A painted smile and some speed

I used to work in a restaurant. Actually I've worked in several restaurants. From Pizza Hut to Roy Roger's (for you east coasters), to fancy schmancy places in New York City. Just in New York alone I did 10 years of being a server. That was after the burger flipping jobs and pizza making jobs and all the other stuff I did besides working in TWO different light bulb factories in TWO different states!

Anyway, back to New York and the restaurant jobs. Speed. When you're a waiter you need speed. You want to be ahead of the customer at all times, and you will do anything to stay ahead. And since I was waiting tables in New York, with the most impatient people on the face of the planet, you really needed the speed.

The last place I worked, which shall go nameless because it is not uncommon to see this place on TV, had a locker room downstairs for the employees. I shared a locker with two crazy people but they were nice enough to allow me to decorate the locker as I saw fit. Besides the obligatory pictures of Famke Janssen and some Sorayama pictures, I had at the bottom of the locker a postcard of an old circus advertisement. This was a drawing of a smiling clown from somewhere in Europe and as I said he had a big smile on his face. Everyday, before every shift I would look at that photo of the clown and remind myself to paint a smile on my face before I left the locker room. And so I did. Before every Friday night closing shift that started at 5pm and ended at 2:10am where you could easily have 42 covers (customers for those of you that have never had to wait) at one time. That my friend is a lot of people to keep happy, and that was just the first seating! At the end of the night you could do 80, 90 covers easy. And this was fine dining, we weren't throwing hot dogs at these people.

Speed. I got so good at my job, I could listen to a customer complain, acknowledge other customers, and make my shopping list for after work all at the same time.
Sometimes when you have a big table, you need the help of your co-workers to carry out the customer's plates. Like I said, speed. Using that numbering system frequently didn't work as people would move while the food was cooking and Aunt Harriet and Uncle Bob would get the wrong thing. So, rather than go into a lengthy explanation of who gets what, it is easier to say this... "Baldy gets the fish, Bucky the Beaver (a child with buck teeth) gets the chicken, old man gets the steak, the uptight lady gets the fish with the sauce on the side, and the bastard guy gets the lamb." In all the years I waited, whenever I had to help someone and they said the bastard guy gets this, or the lady with the attitude gets that, I never made a mistake. You'd walk right up to the table and you'd know, "Oh, he's the bastard guy and she has to be the lady with the attitude." That was a great time saver. And I did it all with a painted smile on my face.