The Evil Monkey can spot "that guy" from a mile away
Friday I began a countdown of the top ten things rookies should avoid saying to not be labeled “that guy.” It is never easy to be a rookie. It is also not easy to deal with a rookie who always seems to be in your way as a veteran. These are the mistakes every rookie should make an effort to avoid in order to prolong the patience of the veterans on the staff. This is a list of very easily dodged potential landmines in a new working environment.
The first items on this list were more related to things “that guy” does to annoy his coworkers. This section of the list represents the things that are done to offend your coworkers. Being annoying is significantly more forgivable than being offensive. The first six items on this list could be considered minor infractions. The top four features ways to permanently annoy your coworkers. Any of these violations could result in you being labeled “that guy” forever.
Here are the top four infractions that could make you “that guy.
We were all rookies at one time. We walked in confident the first day at a new restaurant only to end up with a deer-in-the-headlights look by the first rush. I’ve worked at plenty of restaurants over the years and know the feeling all to well. I have most certainly been “that guy” as well. There is something unnerving about being a rookie at a new restaurant.
I have also been the veteran at several restaurants. I have been around long enough to see countless rookies come through my restaurant and make the same mistakes. Most of them are incredibly well meaning. I try to be patient with all of them. Sometimes I even bother to learn their names after a couple of months.
For this week’s recommended reading post, I decided to try something a little different. Normally on Mondays I post a series of articles that I found interesting over the last week. This week, I decided to highlight some of the funniest videos on the internet about servers. Most of us get to work with some incredibly talented people. Some of those talented people spend their time in side stations trying to come up with ideas to make us all laugh. After spending a few hours looking up old favorites and finding some new ones, I wanted to share some of the best groups out there making funny videos about serving.
Black silhouette guy was driving the workman's comp premiums through the roof
From the statistics I get through WordPress, I can tell that about half my traffic comes from search engines. Which is cool and I enjoy seeing what people search for to end up at my blog. The other half is people who came here via a link someone posted or have the page bookmarked. For the second group, I have been trying to think of some way to make this blog more interactive. I try to ask at the end of most posts for feedback and don’t get many takers. The thing is that I know many of you have far more interesting takes on any number of the topics discussed in this blog. So today I am going to try a new feature called “Story Time.”
The idea of Story Time is that everyone has a story to tell about certain topics. They are the stories that get pulled out after work at the bar or in side stations while waiting for a table. I have a favorite story for most of these topics. I am sure you do too. So just pretend that you are sitting around a high top sipping a cool beverage and tell your tale in the comments section.
Today’s topic is workplace injuries. A coworker who hurt himself inspired it. He looked over at me while doing his checkout and said, “You know what you oughta write about on your blog thing is getting hurt at work.” I wasn’t sure what angle to take on that issue. For the record I am opposed to getting hurt at work. Please don’t do it. If you do get hurt though could you possibly do it in a really funny way?
R. Charles Pennington IV is best known for his role as the Zoloft rock, but also was the lesser known character Ronnie the Roll
Being less than a week away from my 100th post has left me some time to think about how I want to recognize that milestone. I thought about a grand countdown. I thought about an retrospective on all of the changes I have seen in the restaurant business in my years. I had an idea sent to me for a very controversial point/counterpoint. I even considered just waxing poetic on the business as a whole in a pretentious and self absorbed way. I decided to skip that last one so as not to steal a certain someone’s shtick.
Instead I decided it was okay for me to phone a couple of these in. 100 posts in under 5 months is a pretty feverish pace for a blogger considering the size of most of my posts. Posts that require research have hours poured into them to try and produce something worth reading. Occasionally, I get really excited about the result. In my opinion yesterday’s post about ranch dressing might be my favorite. However after I finish this one, it may take that title. My favorite generally is the one I just wrote.
For a while now I have tried to come up with a weekend concept for this blog. Traffic is down on the weekends and I wanted to come up with something lighthearted for everyone to enjoy. Last week’s point/counterpoint on why it is a good or bad idea to date coworkers didn’t work out that way. Turns out several of my dating coworkers did not see the humor in the post. So much for the point/counterpoint idea.
Instead today I am going to try something a little different. We all know truly strange things happen in restaurants all the time. Sometimes they are even newsworthy. So this Saturday in an effort to make everyone’s restaurant seem just a bit more normal I dug up some of these stories from around the world. All of these were reported in just the last week.
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Tips on improving your Tips 