All I Really Need to Know I Learned While Waiting Tables

Well - maybe the title is a little mis-leading. But when it comes to time management, cleaning, organizing - I actually did learn a lot from waiting tables.

I was a server while in college - working at such fine establishments as Marie Calendar's, Houlihan's and Chili's. I loved it. It was fun, fast and good money. Everyone in the restaurant biz is friendly and outgoing, so it was easy to make friends and get along with everyone. Don't get me wrong - it is hard work. And if you have never waited tables, you might not truly appreciate all that the servers do besides bring drinks and clear dishes. It is work that requires you to be on your feet, everything is always greasy, walking on floors that always wet kind of work. The hours are long and late and dealing with cranky customers is just plain the pits.

At all three restaurants for which I worked, I was always trained to work my station as a whole. (A station is a collection of three to five tables.) For example -a good wait person will bring water to table fifteen, drop of the check at table seventeen, check in on entrees with table eighteen and get drink orders from table sixteen without leaving the section. The time it would take to run to the back and get the water, then run to the back and get the check, then run and get the drink order would result in too much wasted time.

Rachel Ray in her show Thirty Minute Meals shows a great example of how I would suggest taking the server's techniques and utilizing them in a home situation. If you have every watched this show, Rachel starts out with a trip to the fridge to gather items, then swoops by the back counter to get bowls and then a trip to the pantry to get spices all before setting anything down at her work area. The inefficient method might look like this - a trip to the fridge to get three items, back to the work area to put them down, a trip to the pantry to get the spices, back to the work area to put those things down, oh - don't forget the bowl, back to the counter behind her then a one-eighty back to the work area. It might result in a show called Forty-Five Minutes Meals instead.

Now you might be asking - why is Amy writing about this or how can I implement this line of thinking into my daily dealings? EASY! Just treat what you are doing as one job. For example - imagine you area picking up the house of clutter. By starting in one room, collect all the things that go in one area of the house and then deliver them. In my house, I have come up with a system of collecting items that are out of place then delivering them into their respective rooms. All the boys' toys, things for the upstairs bathroom, things that go on Tim's desk are carried away in one trip up the stairs and then delivered to each area. And just like a waitress uses a tray, I use a basket or sometimes my the bottom of my shirt to enable me to carry even more items. But picking up only TJ's things and taking them to his room, then back to get Joey's things and taking those to Joey's room, then once again back to get Tim's stuff for yet another trip upstairs - - I'm exhausted just writing it out.

The same concept will work for groceries. Instead of opening and shutting the pantry or refrigerator for every item, finish unpacking all the bags and make a pile of all the items that go in one area. Then put everything away at once. Same thing can be done by making a bathroom pile, a cleaning closet pile, etc and make one trip versus multiple trips.

Finally, the back of the house (kitchen and prep areas of a restaurant) is used to make beverages, collect dinners, ring up orders, etc. before a servers heads out the front of the house where all the guests and tables are. Find a nerve center in you home too. A place that everyone can drop things off that need to be tended to - things like receipts, mail, permission slips. Once these things have been dealt with - create another staging area for things to go "out". Save this area for outgoing mail, deposits for the bank, coupons, signed permission slips. As you are heading out the door, you won't have to run all over the house trying to remember what it was you had to do once you got out the door.

Once you start seeing your all the little tasks as a big picture you will begin to get the hang of it.

So - maybe the title was a bit misleading. I didn't get ALL I really need to know from waiting tables - I got all that in kindergarten. Remember this? http://www.peace.ca/kindergarten.htm
Until next time....Amy =)