Three important life lessons I learned in the restaurant industry
Life is full of interesting characters and situations. Here are three great things I picked up from working in the industry.
- "You burn you learn" - Peaches
Peaches was a server I worked with many years ago. When carrying a heavy load or hot plate she would yell this so you knew she was coming. Sometimes she would even say this just so you would get out of her way when she was busy. Either way you quickly learned to move when you heard her say it.
Lesson - In life we need to learn from our mistakes or we are doomed to repeat them. Either you "burn and learn" or you are going to keep burning and making the same mistakes over and over again.
- "Backups for your backups" - Claire Bear
Claire is another former co worker of mine who insisted on always overstocking her station for the rush that may or may not happen. It never ceased to amaze me how prepared she would be even when no one else seemed to worry. She even brought in her own stash of Splenda from home just in case someone wanted the one brand of sweetener that we did not carry at the restaurant. Wouldn't you tip a little extra for the person that went out of their way to be prepared like that?
Lesson - Always have a plan B and a plan C. You never know what is going to happen in life and it is better to be overly prepared than to have to deal with an unexpected situation.
- "We want to be Smokey the Bear here, not fire fighters" - James
James was one of my old GMs and this was his favorite saying. His rationale was that fire fighters spent all day fighting fires and that Smokey the Bear figured out ways to prevent fires.
Lesson - It is more productive to spend a little bit of time planning on preventing a problem than it is dealing with one. This is especially true for problems that keep popping up day after day. Take some time every day figuring out how to stop potential problems before they evolve into real problems.