Restaurant servers are known as those people who serve food and drink, typically at restaurants/events. They can often be treated with little to no respect and are regularly bossed around from guests and management, not to mention the amount of death stares they have to endure from line cooks. And right now, they are making headlines throughout America as they fight for a fair wage. At the end of the day, servers are mostly just hardworking individuals trying to make an honest living. And they can be some of the best co-workers to have.
Reasons restaurant servers can be exceptional co-workers
They’re from all walks of life.
There are few places you will find such a hodgepodge of cultures, personalities and ideas, as you will within a restaurant crew. Because restaurants have high turnover rates, it means employees come and go. This has a lot to do with the fact that employees use restaurants as stepping-stones to get where they are going. With high hourly pay and a flexible schedule, the job offers opportunities for everyone. From a single mom needing a paycheck to a pre-law student with debt, a novice chef to an economics student who just arrived from the other side of the world. The range is as wide as they come and that makes a most exciting team to work with.
They know how to have a quick conversation.
This is out of necessity more than anything else but servers develop keen skills to keep conversations short and to the point, with both the customers they serve and the co-workers alongside them. Servers need to jump to attention so ending a conversation takes being adept at staying polite but also moving on.
This is nowhere as easy as it sounds.
Support is plentiful.
From working as a team when someone is in the weeds to dishing out five bucks for a local theater production of “Hamlet” your fellow colleague wrote, directed and starred in -- when all are in sync, servers can be one of the best support teams you will ever see in motion.
One can even liken it to playing a sport, where teammates have other teammate’s backs because the game has to go on. Like players on a field, servers in a restaurant rely on working their part while working together to achieve a shared goal. The bond that comes from a rough night at a restaurant can be a most beautiful thing.
Strong personalities are plentiful.
At first thought, this may seem like it’s a bad thing and yes, there’s some personalities that are strong in all the wrong ways – like they use bullying or aggression to do their job – but supposing those are weeded out by management, a strong group of servers is typically filled with strong, affable personalities. The job itself calls for the skills of having a tough skin, quick wit and the ability to talk to people of all types.
And because of that, servers are some of the most interesting people you will find gathered in a group and more often than not, the conversation will be fascinating, revealing and hysterical. (It’s well known that many in the entertainment field partake in serving at restaurants as they audition and grow their audience, making dull moments very rare.)
They are incredibly flexible with plans.
Most servers have no idea when they are leaving work because it’s dictated by the powers that be who cut them from the floor - which means they take no new tables - and when they are done with their side work duties and their last table pays/leaves. A server in the exact same section could leave at 9 pm on one night and 11:30 pm on another.
It’s that varying. And because of that, servers know plans are not firm when it comes to dealing with work, making them a most understanding friend.
Something to remember when dining out
At the end of the day, servers are mostly hardworking individuals just trying to make an honest living. And these are just some of the reasons why they can be the best co-workers to have.
