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I must first start with telling you that I love my job. I love what I do--the busy, fast-paced work is exactly what I enjoy. It's not very monotonous, and I get to work with people, which I love. I believe that everyone should do what they enjoy--makes life a lot easier to bear when you are doing something you like especially considering how many hours/week you spend doing it. With that being said, I think that EVERYONE should be required to work in a restaurant for at least 6 months in their lives. You learn to be more patient, understanding, and the importance of alcohol--ok maybe not alcohol but the importance of having time to relax. It's the type of business that you work hard so you reward yourself with playing harder (with or without alcohol depending on your preference).

I have had some of the best times of my life while working in restaurants (I got in the business when I was 19 as a server and couldn't imagine doing anything different in my life right now). I have also learned some of the biggest lessons in life while doing this job. The greatest of all these lessons is to treat others with respect. Outward appearances are a "big deal" in today's society, but I'm here to assure you that some of the "best dressed" have been the most down-right awful people I've ever met. On the other hand, some of the people that may not have dressed/presented themselves as "high class" have been some of the most generous and nice people I have had the pleasure of serving--this is not true in all cases but it does happen so it proves that appearance isn't everything.

 Also, the most obvious thing it has taught me is the importance of tipping. In Oklahoma, servers make $2.13/hr plus tips. I know that it's not THAT low in every state because it's based on cost of living and minimum wage, but almost always servers make a lower than minimum wage rate of pay to offset the fact that they are also making tips. That means if you leave no tip (or practically no tip) for a server they are having to use that $2.13/hr to pay bills, feed their children, and buy gas to come back and forth to work for you to just come back the next week and not tip again. Can you imagine your boss walking up to you and saying "I'm sorry I'm too cheap to pay you today..." or "I'm sorry you weren't 'up to par' today so I'm not paying you rather than letting you know what you've done wrong". If either of those things happened you would be raising hell until you got the money owed to you for the job you had done--you're doing the same thing every single time you don't tip appropriately (at least 15-20% of the total is acceptable in case you were wondering).

Now that I've got that off my chest, I will step down from my soapbox and get back to my original point. I was certain when I started this blog that there would be plenty of stories about my colorful staff and the many adventures that happen at the restaurant day in and day out. They are an entertaining bunch to say the least. Tonight was a typical busy Saturday night and as some of the staff were getting off work they started sitting down at a table in the back of the dining room to eat and relax. There were several tables still eating. I realized I really had to pee (sorry for the overshare but I hadn't been all night and it was around midnight at this point) so I ran to the bathroom and about the time I sit down I hear laughter/screaming coming from the dining room just outside the bathroom door, and I think to myself, "If that's my employees out there making all that noise, just wait until I get ahold of them, it won't be pretty." So I finish my business and walk out of the stall as two of my servers come rushing in the door and frantically scream, "There's boobs on the tv! Like Girls Gone Wild! You can see everything! Hurry fix it!" And now I understand all the laughter I've been hearing for the last 90 seconds or so... I have just exposed the entire restaurant to full frontal nudity on the big screens. I'm mortified and frantically rushing to the AV tower (did I mention it's a restaurant/sports bar with approximately 50 tvs including 8 big screens and over half of them are showing scenes straight from a XXX site?). I hurry to change it and apologize to a few tables as I rush by them--thank goodness it was so late that there weren't young children around and my customers were still laughing about it, but I am embarrassed and may never live this down among the staff. I can hear it now "Do you remember that time you went to the bathroom and there were boobs on the tvs and we couldnt find you anywhere to get you to change the tvs because none of us knew how to change them?" Ahhh yes... I may hear about this forever....