A Waiter's Job Is Never Done- Even While He Sleeps

Anyone who has waited tables has experienced the dreaded ‘waiter dream’. Mitchell would tell me about his dream and it was awesome. It was recurring and it would go something like this: The hotel needs a waiter to serve room service. Instead of being a normal ‘drop and go’ experience, however, Mitchell had to wait on 8 floors of people hand and foot, properly coursing up to 150 tables at one time. Yikes.

My dream used to be pretty chilling as well. We had put a grassy-knoll seating section back behind the kitchen. Now, you have to understand that I was working at the time in a restaurant with almost all hot plates. Here I was hiking out 2-300 yards up a hill with blazing hot plates and when I would finally arrive at the table/blanket, of course, there was no place to put the plates. Horrifying, right?

Well, even though I have only been working at the new restaurant for only three weeks, it happened last night. This was mild as compared to most waiter dreams but I’m fairly certain I’m the first one in the new restaurant to have a dream about the place. My dream, essentially, was that I had somehow slept in to be late to my shift. That would be a challenge to say the least, considering we don’t have to be there ‘till 4 in the afternoon, but I did it anyways.

I guess this means I am where I belong. Today is my 25th birthday and Good Friday. I have plenty to think about, and here I am at the end of the day, listening to the Giants game on my iphone and stressing out about my silly dream that woke me up in a panic last night.

I’ve been trying to come up with a pithy moral to the story but I’m afraid I only have a solemn warning. The next time you are in a restaurant, be sure to treat your server right. Call them by their name. Take a recommendation or two. Thank them for their service. By all means tip them 20%. Trust me, they will dream about the place regardless. Make sure that even if you’re not part of the solution, you are not part of the problem!