Dear Management Staff- An Open Letter to Restaurant Managers

Dear Management Staff,

First off, I want to thank you for employing me.  I need a job, you had one available, we chatted and you hired me.  Now that I have been working for you for a while, there are some things we need to discuss.  This is kind of my pet peeve list of things that are going on in the restaurant.  Please feel free to address them as soon as possible.

You expect me to do many things in the restaurant- you want me to refill drinks a certain way, carry said drinks on a tray, greet the table within a certain time frame, show guests the dessert tray to entice them to purchase, etc.  If you want me to do all of these things, you need to give me the tools to do so.  If you want me to tray all of the drinks, please make sure there are enough trays for me to do that.  Because there are so many other things you need me to do for my table (I'll get to that in a bit), I don't want to have to look for a tray to bring a guest a water.  Same thing goes for glassware.  If you want me to bring the guest a new glass for each refill, make sure there are plenty of glasses.  Same goes for coffee cups and silverware.  Oh, and the dessert tray needs to be changed more often, after day four, they start looking unappetizing.

As far as my job, in general, it is pretty easy.  However, you always seem to make things harder than it should.  You always seem to be adding small things for me to do saying "If you do it like this, it only takes 30 seconds..." Well, this is on top of the 30 seconds you added to my to do list last week and the 30 seconds from 2 weeks ago.  Now you are wondering why I am not getting to my tables quicker.  It's because all of those 30 seconds are adding up.  How will you solve it when it becomes a storewide issue?  By giving me a smaller section so I can handle things better.  Now, instead of a 4 table section, I get three.  Instead of 4 tables getting turned 3 times for a total of 12 tables, my three tables get turned 3 times for a total of 9.  I am missing out on 3 tables.  That's probably $25.  Over the course of a week, that's $125, and so on.

Be consistent when dealing with servers.  If you let one do something, let everyone do it.  Yell at me?  Yell at him for doing the same thing.  Write he up because she is late?  You'd better do the same for me otherwise people will start taking advantage.  There is an old adage- "Treat me good and I'll treat you better.  Treat me bad and I'll treat you worse."  If you treat me well, I'll bend over backwards for you and the store.  Treat me bad and I'll make life bad.  I'll steal stuff, I won't show for work and I'll make the restaurant look bad in front of guests.  Want to fire me?  Go ahead.  I'll just go across the street or down the road and find something else.

Bottom line is- give me the tools (silverware, glasses, trays, etc.) to do my job the way you want me to, don't over extended me and then punish me for it, and treat me well.  Simple things.  Do these and we will have a good relationship.  Don't and I'll be across the street.

Thanks.