Post Punk Kitchen Forum

Wait-Mares! Oh those are the worst, awful dreams! Like the dream that you just can't bring any drinks to the tables - more and more customers keep coming in, and you get more and more weeded but still can't get the drinks from the bar. I worked in a college bar before and for the longest time i had a recurring wait-mare involving a large table of sorority girls ordering all different frozen drinks.

I wish I made anywhere near 55k.

I don't know what it is now but in San Diego, I think the starting salary of a teacher used to be $50k and that was nearly 10 years ago. Also, in regards to Masters, I was told that they actually wouldn't hire a teacher with no experience and a masters because the starting salary was higher and they didn't want to pay more for someone who had no experience. So most teachers I knew wouldn't get Masters or if they did, they'd get them after 10+ years of experience.

I also thought California might have a state minimum in general but I'm not sure. I think they have a single, state-wide teacher's union.

55k usd is like 4 cad or whatever equivalent in beavers you use on the island

I'm kind of finding that in my field too. I have a Masters but not tonnes of experience (measured in beavers: about 3.5 beavers), so I'm often passed over for being overqualified but under-experienced. And I've worked so many jobs in my life, because I get restless and keep looking for the perfect fit.

(we're okay with this thread's derail, right?)

I think this thread officially went off the rails when it became about dog's anal glands.

Sig-worthy.

My only really bad waiting experience (besides lots of non-tippers) was a guy who insisted that his fork wasn't clean and although I brought him many other forks, no fork was clean enough. He got angrier and angrier and started yelling at me, then accused me of being racist (because I am white and he was black) for not bringing him a clean fork (all the forks were clean!!!! they couldn't have been cleaner!). Eventually I asked another (black, male) server to step in for me and things went much more smoothly between them. I think about that guy not infrequently.

I never had a customer go off on me personally about racist treatment but it sure did happen with co-workers. Often the customer was right (obvs not in your case). There were common racist stereotypes among waitstaff in all the places that I worked. Many times the customer was treated poorly (or at least with bare minimum service) because of the no-tipping stereotype. So maybe that guy was just defensive because he was used to being treated poorly in other places. This doesn't mean it was OK to rant and scream though!

I have a million horrible stories from waiting tables but what comes to mind at the moment is having to clean up puke and shiitake at the college bar. Hey kids, when you have to puke, do it in the toilet! Not on the table, not in the sink, not in the urinal. You would not think I would need to say this, but the same goes for shiitake. shiitake in toilet = yes! Green check mark! shiitake on wall = No! Red X!

and I guess I am proving the point that every ppk thread ends up with poo talk...

This is all that needs to be said about the joys of the waitstaff experience.

The masters thing for teachers is regional. Here, you are unlikely to get hired by any but the most rural districts without one, and that's because those districts are miserable to work for and have very low pay, so they have to hire new science and math teachers pretty much every year, so their pool of potentials is smaller and those people leave as soon as they can find a job elsewhere. (in a few one high school counties, they are hiring the same small positions every. single. year. It's weird.)

Sig!

Also, I totally wish I'd been reading this thread in real time. It's amazing.