Working the Thanksgiving shift at Smoky Mountain is REALLY FUN!! I'm busing, which is new to me, and so far I'm having an absolute blast. It's totally my kind of thing since I'm more of a people person, so being out there amid the customers gives me a tremendous amount of energy. I thought the cooks were the most busy of the crew, but the busers are insanely busy too. I was surprised, I have to admit.
Tuesday was my first time working the busing shift, and that in itself was different. I got there at 3:48 PM, and there was not one customer in there. The kitchen staff was small and bored, and the server staff was even smaller and more bored. Cassidy's daughter Natalie was there, and Paul (the pasta cook) was playing with her and giving her bits of pasta. I felt like I was in the movie Mostly Martha (or No Reservations), where the cook brings her daughter to work and she plays with the other cooks in the kitchen. It was fun.
Anyhow, for a long time everyone was so bored, and it was all Ben could do to find work for us. Well, 5:15 rolled around, and we started getting a pretty steady flow of customers. Cody was host that night, and it was his first time, so I got to train him. It was strangely fun to get to boss someone else around instead of always being bossed around by others, hehe. Soon all the tables were full, and my job was about to officially begin. Once people start leaving, then I get to work.
Set 'em, seat 'em, feed 'em, clear 'em, reset 'em. That's how things roll, and my job as buser doesn't come til the last stage or two. However, with 20 tables in rotation (22, actually), someone is always on the brink of leaving. I'm kept busy, and I was glad of it because the pantry line was very slow tonight. We were upselling the pasta line tonight, so that line was particularly busy.
The Dinning Room was consistently full from them on, but it was never overwhelmingly busy. People weren't stacked up in the entry way waiting for a table. So it was a good night to learn the ropes for the busing position and I'm glad I worked that night.
Wednesday(tonight):
I decided it would be a good thing to invest in an apron since I'm working the Front of the House all this week. So I bought my apron and donned it for tonight's shift. Again, it was extremely empty for a while. Only one table for about half an hour. I rolled lots of silverware, and Curtis was working the dish pit tonight (which is the only station that the busers work with), so I got to bother him to wash more silverware for us to roll, since we were all bored. I tried to avoid talking to him, since he didn't work Tuesday even though he told me he was going to, but I couldn't avoid him for long. Bussers apparently have to talk to the dishers. Dushers and bussers are kind of a package deal or something. Anyhow, uh... where was I going with this... hm. Well, nevermind. Though things were slow to begin with, just like last night right about 5:20 people began coming through our main doors in a consistent stream.
The host tonight was Bryanna, and (like Cody) it was her first time. So I trained her as best I could and she caught on pretty quick! She never remembered to take off any extra silverware whenever she seated people, though. Cody did that too, and that drove me crazy, heh. I taught her how to read/write the seating chart, and to rotate the sections so that the servers were all pretty even in their amounts of tables. I taught her to work the till, and to take care of the carry-out orders and such. But then the first table left, and my own work began.
For a while it was a fairly consistent rotation of the tables, and that was nice. Then something happened, and suddenly there were twenty people backed up in the entry way, no matter how fast sped up my turnover time to. The pizza line was backed up seven minutes, and the pasta line was backed up fifteen. Curtis had to work really hard to crank out dishes fast enough for us. I was so glad that I had rolled so much silverware earlier because we were going through it faster than anything.
(wow its almost 1:30. I'm so not tired. Sheesh. I really should just finish this though)
Anyhow, it was insane for a while, and I had to have Casey help me bus for about half an hour. Once things were at a fairly controlled level I was able to handle it on my own.
Highlights:
Singing See You In September in the kitchen with Cassie and Cody when it came on over the house speakers. ("Will I seeeeee yoooooou in Septeeembeeeer? Or looose yoooou *bam bam* to a summer loooooove?" Such an awesome oldies song.)
Knocking over three cups in the dish pit and making an amazing attempt to catch them. I sort of juggled them for a full ten seconds and finally they went three different directions at once and I was left standing there dazed. Curtis and Ben applauded wildly for my valiant attempt.
I actually got to go behind the bar counter tonight! First time! We supposedly aren't supposed to allow minors behind the bar counter, but since am employee Casey said it was okay. I was just going around restocking things when it got slower around 8:50, so I wasn't plotting mischief. But it was really cool too see the room from a different angle. Sort of like looking into the kitchen from the servers' station at the far end of the Dining Room. That was weird.
Oh! And I got to take the garbage out to the dumpster out behind the mall! That was a first too. It was about 10:45, and the mall was all locked up and dark. Curtis had to show me the way, because I've never gone out the back way before. It's down the hallway by RiteAid, apparently, and through these two hidden doors off to the left, and since the lights were all off, he had to show me where they were. And they lock from the outside, too, so he held it open while I chucked it into the dumpster across the lot. It was really weird to see the mall all dark, though. I'll probably never get over that. I've been scared for life.
About half an hour after closing, three policemen came in and asked to talk to the manager, and for about thirty seconds the entire kitchen staff was afraid we'd done something wrong(like charging a customer waaaay too much, or poisoning someone, or... well, there were a lot of different theories as to what we could have done to have called down the law on us so late at night). Ben had gone home long ago, so we didn't really have a manager with us. Casey is head server, though, and was in charge of cleanup, so we sent him out to talk to them, and a few minutes later he came back and said they just wanted to know if they could still come eat even though we were technically closed. We hadn't turned off the ovens, though, so I wiped down the best table we have, and Casey served them himself. The girls were all wowed that they had their guns on, and it was all I could do to keep them from going over and asking what kind of guns they were just so that they could say they had "chatted" with a policeman that night. *rolls her eyes*
Taking out the garbage was my last chore, and I was phased by 10:55. Taz made me mozzarella sticks (which I almost always get now. I HIGHLY recommend them), and I ate them on my way home. Tonight was a good night, and no matter how much my feet may hurt right now, I'm excited to be back on Friday night. I'm always happy at Smoky Mountain. One more busing shift left, and then I'm back to Pantry on Saturday night. Hooray for Smoky Mountain! I seriously love my job.
Happy Thanksgiving!!
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