All About Work

Work is making me exhausted. Seriously. Today is my 6th day in a row of work, and it's my Friday (yay!!).

I guess I should give you a little insight into what it is I actually do at work. Well, there are several different kinds of jobs that I do.  I know when most people think of hosting, they think of the people who greet you at the restaurant, take your name, and then show you to your seat. This is exactly what I thought of when I thought of hostessing in a restaurant. But there is so much more to it then that. Of course, I've done the greeting thing where I check people in (this person is called, appropriately enough, the greeter. We also call this position podium.), and I've also shown people to their seats (also appropriately called a seater). But, as a hostess, or Front of the House (FOH) CM, I've also been in charge of stocking either the left side of the restaurant or the right side of the restaurant (known as left side or right side). We have side stations on both sides of the restaurant where extra place settings are kept so that the servers can just come grab them when they need to reset their tables. The person working left or right side is in charge of making these settings and ensuring that there are enough plates, napkins, forks, and knives to continue making settings. It's actually more difficult than it sounds, especially when you're having to hunt down forks and knives. The person who does right side is also in charge of making sure that the ice at the drink station in the kitchen is kept full, and that the butter that comes out with the bread is in the butter dishes and ready for the servers to just grab on the way to their tables. The person who does left side also helps with seating guests, too. Right side doesn't unless it's extremely busy. I hate being right or left side, because I hate stocking, but it does make the time go by a lot faster. So does seating the guests, especially when we're really busy.

The last job that I could do as a FOH CM is be the assigner. This is the person you see walking around the dining room checking for open tables and then assigning parties to them. I've shadowed assigners twice, but I haven't done it myself yet. To be honest, I'm not sure I want to. It seems to be a pretty tough job because there's so much you have to take into consideration. Plus, it wasn't really explained to me, I was just observing, so I'm not 100% clear on what to do.

All in all, I love my job. The Coral Reef is a great place to work. It's a beautiful restaurant with amazing food (yes.....I did get to do a tasting with one of the chefs! I love my job!) and great CMs to work with. And I love getting to talk to the guests and such. I have realized that there are 2 languages that I need to learn at least the basics in though--French and Spanish. I took French in high school, but that was so long ago, and I have forgotten a lot of what I've learned. Luckily, there are several CMs at the Reef who speak Spanish, so I should be able to learn some things from them. :)

Once again, sorry it's been a few days between updates. I've been working some long days lately. But, like I said, today is my Friday, so hopefully I'll get in an update or 2 tomorrow or Wednesday.

Have a magical day!