Saturday, September 12, 2009

Why I pay for the privelage to work

So, I've worked at Applebee's, the premier fine dining establishment of America, since February 2008, so roughly 1 1/2 years. I started out as a host, with the intention to eventually move me to being a server. Once I made the move, I excelled (which is harder than you'd think [that's what she said]). Once I graduated college, I moved back to my little corner of hell in North Carolina & started working at that Applebee's. It sucked because a). I had to start over & wasn't automatically adored like at my other Applebee's & b). a different kind of bad customers.


When I moved down here to West Palm Beach I was hoping an awesome job in my field would just miraculously show up & if not I could get a job doing some other restaurant where no one would be immune to my charms. I ended up going to the 2nd best Applebee's in the area (the best one wasn't hiring, though they loved me & my friend Whit the Clit had put in a good word for me). First negative of this Applebee's is they weren't hiring hosts or servers. In fact the only position they had open was an expo.


For the one of you who reads this, an expo is the person in the kitchen who makes sure everything looks amazing & puts the little dressings in the ramicans & such as. It wasn't my 1st choice by any stretch of the imagination but I figured, just as in dating, that beggers can't be choosers. The 2nd negative of this job is that it's about 20-30 minutes away from where I live, so to give myself time with traffic, I have to leave about 45 minutes early. And I also only get paid $4.50 an hour, plus tipshare that is split between the host/s & bartender/s. So I'm making crap.


After working Tuesday & Thursday for about 9 hours combined, I made $14 in tipshare & most of the $4.50 will get taken out in taxes. So basically, I'm making crap because I'm wasting that on gas.


But this job is really difficult for me, because I'm really having to be assertive & while I can be a complete douchebag to customers that give me sass, I try to be as nice as possible to my co-workers. The thing is is that hardly anyone respects me as an expo. The cooks are supposed to answer me & keep me informed on what's going on & the servers are supposed to leave me alone & stop messing with the food. None of that happens. And I'm yelling for people to run food & I practically have to drug anyone to do so. This job just causes too much stress for the lack of benefits it provides.

Hopefully my resume will be done next week & I can start trying to get my name out there.


This is why everyone loved me.




Back when I had the long hair. An era gone by.




p.s AND the manager made me cut my hair!

1 comment:

Meara said...

:( That's terrible....you know, you'd probably make better money working at McD's...or WalMart...or pretty much anywhere where a percentage of your wages comes from tips.
And your manager's an ahole for making you cut your hair! Last I saw you it wasn't outrageously long or anything....