I've worked either as a waiter or in the restaurant/service industry in some capacity for around four years now. It's been a long, grueling road, one that has helped to shape my views of the industry, of human relationships, of human nature, and of exactly how far I'm willing to go in order to make a buck.
On Saturday, I will complete my last shift as a server at the restaurant I'm currently employed at. I handed in my two weeks notice early in the month, and have been saving for just such an occasion all summer long. After I walk out that door, I'll hopefully be leaving everything behind for good.
I'm still trying to unpack what all of that means.
1. I first stumbled into a job as a host while I was still working at Borders in Dayton. I was about to lose my job, be unemployed, and have no means of income beyond working on my dad's farm. As that wasn't terribly appealing to me, I applied anywhere I could find gainful employment. This was my first real lesson in the fact that a theatre and film degree can be a real hindrance when it comes to successfully getting a job. The only place where I found success was with a McCormick and Schmick's in Dayton. I accepted a position as a host. A month later, I took a second job working as a waiter at Max & Erma's, my first real serving job.
I'll be honest - I went into both jobs with a great degree of trepidation. I'd mostly heard horror stories about working as a server from my mom, who had done it for a while while young and unemployed as a teacher. It's not a forgiving profession, and hard on your feet. That was what I went into the job with - that and a knowledge that many young starving artists had worked such jobs for years. A perfect fit, I thought to myself.
When I moved to Chicago, my hosting job transferred to the McCormick's in the loop. Eventually, I moved up in the ranks to be a server. I worked hard, and was repeatedly offered to move up within the company - as a trainer (a role I accepted) and into the supervisor training program, with an eye towards becoming a manager (a role I declined, repeatedly). At my peak, I was making more money than I'd ever made in any other job I held, able to live within means that seemed comfortable. I put myself through the writing program at Second City almost entirely based upon the tips I earned at the restaurant. I made some great friends, got fed a couple times a week, and eventually was able to support myself as I continued to pursue my dreams of working as an actor, writer, and director.
And I've never hated a job more in my life.
2. Don't get me wrong. There are perks to the job. Consider:
- Loose hours. I could set my own schedule at will - only working certain lunches, certain dinners, and taking off chunks of time for auditions or events or trips. This has ranged from short notice (there's always someone looking to pick up a shift) to long term (I took the summer off last year to go back to Ohio to direct Shakespeare in the Park, and more recently worked a significantly reduced schedule as I acted in two different plays and co-wrote a sketch revue). That kind of freedom and luxury doesn't come with every job, something I acknowledge.
- Holidays. While it's required to work holidays at most restaurants, my work ethic, dedication, and performance earned me a degree of entitlement towards making my own schedule, something for which I've routinely expressed my gratitude. While I've worked Thanksgivings, New Years Eve, Easters, Valentine's Days, St. Patrick's Day, Veteran's Days, and countless other important days, I've never had to work on Christmas or on Mother's Day. In the service industry, the latter especially is no small change, though if I had worked, I'm sure I would have had a meltdown to end all meltdowns. I still don't handle Mother's Day well. Until I have kids of my own (God willing/God forgiving), I'm not sure that I will.
- Food. As a starving artist, this doesn't just fall by the wayside. I've always been able to feed myself, whether through making more tips on short notice or by eating at my place of work. As a trainer, I would often get a free dinner. And we're not talking a small meal either - we're talking full course meals that normally go for $20 or more. Plus, all the bread/clam chowder/French Fries you could eat.
- Continued Entertainment. You'd never believe some of the people who come into restaurants. It's always a gamble as to who's coming in, and many nights, there's been unexpected surprises. Ask me sometime about the time I waited on Ne-Yo, or the former baseball scout who told Kirk Gibson what pitch to expect from Dennis Eckersly in the 1988 World Series.
At the same time, there are significant drawbacks.
- Oftentimes, you're never sure about how much money you're going to make. Sure, it's nice to set expectations, but realistically, there's no way of determining what you're going to make. On any given night, I could make $150 or $15. Which is all fine and good, except that I still pay rent at the end of the month, and have electric and cable bills, and a gym membership, and so on. I don't stop paying for that just because I didn't make much money in a given week.
