April 26, 2005

• It's Official - I'm just a Stinkin' Showoff

  
  

  Okay - here's the deal.  Many restaurants these days require the wait staff to pass a test on the menu.  Name key ingredients in differen recipes, know the applicable food service laws and standards, company policies and etc.  At the one I'm working for, they give you the test at the end of your fifth day of training.  For me - that would be - today.

  
  

  I really do love this job.  Compared to the high anxiety that comes of working working working on a mortgage application and then having the people who've used up a week of my time say, "Well, thanks for all that work but we've decided to go with  XYZ Lending because my brother's best-friend's girlfriend (who he just broke up with so she needs to be cheered up) is a loan officer over there and we want to be nice ....   You just have NO idea HOW many loans I've been working on but I haven't had one actually close since January.  That's a long time to go without a paycheck.

  
  

  So anyway, the point is - I really love working in the restaurant.  The crew I'm working with is fantastic.  The whole atmosphere is one of teamwork and positive encouragement.  It's just really nice.  So today I was supposed to be taking my final exam.  It's four pages of fill in the blanks and list 10 of these or 12 of those - not the SAT but not a blow off thing either. 

  
  

  Just before I was to take the exam, my trainer announced that I hadn't been ordering enough food.  See they really want you to try a lot of the different menu items because how will you know when the guest asks about the salmon if you've never had the salmon.  (We serve it three ways, blackened, grilled or with this teriyaki sauce that is really yummy. - not a question from the test - but you get the idea.)

  
  

  So I sat down with the paper and here comes Indie.  I have no idea what Indie's real name is.  Something Indian and he asked them to just put "Indie" on his name badge.  He sat down next to me and asked me how I like working here and whether Erika (my trainer) had done a good job with me.  Before I'm finished answering his question, here comes Steve, another of the trainers, along with Nikki whom he's training.  They joined us and started talking about the training process, what's good about it, and how far into it you should be before you're allowed to wait on a party by yourself.  I didn't want to brag or intimidate Nikki so I just smiled and nodded and didn't mention that I had two parties during lunch.  One with 10 people, the other with 8 and I was still taking care of three "regular" tables at the same time. 

  
  

  Before long we were joined by Jessica and Crystal.  In case you're wondering where my trainer (Erika) was while this party was forming - she was in the kitchen putting in the order for my "lunch".  Remember how I said up there two paragraphs ago that she didn't think I'd been ordering enough food?  Well, today, she ordered on my behalf instead of allowing me to put it in the system.  Spinach/artichoke dip, black and bleu chicken quesadillas, bleu cheese and walnut salad, blackened sirloin steak with veggies AND fries (because Erika has figured out that I don't really like fries and she knew that I'd say "Here, why don't you have these ..."), grilled chicken and fettucine alfredo, and dessert - pecan and chocolate chip pie with whisky sace.  When Mike started bringing the plates out I thought he was bringing the food that EVERYBODY ordered.  But no, he put it all in front of me. 

  
  

  THEY ordered their own food.  I'll admit that I at least tried a bite of everything - including the dreaded fries - but holy HANNAH.  I brought home six containers of food.  So the boys are happy. 

  
  

  And remember while all that was going on, I was supposed to be taking a test.  There were a few questions on the test where Erika said "They'll ask you for 6 if you can list 8 that's worth an extra point."  And well, if you make 100 on the test you get to trade in your regular name badge for a gold one.    I kind of wanted that gold one. 

  
  

  After it was all over and she graded my exam - I got 111 points.    Which the others hooped and hollered about and Erika said that may be a new company wide record.  It's certainly the record for Colorado.  SO you wanna know exactly what's in the quiche lorraine or the pasta jambalaya? 

  
  

  Actually, some of our recipes are posted on a web site, and if you don't live anywhere near one of our places, you can try it at home.  But of course you won't get the happy crew to treat you like royalty.  Which we strive to do for everyone.  We are especially cool about children with crayons, games, and a menu that allows them to pick and choose have refills on anything they want or if say they order the chicken fingers and then decide they'd rather have pancakes?  No problem, we'll make the pancake (if Mom says it's okay of course.)

  
  

  Mostly our restaurants are in the West - but we have one in Ohio and I think there are several in Florida.  Check us out  HERE.

  
  

  And Bob - if you want to have that conversation about books, or just about anything ... the time to show up is 3:00.  That's when there's just no one in the place and you can be treated like a king AND have me pull up a chair.  You don't even have to worry that I'll steal your fries. 

  
  

   

  • 7:35 pm
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