So I indeed did have and serve 2 main tables throughout the day. That was *MY* section. They were wall tables and were very small. In fact, some guests that I’d try to seat in my section ended up not being sat there because the guests were too big for the seat. Or at least they just felt very cramped, and wanted to move somewhere else. I suppose maybe that spoiled another 2-3 opportunities of earning tips from guests, but some sections in the restaurant are just set up to be that way.
The very first table I served was a senior couple. They weren’t too talkative, but they seemed to not have a huge problem with me. I got them coffee since that’s what they wanted, and I gave them the food that they asked for. The only mistake I made was not holding back the pancakes at a later time for the man in the couple as I had done for the woman (apparently they’d both wanted their pancakes after their other main meal). Luckily the man appeared to be understanding of the situation, but little did either the woman or man know that it was my very first day and they were my very first official table that I was serving completely on my own. They ended up leaving me a $2.50 tip, or something close to that.
Throughout the day, I didn’t seem to truly screw up anybody’s order. But, I have to say, if it weren’t for the help of my manager Santos and other co-workers around to help me input my orders into the computer, I definitely would’ve screwed up most of my orders to some extent. The computer system is really confusing, and it’s even more confusing when a guest just starts asking you for random items that he or she wants to eat and not a particular food item found on the menu. Basically, ordering a la carte can make things a bit more complicated, even if ordering that way does truly make the guest’s meal personalized. Christy, one of the other managers who is also a server when she’s not managing, got a little fed up with me on a couple of occasions since she was busy with her own tables when I asked her to help me find certain buttons on the computer, and when she had to get one of my guest’s drinks since I’d had Santos help me (rather slowly) input an order for that guest. A few people yesterday told me to not take any other servers personally in situations like that, and somehow I listened to it because Christy getting fed up with me didn’t really bother me.
I seemed to have gotten better and more comfortable with serving my tables as the day went on. Maybe after about noon, I’d started to appear more as the server I’d wanted to portray myself as. I’d gotten two cute Asian ladies who really loved “my atmosphere” and my enthusiasm I’d expressed when talking to them, and I’d gotten to serve a lady who actually helped open the IHOP I work at a little over 7 years ago. She talked with all the other servers as if she was a regular and she kept telling me how “cute” I was whenever I spoke to her at her table. I’d definitely enjoyed being able to feel like I at least did something right with my serving skills today.
After my rather easy side work (wiping down high chairs and booster seats, wiping down the service stations, and taking out the trash), rolling my silverware, and closing the check of my last table of the day, I’d gotten Santos to print out my “daily report” of my serving. The most important things that servers pay attention to on this report at the end of each day is the beverage percentage (which should be 21% or higher), the net sales (how much you sold in total that day), the turn time for tables (how fast a server can get the guest in and out of the restaurant – typically 40 minutes or less is good), and the total deposits, which determine how much money the server owes IHOP that day or vice versa. Of course, this having been my first time, just about all of these sections kind of sucked. My beverage percentage was at 18%, my net sales were at $156, and my total deposits yielded -$1.24, which indicated that IHOP owed me money at the end of the day.
Most of the time, it’s usually the server who owes IHOP money, and not IHOP who owes money to the server. A server knows when he or she owes the restaurant money when the total deposits number is a positive number ($0 < $#). Thus, when it’s a negative number, the restaurant owes the server money (in cash) before that server clocks out for the day.
My total in tips for my very first day added up to $33.60, which, even for my rather low standards for a first day, was just a bit disappointing. Other servers had gotten tips in the $50s and $60s. I’d hoped to maybe earn $40 at least, but I really look at it as having more money walking out than I did walking in. And considering my two SMALL tables that some people didn’t want to sit at, I didn’t do terribly. So any money is good! Tomorrow is Saturday, a busier day, and my serving hours on the floor are longer. So I hope that I can at least get $40 that I’d wanted and hoped for today.
There’s a first time for everything, and I knew that I would’ve had to face the floor on my own for the first time at some point. I’m glad that I didn’t make any customers angry at me and that I really had a lot of help figuring out what I was even doing. Now that I’ve been through it once, I hope that I can go in tomorrow with an open, more knowledgeable mind and make use out of some of the things I’ve learned from my mistakes. I hope that one of these days, I’ll be able to say I got $60 in tips on a slower day of the week, just like most other servers on the floor.
I can’t possibly suck at this forever anyway, right?