One thing that I have heard throughout my working life is that everyone should work in some sort of customer service at some point in their lives. This is true. Until you have had someone screaming and/or belittling you in front of a room full of people you have no idea how hard it can be to work with the public. There are many things that I have learned waiting tables that have helped in other areas of life. Many of them can be transferred over to other industries, and they are skills that help when dealing with difficult situations.
When I started working at 16, I never thought that there would be so many skills you needed to have in order to work with the public. I thought you just did your job and that was it. How naive I was. Over the last 20 years, I have learned things like how to deal with difficult people, when to back down, how to stay positive and many others.
So here are the 5 main things that I have learned waiting tables
The customer is not always right.
On the contrary, they are more often wrong. Every day I explain to someone that I do indeed know how to do my job. I’ve been working at the same place for 15 years. So I have a little bit of experience. The menu items have not changed, in fact, they always come the way they are stated on the menu. Extras and add-ons cost more money and it’s not my fault that no one charged you for them in the past.
This doesn’t happen only in restaurants. I have had the same experience wherever I’ve worked. It didn’t matter if it was a retail store or a gas station. Most people do not act like that, but there are a few that always think that they are right. The main thing that these interactions have taught me is to keep my cool, and just try to be as nice as I can when correcting them.
They may not always be in the right, but I still pretend they are.
You need to have a good memory.
It doesn’t matter if you work in retail or in food service. If you want to do well, you need to have a decent memory. From product knowledge to store layout. If you can’t remember where something is or details about items, you will not do well.
There are different things that you can do to improve your memory, but the most important is repetition. The more you repeat things, the easier it is to commit them to memory. Getting rest and eating well are also factors that can contribute to how well you retain information
Related Reading: Server Thoughts: Things I hear at work, and Memory tips for servers.
You need to be able to multi-task.
Being able to multi-task is a huge benefit when you work in foodservice and retail. There are times when you have 3 or4 people asking you for different things at the same time, the phone is ringing and there is a line at the register. So, there are times when I am trying to get something for a table, but then help ring up someone, answer the phone, and hand out an order. All at roughly the same time. If I didn’t figure out how to multi-task early on, I would have lost my mind a long time ago.
This doesn’t always happen, but it gives you a good idea of what I mean by multi-tasking. This obviously isn’t the best way to interact with customers, but when it’s really busy it’s just the way it goes.
Being able to hide how I really feel
This isn’t necessarily a skill as much as a mindset. There have been days where I just felt like crap and didn’t want to be there at all. But I have what I call my “server face” that I use when I am having a particularly bad or difficult day. By having a way to mask how I am really feeling, customers don’t have to deal with a grumpy server when they are trying to enjoy their meal.
This does not mean that I don’t deal with whatever the issue is, it just means that I deal with it AFTER my shift and not during. (Though I have found that just by putting on a smile I usually get into a better mood anyway) This makes it easier to deal with whatever the problem is more effectively later.
You need to be able to read people
Not every person will react to your personality in the same way. One person at the table may like your silly or sarcastic personality, but others at the table may not. You need to be able to figure out within a few minutes how to interact with the people at the table.
This is a skill that is crucial to becoming more than just an average server. Being able to instantly know how to interact with new customers can set you apart from those that treat everyone the same no matter who they are.
Final thoughts
These are not all of the things that I have learned waiting tables over the years. They are just some of the ones that I think are important in other parts of life. No matter what field you work in, these are things that can help you do well in whatever job industry you find yourself in.
If there are any other things that you have learned from your own job let me know in the comments!
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