- If I was sick, I couldn't exactly call off work. If I missed a week of work, that's 25% of my monthly wages gone. There's no sick days. And while I could plan for some nights where I knew I was utterly and physically incapable of working, I never had the luxury of not working for an extended period of time.
- Let's be honest about two truths - it doesn't take an advanced education to become a server. And it's a job that a lot of people are drawn to because they don't have many choices. I do not mean to disparage those who do it because they love it - I've met some of the best human beings I've ever known working in the industry, kind-hearted, smart, and tremendously entertaining individuals who have an honest passion for what they do. I've also met - assholes, racists, drunks, fuck-ups, druggies, idiots, morons, con artists, thieves, addicts, wanted felons, I could keep going, really I could, but just thinking back on the number of people I've known/worked with, it gets depressing.
I don't mean to call any of them losers. They're not. They're people. Everybody fucks up at some point. It's a given. Some people just fuck up more than others and are incapable of getting it together. I've seen people working with bloodshot eyes from shooting up earlier in the day. I've worked with people who've been thrown out when the manager discovers that they've been stealing from the liquor cabinet. I've worked with people who've been fired for one indiscretion or another and responded by storming through the restaurant flipping off every guest they come in contact with.
Serving is a rough life. You work long hours, oftentimes for little pay, and with very little job security. Seriously, I've seen people get fired for fuck ups big and small, oftentimes with very little notice. Much of the time I've worked, it's been with a cloud hanging over my head that at any minute, any wrong step, I would be out on the street without so much as a formal goodbye. It's nearly impossible to do good work with that hanging over your head. And yet, you just have to truck on. Because there's no other option.
And that's not even getting into the chronic unfairness that is the job of waiting tables. You go in, and you make less than minimum wage. We're not talking a minor drop - it's at least 50% less than minimum, most of the time. You are entirely dependent upon your guests knowing what is appropriate to tip (here's a study guide - 15% for adequate service, 18% for good service, and 20% for fantastic service. You should only leave 10% or less if your server completely ignored you, returned to curse you out for having weird hair, and then set you on fire. At that point, it's probably okay to leave $2.). I don't want to say that serving has turned me into a chronic profiler, but to an extent, it did for a long while. It became a habit to say "Oh, they're __________, they're not even going to leave 10%" or "Hmm, the ___________ must have a convention, guess who's waiting tables for free tonight?" At no point is any of that okay, which is why I remind myself nightly that some guests (those from foreign cultures especially) don't understand that servers get paid like shit in America, and the only way we make any semblance of a living wage is through tips. Woe to the people who leave Bible quotes or change. Few people realize that, regardless of how much I make in a given night, I am required to tip out the bussers, bartenders, food runners, and hosts who helped the guest enjoy their experience. Because of this, it is technically possible for me to have to pay to do my job in a given night - something that's happened before.
I could rant about the woes of working a shitty job, but I'd rather do this: if I ever hear anyone disparage servers as being "greedy", "selfish", "demanding", or "ungrateful", I will say something to you. Either you've never worked as a server, you're feeling self-righteous and want to lord over people stuck in a shitty situation, or you just don't know exactly what it means to support yourself (and sometimes an entire family) through begging for tips. I'll usually assume the latter, because I believe that if everyone was forced to work as a server for one year in order to survive, the world would be a much better place.
Stepping down from my soapbox, I will again say that in spite of my woes, I did make a living wage at my restaurant for three years, and was able to support myself in the early stages of my career. There are far worse jobs I could have had, and it was only a few nights where I left wondering exactly how much I was willing to jump off the State Street bridge into the Chicago River.
3. Now, why I'm leaving...
The first thing that nearly everybody I've told about my quitting my job has said is some version of "Congratulations!" To which I say: "THANK YOU!" Because I've imagined quitting this job dozens of times over the years. Whether in a huff or carried out on the shoulders of my coworkers, the "quitting" fantasy has been especially fervent as I start to find more success in other venues of my career. To finally be in a position to act it out - well, it's weird. I've chosen to just put my three weeks in, to continue to do my job, and to leave with my pride and dignity intact. Also, I'm not really one for giant spectacles of douchebaggery. So we'll leave it at that.
