Welcome to "The Weeds." An Introduction to the Never- Ending Nightmares of a Waitress.

If you've ever seen the movie "Waiting", I have to tell you that it is quite the understatement. The portrayal of the restaurant business in the film was familiar, but absolutely did not do the ridiculous situations you find yourself in as a server justice. I’ve been in the restaurant business now for about 12 years and have enough stories to fill a book, but I thought a blog would be more fun. I know that my co-workers and I are constantly venting to one another about some of the most maddening things that we are put through as servers, but now through this blog, I want to bring the serving community together to share experiences that are relatable, and some that, luckily, are not so relatable. One of the most important things that I’ve discovered about surviving in this business is taking things lightly and not letting the many, many, many bad experiences eat away at you. Lets put it down in black and white, and laugh at it together.

For those of you that are not in the industry, and think that you may be the antagonist in one or more of our stories, it’s not to late to redeem yourself, and I’m here to help. If you don’t understand why you may have gotten bad service, or have a pre- conceived idea as of why you had a bad experience, I want to hear it. Maybe it’s just a misunderstanding that can easily be cleared up, then again, maybe not. I’m not saying all servers are extraordinary at what they do, I’m just saying that it’s an unpleasant job but somebody has to do it, and most of the time it’s full time students, single moms, and people just like you, just trying to make a living. The point is we don’t do this for fun.

The best advice that I can give restaurant goers is be observant. If your server is goofing off, not paying attention, or simply not doing their job, then maybe you have a reason to complain. But if you look around, and see that the restaurant is overwhelmingly busy, there was a spill, or another table is being extremely needy, consuming most of you server's time, take that into consideration. The possibilities are endless, so the benefit of the doubt can often relieve a lot of pressure for the server as well as the guest's feeling of being ignored.

Fast money? Yes. Easy money? No. A lifetime of memories, good, and bad? No question. I hope this served as a suitable brief introduction to THE WEEDS, it can only get better from here, and by better, I mean worse, because the worse the experience, the better the story. Like I said, lets put it down in black and white and laugh at it together. Hope you enjoy my blog and remember to tip your waitress!