Advice, In Short: People Suck

I had just started my first serving job at a chain seafood restaurant. Like many restaurants of this particular stature, we servers carried our own change, cash, and charge slips through the night and cashed out at the end of our shifts. Our managers told us over and over and over to never carry our cash in our order booklets and keep it in our pockets instead, but I liked having everything in one convenient place so I ignored their advice. 

One night, I was about an hour into my shift. I took a table’s order, made their salads, and then went to ring in their food, and noticed my booklet was gone, along with all my cash. I started looking around frantically for it. I got only passing sympathy from my coworkers as they worked their own tables, and I fell into a panic, not knowing what to do.

I eventually got a new booklet, retook the orders I needed to, and then continued as normal. Some coworkers told me that they saw my section partner walking around with her shirt untucked over her apron right about the time I started panicking about losing my booklet, and that a manager called her on it, and she promptly went to the back room to tuck in her shirt. This particular server who was my partner that night had been caught trying to steal other people’s tips a few times in the past. She, of course, denied it.

By the time I was told about this, she had already clocked out and left. I never before nor after saw anyone get their side work done and cash out that fast. I mentioned it to my managers but they just shrugged. What are they gonna do? The end of the night came and, of course, I was short by about $100, despite using all tips earned to make up my loss. I got written up and I went home with nothing but my hourly wage — just over two dollars — for my trouble.

My lesson was learned that night and I never kept my cash in my order booklet again. Despite no one being able to prove anything, I think the managers were fed up with my section partner that night because I only ever saw her partnered in the future with the veterans that she couldn’t pull anything on if she even tried.