My very first experience as a waitress was a disaster. To make money so I wouldn’t have to sleep in a van during spring break, I’d taken a job at a quaint, little restaurant in colonial Williamsburg my senior year in college. I’d worked in foodservice before, but never waiting tables.

The restaurant’s owner put his teenage daughter on the task of training me in the ways of being a good waitress, but unfortunately, the one thing that little girl failed to tell me was that when you take one bloody mary off the tray, you’d better be balancing the remaining bloody mary appropriately.

I know what you’re thinking…balancing a tall glass of red liquid with a celery stalk on a tray isn’t rocket science. Well, I don’t think I ever showed my pretty, little mug inside the science building while I was in school. I was a business major, and we’re not always the sharpest tools in the shed.

So, as I approached my first table, I proceeded to spill a bloody mary all over a sweet, little tourist wearing nothing but white. Luckily, she was gracious (way more gracious than I would’ve been and after thinking about it…was definitely a Cool Broad). I, however, was so traumatized that my knees knocked for the next two hours.

Needless to say, I quickly learned how to balance a tray (also known as “waiting tables 101″) and am proud to say that I eventually became a mediocre waitress. I didn’t have to sleep in a van when my girlfriends and I finally arrived in Key West later that year and I even have a greasy pizza box that I fished out of Jimmy Buffet’s garbage can as a souvenir (it was vegetarian).

But now that I’m older and my husband and I can afford to treat ourselves to a nice restaurant (every now and then), I’m always surprised when the service isn’t indicitative of what you’d expect in an expensive restaurant. Even when I was tossing bloody mary’s on tourists, I think I had a basic understanding of the kinds of things you don’t say to people you’re serving.

Here are 3 of those things that I still hear on a fairly regular basis:

1.   Well, I can see someone was hungry!

Another version of this objectionable comment is, Aw…it looks like you didn’t like your meal - obviously delivered with trying-to-be-cute sarcasm. Waitors who make this kind of comment should be taken out back and pelted with eggs. Pointing out the fact that someone cleaned their plate will get you nothing but a tiny, little tip.

2.   Can I recommend the most expensive meal and the most
      expensive wine?

No you may not, and if you get huffy when we choose the $30 bottle of wine over the $80 one, we will camp at our table an hour AFTER we’ve finished our meal. Recommend the dishes that you honestly believe are the restaurant’s best…and make sure that you’ve actually tasted the food that you’re recommending.

3.   It’s you’re birthday! How old are you?

Are you kidding me? If you find out that the people you’re waiting on are celebrating a birthday, congratulate them and offer to bring them their first round on the house (or sneak out a slice of cake with a candle at the end of the meal). Don’t ask them how old they are….that’s personal and for some of us, something we’re terribly excited about.

~tcb

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