PM Lessons From Waiting Tables

 

My first two years in college I worked as a waiter in the local version of a well-known family restaurant chain, located in a rather large shopping mall. I had been working there bussing tables right after graduating high school, and was genuinely surprised at the promotion – this particular franchise had only hired waitresses previously.  I worked weekday nights and weekends during the school year, while carrying a “full-time” load at school, so I kept pretty busy.

The whole time I was doing it, though, I remember thinking that, as soon as I could get a college degree, I would then get a “real” job, and all of the unpleasant aspects of working in a family restaurant – wildly varying work load, difficult customers, low pay, having to constantly clean tables, seats, work surfaces – would be a thing of the past.

It wasn’t until much later that I came to realize that working in that environment gave me valuable insights into the world of management in general, and Project Management in particular.

My first surprise was the drop in my hourly pay rate. As a busboy, I was making around $2.65 per hour. But, as a “tip-eligible” employee, that rate dropped, I think it was by more than a dollar. It wasn’t a big deal, I would soon realize, since making more than one dollar per hour in tips was usually fairly easy.

Lesson #1: Your employer is probably going to pay you the least amount that they possibly can while still having the job performed.

Next surprise had to do with how much of an impact the others on the team have on your ability to attain success. I don’t know if this is the nominal model for managing the dining area of restaurants – I assume it is – but this one divided its tables into clusters called “sections,” and the head waitress would assign your section at the beginning of your shift.

Of course, some sections would tend to be more tip-generating than others, and were highly coveted. My expectation that section assignment would be on some sort of rotation was immediately overturned: it was obvious that the higher-tipping areas (those six-table clusters that would be filled before others) were being assigned to the head waitress’ favorites – and I was not one of those.

Also in-play was the behavior of the cashier/hostess, who would seat customers at specific tables. Make her mad, and she would alternately seat nobody in your section, or fill all six tables at once (“bombing”), making the providing good service to any of them almost impossible.

Lesson #2: The other people in the organization can enhance or ruin your chances at success, even if it does not appear that they occupy a position that would enable them to do so.

My solution? Get better by learning more, presenting cleaner and happier, and working harder. I continued for some time on the head waitress’ no-friend list, but the manager noticed the change.

Before long I was being scheduled to “open” the restaurant, the earliest possible schedule slot, meaning that I had to be assigned to the main sections. Soon my tip income increased to the point that not all of my textbooks had to be bought from the used shelf, and I could actually go out on a date from time to time.

Lesson #3: If you make the customers happy, the rest of the organization will perceive you very differently than if you don’t, which I consider to be a rather PM-centric phenomena.

Perhaps the harshest of lessons: Some of the others in the organization, even if they present as friends, will betray you for even the slightest advantage. A few of the waitresses who had initially congratulated me on becoming the first waiter in that particular franchise were among the first (and worst) when it came to alerting the head waitress of any mistake I made or flaw they observed, no matter how trivial. So that leads to...

Lesson #4: Be stingy with your trust.

Lesson #5: The use of ex parte discussions to harm the reputations of workplace rivals is by no means confined to the office environment.

I eventually became aware that my near-desperate attempts to get on the headwaitress’ good side were perceived by her to be an indication of a lack of character on my part.

Late one afternoon, when business was slow, I found myself standing behind the “fountain,” the workspace that had the coffee machines, soda dispensers, juice and ice tea containers, a sink, and a clear view of most of the tables in the restaurant, when the headwaitress came up and stood beside me.

After a long moment, and seemingly out of the blue, she turned to me and said “If it’s one thing I can’t stand, it's wishy-washy people.” I immediately recognized that she was, of course, talking about me. Without missing a beat, I replied “Well, you know, I can take them or leave them.”

The headwaitress struggled mightily to maintain her usual stern look for a few seconds, but then burst out laughing. We were friends from that point on, leading to the final takeaway...

Lesson #6: Don’t take workplace conflict personally.