Timing. Relationships, jobs, friendships, career shifts, love and opportunities in life are all about timing. If the timing is even slightly off, true love may never have a chance, a new friendship may never have the opportunity to blossom, or the opportunity for that promotion may never occur when you needed it, crushing your dreams for eternity. Life can throw you a massive curve ball at any moment, and depending on the timing of it all, you may embrace it in a positive way or spiral downward until you crash and burn up in flames, never to recover.
Same is true in the restaurant world, only on a slightly smaller scale.
I've touched on this subject before, but over the past few days it's become more and more prominent, so much so that I've decided to dig deeper into the topic. Perhaps it has something to do with the timing in my personal life, and the slap in the face timing - good and bad - at the restaurant too. Whatever the reason it's happening now, I know the universe has created this celestial, thought-provoking timing topic for me, right now, for a reason.
I was swiftly cruising along through my work day (as happily as I could be for the fourth day of returning back to work after a week off), when suddenly, every single table needed something at once. And as timing would have it, immediately. Ugh, stress retuned with a vengeance. It's disturbing how the flow of my work day can go from steady to freak out in less than thirty seconds. A new table had just sat and needed to be greeted. At that very moment, two other tables told me they needed the check - separate ones (six total separate checks for two tables) - and of course right away because they'd just realized they were going to be late for a meeting. I also had two drink orders waiting for me at the bar for two different tables and I was just about to go to the back and grab a side of ranch dressing for another table. Help! The most important factor right now - prioritize, multi-task, get help if I can and take a slow deep breath to regain power and quickly de-stress as much as possible, if at all. Step One: new table. Tell them I'll be right with them. Done. Step Two: Catch the food runner and tell him to bring me a side of ranch dressing for table four. Step Three: grab the drinks at the bar because people are much happier after they've got alcohol in their bloodstream. Step Four: print out six separate checks and deliver to tables one and twelve. Step Five: while they get their credit cards out, I head back to the new table and take their order, with my 'everything is all good and I'm not stressed out at all' smile and demeanor. Step Six: quickly pick up the credit cards at tables one and twelve and head to the side station. Step Seven: enter the new table's order as quickly as possible. Step Eight (clearly I could reach Step 218 by the end of the day): swipe all six credit cards and organize with pens and check presenters and rush them back to the tables. Thank them, invite them back and head back to the bar to pick up the new drink orders. Step whatever at this point: drop the drinks off at the new table while glancing over at my other tables, making sure no one needs anything else at that moment. No? Phew. Deep breath.
Later that day, I was making new friends at table ten. One was a yacht broker and another owned some vineyards in Napa (ummm... yes, I'd like to go out on your yacht and sip your wine tomorrow afternoon. Sounds like a plan! In my dreams). Every time I went to their table, I had plenty of time to chit chat. I found out where they were from, talked about wine (and of course my recent travels to Napa). We talked about boating and how I grew up yachting in Canada and Alaska. Shortly after their entrees arrived, I got sat a party of nine. At this point, I had to redirect my attention to the large party, which are always time consuming. When I checked back with table ten, probably after 15 minutes or so, I could tell they wanted to keep chatting, but I just couldn't spare the time. Then, before I could even get the drinks out to my nine-top, I noticed a new table of three, who of course looked hungry, irritable and ready to order immediately. And at that point, I realized my chances of talking any more to my yachter and wino were completely shot. By the end of their meal, after I'd "neglected" them for a while, they joked, "We're sad you didn't have any more time for us..." to which I tactfully replied, "I've got all the time in the world, just not right this minute." It was so frustrating, because as much as I wanted to get to know those two better, I just couldn't. Time wouldn't allow it. If that nine-top hadn't of walked in (and the additional three-top), who knows what kind of friendship I could have started, or maybe even a new career shift and/or a job opportunity. But instead, I was forced to do my present job, and take care of everyone as equally and as efficiently as possible. Of course, a couple minutes after my potential new buddies left the restaurant, my time freed up, and the flow of my section slowed back to a snail's pace.
What timing.
