Worst Job At The Restaurant?

What do you think the worst job at a restaurant would be? Dishwasher? Cook? Manager? In my mind they all have significant minuses, but they all have pluses as well. In my humble opinion, the worst job is held by the hostesses/hosts.

I started thinking about this when I went to the front of the hostess station to ask if a table was mine and the host said "Don't hate me, they made me seat 17!" with a genuine look of fear in his eyes.

In many ways hostesses have no friends at a restaurant. They are continually in conflict. First, they are in conflict with the guests. You come into the restaurant and want to be seated - they make you wait. They are continually under the icy glare of patrons waiting to be seated. If they underestimate the time for a wait - bam, angry people! Also, guests can be incredibly unreasonable when it comes to waiting. "What, our party of 20 has to wait an hour after we came here without warning on a Saturday night? Are you out of your mind?!!" You'd be amazed at the abuse hostesses take from guests. Guest are ignorant to servers as well but at least they know the servers have control over their food and have some incentive to attempt civility. Hosts and hostesses are just obstacles to be overcome and by any means necessary. Hostesses just take crap, that's their unwritten job description. I believe that I have seen all of the hostesses cry or break down at our restaurant after being screamed at by angry guests. Yikes!

The hostesses are also in conflict with the servers. We either want them to seat us (cause we're bored) or not (because we are weeded). (Weeded means completely overwhelmed by the way). Hostesses are supposed to space tables out (5 or 10 minutes between new tables being seated in a servers section) but if a hostess is under pressure at the the front to get people in they will double seat (seat two new tables to a server in a short time frame) or triple seat. This kills most servers (leading to the aforementioned weeded state). Thus the server gets angry and freaks out at the hostesses. Also, servers usually want to get off their shift as soon as possible so if a hostess seats them when they want to go home - look out! Servers are usually emotional and expressive so when they get angry it's always fireworks. Servers see hostesses as a necessary evil whom they bless when times are good and curse (literally!) when they are bad.

Managers are always on the hostesses for getting more people quickly into the restaurant. Managers hate to see people waiting in the lobby. This pressure on the hostesses leads them to make errors like double/triple seating servers intentionally or by mistake. Sometimes in their haste to get people in they'll seat guests in a section that has no server yet. When this happens there is anger from 1. guest 2. servers 3. managers.

Lastly, hostesses when they are not busy stand around at the front where they gossip incessantly about . . . well . . . lots of things but mostly about each other. Thus the hostesses are actually often in conflict with . . . themselves! It seems to me that they are harsher critics on each others performance then anyone else in the restaurant. Stabbing each other in the back is both common and savage.

Through all of this stress the hostesses are supposed to be charming, warm, friendly, helpful, patient and professional. They don't (usually) make tips either. So the next time your sitting in a line at some restaurant, full of rage at the hostess who quoted you 15 minutes and it's now been an hour - remember; you are just one of her assailants today. Have pity on her, she's choosing everyday to be verbally abused and attacked so that you can have your dinner. Be gracious when the urge to be cruel to her comes up, you'll be in the minority who treat her well.

May Light increase!