The insane weekend that was Mother's Weekend

On another note... I worked all weekend. Made good money doing so, but it made for a long weekend. Friday I subbed at Saint Benedict, and spent the evening relaxing for a long/busy weekend. Saturday everyone in my family was up and dressed by 8:30, a rare occurrence for us. Chelsea had her first life guarding class, dad was brewing his summer ale, and I was heading off to work my (hopefully) last double. I needed to be at work by 9. I bartended that morning, and it takes me at least an hour to open the bar, usually more like 2. We open at 11, but we had a dance class at 9:30. That's right, those line dances we do at Texas Roadhouse... we actually have classes to learn those. So I spent the morning/early afternoon at the bar, took a 30 minute break, and then served the rest of day. I ended up clocking out around 11:30. So for those counting, that's 14 hours (w/o the 30 minute break). However, I made the money to reflect such a long shift, $159. Of course Mother's Day is the busiest day of the year for the restaurant industry, so that makes the weekend, one of the busiest. The first people didn't get cut until 10pm, we close at 11. Of course our MP spent the majority of the shift freaking out and fighting with the kitchen staff and just being very insecure all around.

On Sunday, I got up and went to church and then headed off to work at 3. I knew it was Mother's Day, but it is also Sunday, and I think having that mindset made things a lot easier for me. Plus, I didn't have to deal with groups over 5. A real plus in my book because parties can be bad, but parties on Sunday... forget about it. I don't want it. That's the fastest way to crush a server's spirit. I was very proud of myself. I stayed in a good mood pretty much the whole day (except when i started getting hungry before the pizza came). Our MP stayed fairly calm (at least calm for him) the whole afternoon shift too! I was very proud of him.

At church, the sermon was about sacrificing, the story was about Hannah and Samuel. And although I know that the pastor was actually talking about sacrificing money for our building campaign to expand our church, I took it in a different light. We had 6 doubles yesterday, and man do I feel sorry for them. Some made good money, some, not so good (it's those parties again). However, we also had 3 food runners yesterday. One in the morning, and two at night. Now on top of tipshare that we pay the hosts, SAs, and bartenders (3% of our sales) we also have to tip out the food runners out of our own tips. I usually tip $5 - $7 to the one food runner who works on Saturday nights, but I haven't had two food runners since I worked at the Evansville TRH. When the food runners were cut, tipping them $5 a piece (instead of say $3 a piece) meant the difference between making over $100 and not for me, so it was difficult for me to decide to stick with the $5 a piece thing. However, the food runners were cut about 9 when the first people were cut, and about 10 min later the next set of people were cut, and so the late nighters who came into eat got sat in my section. So I had three more tables before the night was up at 10. And their tips put me back over $100 in tips. $102 to be more specific. So whether it really is or not, I saw that as my reward for not being stingy with my tip out. :)

For the week I'm at 34 hours, after tonight I'll be at 38 hours and $284... not bad for a busy weekend. Happy Mother's Day!

Happy Mother's Day!

So this past weekend was Mother's Day weekend, in case anyone was under a rock and didn't realize it. :) In my family, we don't do a whole lot for Mother's Day, partly because Mom's Birthday is usually 2 - 3 weeks later, and partly because we're a super busy family, an it's hard to plan stuff like that. I got my mom a card and a gift card to Sport's Authority because she's a PE teacher and is really big into running. I figured she would enjoy that more than a Barnes and Nobles gift card (which I think is something I would enjoy more). I love my mom very much, and I think sometimes we don't tell her enough in my family. She gets up and cooks us breakfast on weekends, and listens without judging, and plays referee in our family. I think she plays referee the most because anyone who knows my dad, sister, and I knows that we are very stubborn, and very stuck in our ways, so disagreements are plentiful in our family. So here's for all the arguments she puts an end to, all the eyes she opens to the other party, all the breakfasts, and all the listening she does. Mom, I love you!!!!!!!