. In guitar class, I hugged the guitar and leaned back in my chair and fell asleep, in shop, I just laid my head down on a bench and fell asleep while other people were busy cutting stuff. In English I opened a book and laid my head on my bag to look like I was reading, same thing in history class. Home economics was an easy nap because the teacher was oblivious, and a little bit crazy. The biggest accomplishment for the day was taking all of the extra mats and falling asleep in the weight room during weight training.
I remember falling asleep in my first period geometry class junior year. I had my head on my back pack and I must have been snoring because the teacher, who was also my wrestling and football coach lifted my head up by my hair. There was a significant puddle of drool on the bag and the noise one of the girls yelling “Ewwww” woke me up, a mere second before the teacher relaxed his grasp of my hair sending my head back in to the puddle of drool.
I woke up at 10 and did my usual routine of breakfast, coughing and yelling about robots and then I found a show on Netflix that had me hooked. It is about 8 people from around the world who suddenly become connected mentally and they can share each other’s experiences. Before I knew it, I had to go to work. I was training someone today so I had to be on my best behavior.
The shift started out slow, and stayed that way. The trainee did a really impressive job and even improved during the shift. We left around midnight and I went home to watch another episode of Sense8 before going to bed. I have to be at work really early tomorrow at noon.
I woke up around 9 and went to the front room to make breakfast. Rebecca had been up for hours, and had even gone to the store. I did my usual morning routine, eating breakfast, coughing for 20 minutes and then yelling into a corner about how robots are stealing the pennies from my penny jar… a typical morning for me. Once I had eaten, Rebecca started a load of laundry and I decided to go to the hardware store for something. I had completely forgotten why I had gone by the time I arrived at the hardware store, so I wandered the aisles for about a half hour before returning home. Rebecca had swept and mopped the floors so I wandered around barefoot for the rest of the afternoon. We watched a movie about a psychiatrist who travels the world trying to find out what makes people happy, but all the while sub-consciously trying to find a way to make himself happy.
I got to work early and prepared myself for another training shift. This trainee is one of the first who has had three classroom training sessions which were five hours long. They are supposed to learn the entire menu in this system, but they don’t ever talk to a real customer until their 4th day of training. I could teach a parrot the menu in 15 hours of classroom lectures, it won’t do a bit of good at selling food. There are 2 sides to waiting tables, the science, which is knowledge. The second side is the art, or talking to people. You need both sides to be a good waiter. I am much better at the conversational part of the job, and I really don’t know completely what is in our food. I have disagreed with the new style of training since they tried to implement it months ago, but I was assured that there would be hours of role-play in the classroom settings to help when they actually had to talk to a real customer.
Before we had a chance to greet our first table, the computer system crashed. Nobody could send orders to the kitchen or to the bar, no one could print a check, or run a credit card. We were all given a notepad with carbon copies, a calculator to add up the amount each item was, and a price list. Everyone was running around frantically writing down their orders and handing them to the chef and bartender. In 8 years of waiting tables, this has never happened to me. After an hour, the computers came back online one at a time and things went back to normal.
The trainee was adaptable and hard-working throughout the weird shift, and I appreciated that. With practice, the talking to customers part of the job got better, and she became more comfortable doing table greets. We left just before midnight and I went straight home and went to bed.
moving to Hawaii 