The second questions I'm asked, almost without fail, is more surprising: "Where are you going?" Not as in "where are you moving to" but in "what restaurant are you working at next?" There's a trend in the industry to bounce around jobs, to move to somewhere new when the current scene gets stale/you get fired for whatever reason/new management comes in and doesn't mesh with your style. In my time, I've seen over 100 servers come and go, probably 20 hosts, 20 bartenders, 4 GMs, at least as many management staff, and any number of cooks and prep workers. (Oddly enough, the bussers have remained remarkably consistent, with little turnover) Think about your job - how many people have cycled through? I guarantee you I've worked with more people - unless you're also a server. Anyway, it's almost expected that when you quit a restaurant job, it's on short notice, and it's because you got hired at another location.
That's not my reason.
I'm quitting waiting tables entirely.
My reasons are many:
- The stress of everything I mentioned above got to a point sometime over the summer where I began to actively dread coming to work. This isn't healthy. So I acted on it.
- I've got a great job at a company where I work with great people and do meaningful work. What started as a temp job has turned into something I'm proud to be doing, even if I'm only part-time and relatively low on the totem pole. I am content.
- The biggest reason is simple: I need more time to focus on my career. I've heard that statement dozens of times before: if only I had more time, if only there were more hours in a day. Well, I'm having that thought - I moved here to pursue a career in acting, writing, and/or directing. It's trending up, but I need to be able to commit more fully to what I'm doing. Because of the nature of my job, it's gotten too hard for me to do that. So I'm quitting in order to instill more discipline in myself. Principally as a writer, at first - there are at least three big projects I'm planning on/currently working on, and a myriad number of other things I'd like to do.
By quitting the restaurant, I gain back at least twenty to twenty five hours of work a week. Add into that: the hour of transit it takes to get to and from the restaurant, the amount of down time spent loitering about downtown before a shift because there's not enough time to go home, the few hours I do get to be at home which are spent feverishly cooking dinner, showering, and rushing to work, or the amount of downtime spent after a shift cleaning, waiting for people to leave, or endlessly folding napkins. It adds up. Trust me, I did the math at one point.
I also am alleviated of the weird schedule a restaurant can inflict on you. Before I got my day job, my schedule was erratic as hell. Oftentimes I would get home at 11 or 11:30 at night, too wired to go to sleep. This would lead to a late night of watching TV or trying to get work done, which would lead to me getting out of bed on average around 12:00 pm. Healthy living indeed - no wonder so many people with alcohol problems work at restaurants. The health benefits alone extend from there - not only do I anticipate drinking less, I also plan on finally quitting smoking for once and for all. The restaurant, I've discovered, is my trigger for relapsing into smoking - nothing else makes me want to smoke so much as being there. By quitting that job, in essence, I'm quitting smoking as well, something I've tried to do before and failed at....because I have to go back to the restaurant.
With a normal schedule, relaxed hours, and freedom from one of the major stresses of my life, I will hopefully be able to commit myself fully over to working on my projects. I've recently stepped up as Editor-in-Chief of the Addison Recorder, a role which hopefully I'll be able to play with better capacity now that I'm not working three jobs all at once (I consider the Recorder a job). I will soon have a new play that I want to workshop/stage readings for/submit for performance consideration. I want to start a new sketch group. There are so many things that I want to do, but have never had time for.
Now I have more time. And not doing them because I have no time isn't an excuse any more.
For the record, I've only saved up about $3000 to tide me over until about March or April, I figure. I still have my part time job at NCSA, but I figure that will only support me so much. There's a high percentage that I wind up taking a job as a waiter again in the future. If it comes to that, I accept it. Again, for the most part, I greatly enjoy the people I have worked with, have been treated fairly by the companies I've worked for, and have made a comfortable living. There's just so much more I want to do.
The other day, I read the familiar quote that goes something like "If you died tomorrow, what would people say you lived your life as?" I want it to be as a writer, as an artist, as someone who followed their passions, not as someone who worked part time as a waiter while half assing their career because there was never enough time.
Now, there's time enough at last.
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