"Training" Wheels

Currently I am the trainer at our restaurant for all newly hired servers. Some make it, some do not. When I started at this store ten years ago; I had been a server for 20 years, and thought that I had the job down pretty well. BOY was I wrong. It was the hardest job I had ever begun, and I spent the first six months just expecting to be fired at any given moment. It all came together after about ten months, and I started to feel a little better about my staying power. None of the people that I went through training with are even with us anymore. I know that people (some people) think of serving as a low class, demeaning job; but as I have previously stated... it is ALL sales and marketing. Some of the people that I train, listen to what I tell and teach them.. and end up as great assets to our company. Others... not so much! I remember when I worked for my previous restaurant... an Italian Pizzaria, I was a manager, and also trained new hires. I was training a young girl one night, when she came up to me and asked "Where can I find one of those silver drink trays?" I asked her very nicely, "Do you mean a pizza pan?" Needless to say ... she made it about two days, and said it was just too much work. Granted it WAS a lot of work. We made our own dough, grated our mozzarella, made our pizza sauce, lasagna, meatballs, marinara and calzones from scratch. That seems to be one of the main issues with training young kids.... "DANG, Am I really gonna have to work hard?" Granted, now I work in a town where almost every kid seems to have been born with a silver spoon in their mouth; and a new BMW in their driveway on their sixteenth birthday. I , for some stupid reason enjoy training people ( probably because I am so good at being bossy). Another reason is that I truly LOVE what I do. I make people enjoy and desire to come back to our store over and over again... and sometimes ask for me specifically. I went to college... thought about becoming a teacher... worked for the school system in our county for seven years, and naturally gravitated back to what I love the most. It is actually an amazing job if you do it right and are dedicated to your craft. It is all in the suggestive selling... offer everyone everything you have to offer, and it is incredible what you can sell.. "Oh yeah, I WOULD like some mushrooms with that steak!" Had I never offered them , they would have never bought them. Sometimes I wish we had cars or houses on our menu, because, BABY, I could sell it to some of them ! I was extremely fortunate to have a couple of the best servers we have train me, and I payed attention...and it payed off. I feel bad sometime when servers that I train don't make it, but it is totally up to them to make it or not. Although we are "just" servers... it is a job ( In my case a career) and as with any job, you have to take your responsibilities and duties seriously, or your customers are going to notice, and tip you according to your performance. My sister is a flight attendant... so basically we are in the same profession, except that she is locked in a plane at 30,000 feet with her customers, and they are paying a heck of a lot more for their meal, which happens to be a lot less satisfying than ours, and unable to be re-cooked. We often swap stories about our adventures and mis-adventures pertaining to our jobs.... (ones we both love and are pretty darn good at) . We have bounced around the idea of coming up with our own company ... just to train people the right and correct way...to be cost productive, efficient and environmentally correct. I think it is a good idea, and so does she... but till we get our bills caught up, and our kids out of our hair and bank accounts... we are stuck in our jobs... trying to train others to care like we care... and watching them fall to the wayside when they don't. Like I tell my sister and others when they complain about work... "You could always be Super Sizing it at the drive through window." I know that I am not a rocket scientist, or someone finding the cure for AIDS or the cure for the Republican party. I feel that I am doing the best job that I can , and making a difference to people that I meet, make happy and have asked for me, or waited for my table to come available; and enjoy the experience of me waiting on them and making their visit to our restaurant a good and memorable experience... one they want to come back and have again... Hopefully with me. Till Later... COTTON