Are you a waiter? Know someone who is? This might interest you.
A Waiter’s Job Description is basically someone who takes orders from people in restaurants and then delivers them their food a short while later, they are also called upon for drinks refills, more ice cream, and any number of other things.
We’re talking about Being a waiter or a Waitress specifically, but this applies to Hospitality jobs, Bartending jobs etc. It’s a high stress low pay job usually, however there are tips and sometimes you get a day full of high tips, this is a bonus to the job.
You’ll probably also get access to lots of free or cheap food, leftovers or orders that were returned because it’s the wrong thing. These are usually put aside for the waiting staff to snack on. Waiting tables and being a Waiter teaches you a number of things.
1. How to be Patient with people you might not like
Being a waiter teaches you how to be patient with people, as more often than not, you’ll be faced with an annoying customer who just wants to be treated like a king and everything you do or say is wrong. They want their food and they want it right now, they can’t understand why it’s taking so long, or why it’s slightly colder than they would like.
But as a waiter, you’re in a ‘serving job’ meaning you have to be patient with this sort of customer and always keep smiling at them. No matter how much they annoy you, you have to keep a positive outlook. And that’s a good thing in a way because it sets you up for life with the right attitude.
People are always going to try and put you down, but you need to at some point learn to work through that, to ignore their put down comments and strive to become what you want to become regardless.
2. How to multitask
At some point in your life, probably sooner rather than later if you’re reading this you’re going to need, or have already needed to learn how to multitask. To do several things at once.
And being a waiter really helps you to overcome the stress associated with doing all of these things at once, because you’re used to it. You do it every day, there’s always someone calling out for more water, or saying their food isn’t quite right, and you have to remember each one of them and where they’re sitting, how long they’ve been waiting etc.
It really helps you when you have to multitask in other ares of your life, because you have that practice and you can stay calm under pressure. It can also improve your memory as it forces you to remember several things at once.
3. How to relate and talk to people from all sections of life
You will have to learn how to talk to people in order to succeed or enjoy life, it’s part of the game. You need to communicate your ideas as effectively as you can. Job interviews, relationships, social events, business meetings, you will need to talk to people from all walks of life and being a waiter teaches you how to do that.
There are all sorts of people that will come into your restaurant that you might not like, might not understand or might not even want to know, but you are forced to communicate with them and put your opinions to one side, for the sake of the conversation. This is a skill which you will need in life and it really helps to have the experience early on, in order to develop your people skills as you grow.
4. Put negative experiences behind you
Being a waiter, you will at some stage in your career, drop a plate of food, spill a drink on someone, mess up an order, annoy a customer, whatever. You’ll have a bad experience, that one shift where you’ll get home and not want to come back into work. But you move on. You learn to pick yourself up form those experiences, and keep going.
That really is the most important thing being a waiter teaches you, to move on with your life after you’ve fallen down.
Just get back up.
It might seem like the end of the world that you’ve just spilled a fish soup all over the customer who looks like they own half of America. You may well have just spilled seafood all over their suit, but it’s done now, move on. Learn from it, and try not to let it happen again.
5. How to appreciate people that work in hospitality
You will learn how hard these people work and how much they have to put up with on a daily basis, the complaints, annoying requests, irritating customers etc. It will make you think about how you act and what you say the next time you go for a meal or stay at a hotel and call room service at 4 in the morning because you want a burger.
If you’re interested in becoming a waiter, check online to see if any restaurants are hiring waiters/waitresses in your area, there are usually always restaurant jobs going. So there you have it, 5 Things Being a Waiter Teaches you.