Coworkers working with family and 5 cents

There are a lot of tight friendships at the restaurant then there are coworkers who work with family. Brothers, sisters, and cousins all around! I'm not sure how I'd feel working with family though. I'm the most patient person of my family and I rarely get angry about anything (except family but that's another story) so having to put up with family would be a challenge. One person, though, said it's pretty cool and they can give their sibling a hard time. I can understand that since I give people a hard time and they return the favor! Lately I've been joking about charging people 5 cents for each 'sorry' I hear...

We'll always bump into each other! Don't need to say, "Sorry" every time!

We always bump, touch, and squeeze each other and they always say they're sorry. 5 cents. Kitchen staff doesn't get tips so this is my sneaky way of getting a little extra... if they actually took me seriously.

Last weekend I decided to be social and go out with my coworkers to celebrate a birthday. I wasn't sure what to expect since I haven't been out partying for a long time and I don't drink alcohol (20 years!), and we ended up closing a very popular dance club! What a night! Wall to wall people dancing with some seriously awesome people! We talked about it the next day and the general manager mentioned it could be claustrophobic but I said my pantry position trained me for that 😄What prevented me from going out for the longest time was that I don't drink and I thought I'd be too old to hang out with these fine people. But now I realize:

I'm too young to worry about it and too old to care!

Enjoy life and enjoy being around people you love! Friendships can spawn whenever and anywhere, so take any opportunity to be around people who make you feel great.

I may have life experience but you have taught me a lot!

Another thing that's been on my mind is: we work to live only to live to work. Don't forget to live! We're brought down by finances and money truly does not buy happiness.

I forgot to live at some point

Working nights at a restaurant fits my personality pretty well being a night owl and all. I can imagine it can be rough with relationships for those who work nights versus those with 9-5 jobs. Weekends are nonexistent for us since we work through the weekends, while potential significant others would have those days off. Rarely any time together. How does that work? It can't be easy.

 Which comes to me thinking about how society views being in a relationship with a coworker. WHY NOT? Who would know you better than a coworker? Who else would know how you handle pressure? Especially at a restaurant? Sure, don't be too affectionate with each other, but the workplace is great for meeting people and there's a better chance of having schedules work out. Is it professional? No? But that's another test in the relationship. Restraint and professionalism. But what do i know? I'm single most of the time!

It's been a while since I posted a new blog entry but this lead from one idea to another, then the next thing you know I married the bread oven.

Slow nights with late dinner rushes

I'm never sure which is worse: being really busy or being really slow. What is irritating is when you finally commit to the idea that it'll be slow when a late dinner rush happens.

When a late dinner rush hits

There could be very little reason for someone to be on the clock and they're struggling to find something to do. All you can do is clean everything... twice... three times... then someone starts singing...

Disclaimer: This is not an actual picture of me and my coworkers

The guest list could be 10-20 people at any given time for a couple hours, then it'll spike up within an hour & a half of closing time... right when you think it's safe to do your closing duties.

Actual picture of guests when we're doing our closing duties (not really)

These late guests, which is the current trend for the last month, erase all of the cleaning and closing you've done in the last hour.

No matter how many times it happens, and it has happens frequently, you end up getting frustrated and tired! So the moral of the story is:

Be prepared for inconveniently timed dinner rushes. They will happen often because, well, we deal with the general public. On top of that, the people who haven't been cut yet will have to pick up the slack.

The restaurant closes at 9:00 or 10:00 so we tend to get things ready to close an hour before the doors are locked. Late diners tend to derail any closing attempts we try and sometimes we end up staying later than we want to. I come up with sayings, mantras, to deal with the job. In this case it's, "If it doesn't happen around 7:00 then it won't happen at all." Normally that's the case, but there have been frustrating exceptions! Last minute guests. UGH!