Today (well, technically yesterday now since it’s 1:30am where I am), I went through my very first day of on-the-job training at IHOP, and I’m happy to say that it was a huge learning experience and success.
The training lasted 6 hours (the shift of the person who trained me, named Jackson) from 9am to 3pm, and I really got a first-hand feel for what it was like to be an IHOP employee.
I cleaned tables, wiped down counters, swept the floor, brought out and made drinks for people, wrote down orders, learned some of the “restaurant” lingo (like saying “coming in” whenever you are coming into the kitchen, and “coming out” for whenever you are coming out + “first round” + “got it!”), was introduced to table numbers, and got to meet more employees – just to name a few things. My trainer Jackson did most of the work, of course, when it came to actually serving tables. He introduced himself AND me to every table waited, and it made me feel pretty special. I found that I caught on with most things very quickly, and I was surprised at how much I actually didn’t mind/enjoyed each of the 6 hours spent.
The first day of training at any job, of course, can’t be told without noting some of the silly errors made. One surprising mistake I made on a few occasions was bringing out glasses of water to a table, but then forgetting to also bring out straws (my trainer and tables got quite a good laugh at that). Then I made hot chocolate on my own for one lady, and though I made the hot chocolate correctly, I found that I’d put too much water in the cup (as it started overflowing after I added whipped cream to it). I brought out coffee to a few tables and filled each customer's cup completely up to the top (I was supposed to fill it up halfway and leave the pot for the customer to add more as he or she wanted), and there was one time when I even forgot to leave the pot on the table with the customers and took it back to the kitchen.
I'd walk and pass by tables without checking up on customers properly, and I would notice only after Jackson would call me back to the table while I stupidly tried walking back to the kitchen.
There were a few times when I dropped a few dirty utensils on the ground en route to the kitchen dishwashing section (because I couldn’t properly stack them on the dirty plates I’d held also), and a few other times when I brought back filled (but finished) cups to be cleaned and ended up spilling whatever content was inside on my hands.
I even got parts of the uniform wrong, as I was supposed to have a white shirt with buttons specifically on either side of my collar, and I didn't, and how I needed to have no more than one earring in each ear (I had two), and how I had to put my hair in a bun instead of a ponytail since it was long and might have gotten in the food, and how I needed a black belt for my pants... All of those things. The lady who played manager for the day was nice about it, so even though I had to change a few things, I didn't mind it.
The most perplexing things that I definitely feel will take a while for me to master are the serving on my own, and working this thing called a micros computer screen for inputting food orders and making payment transactions. I feel like I’ll get the hang of serving once I actually know the menu really well and can pull out things to ask and say from it. But, of course, I asked some employees how long it took them to learn the menu, and they all either said “a while” or “like, forever.” Writing down orders in shorthand is something I need to work on a bit too, because I kept (mostly) writing down orders with no abbreviations and wouldn’t jot down every single thing a customer would say he or she wanted to eat. Or, if I did, then I was really slow at it. It’s a good thing that Jackson at least caught on with everything said that I didn’t write down.
The micros computer screen is confusing because of all of the buttons with abbreviations on them, and because there ARE so many buttons. A credit card payment transaction is probably the simplest of anything done on micros, since all an employee has to do is push a few buttons, swipe the card, and bring back two copies of the receipt to the table that paid. Inputting an order is probably the most difficult thing, since the number/kind of beverages served at a table = the true number of guests (and this is often not the same as the number of actual human beings at the table).
Jackson made a total of about $80 in tips yesterday, which isn’t bad at all considering it was 6 hours of work. A person making a consistent minimum wage of $7.25 would have only made about $43 (in fact, because I’m a trainee and not a true server yet, this is what I ended up making for the day). At the end of the work shift, I ordered my first free meal off of the employee menu: a simple cheeseburger with seasoned fries for the equivalent of about $5. It was definitely a great way to reward myself for a first day at work well-done.
I’ll return for my second day of training at 9am again, and I can only wonder what other things I’ll learn and try out doing today. I’m sure it’ll be another exciting time ahead! Only four official more training days to go :)
I think I’ll really grow to enjoy working at IHOP. At least for what it is, anyway.