How I see it

The schedule has been crazy!  I worked about a 13hr shift (compared to my usual 6hr shifts) then they gave me five days off, in a row.   I had a whole week off!!!  Though, they didn't give me the one day I asked for off. Ugh.

It takes a lot to work at a restaurant.  It requires a lot of patients with the guests and your co-workers!  Guests can be annoying and rude and down right crazy!  But that lasts for the time that they are there, in the restaurant, in your section, at your table.  After that you can shrug it off and hope you never see them again.  But co-workers. They're a different story.  They're the people that you know you're going to see again and again, and you could be their best friend one day and their most hated foe the next.  In a restaurant you have to share a brotherly bond with the people you work with because you're going to get close with them, physically.  You're going to share things and say things that you never meant to with them simply because they're there, you're tired and working hard, and they understand the pains you go through with guests.

Now, there's plenty of stories I could share about the guests at this restaurant, but let me tell you how I see it:

This restaurant is my restaurant.  I don't mean that I own it.  I mean that the section I'm in today is mine.  I'm (sort of) renting it from the "higher ups."

The "higher ups:"
The "higher ups" pay for me to be there, the supplies I use while I'm there, and the help I use while I'm there.  What they would give me for running this part of the store for them is quite a bit, but then they have to take some out for what they've supplied.  The stocked goods, the food, the building & maintenance of the building and grounds, the advertising, the help, etc.  So that brings their total to $4.91 an hour for me to be there running this part of the store for them.

My job:
My job is to take care of the customer the "higher ups" have provided me with through their advertising.  Take care of the section that I'm running and leave it in a suitable, clean looking section when I leave.   My real money is made through the customers: tips.  That's my real bread and butter.  The world could be in flames around the store, I could break my arm while I'm working, the worst disaster imaginable could happen and I wouldn't care.  While I'm "renting" this section, all that matters to me is that my guests are being taken care of well enough to pay me decently for doing so.  Which ends up being anywhere from $60 to $100 a shift, depending on the length of the shift and the "hot hours." ("Hot Hours:" the times when there is a good flow of people coming into the restaurant.)

Of course there are some flaws here: the guests are also paying the company for some of these goods, and the "higher ups" aren't always taking care of their end of the bargain.  The guest paying for the food they eat should return to me some of the money to my pocket from the company charging the guest for my supplies.  When there is not enough help (like when I have to be in the back making shakes and doing dishes which is not part of a server's job) or we run out of supplies (napkins, milk, ice cream, buns, ketchup, etc.) money should also be returned to my pocket for working above and beyond my job description and as compensation for the lack of tip when a guest is upset that we don't have proper supplies.

However, in the restaurant business these things happen sometimes, and I understand that! What I don't understand is how state law can agree to put us servers at below minimum wage ($7.93 right now in Florida.)  Or that companies, like the one I'm at right now, can put so many people on the schedule as to not pay for anyone to have health insurance.

I know that none of my co-workers see this job in the same light that I do (flaws aside) and it's painfully obvious when people leave without doing side work, without stocking up the service area, without saying goodbye to anyone before they leave.  When they just disappear and no one knows if they are actually gone or not you know that they know that they didn't do what needs to be done!  When I leave, I want to leave the next shift set up for success.  That includes making sure that everything in the service area is stocked and ready to go, my section is taken care of (caddies, tables cleaned, swept and mopped), the restaurant looks decent for the next guests, and the host stand is straightened up and stocked so that whatever is needed can be found easily.  That's it.  But then I have the audacity to expect that from my co-workers as well.