However, 70% to me means that where you would normally get a $10 tip you get $17 instead? It still seems a little high to me.
If you are tracking tips, try this and please tell me what happens. I'd expect a much smaller increase but I love it when I'm surprised.
If you do a consistently great job, often you will find yourself in better, bigger sections as you prove you can handle it. This means more tables and more money.
Also you want your professionalism to stand out. This will help separate you from the pack and make you both more valuable to the restaurant and more appealing to your clients. One more thing; There will always be people who are lazy and willing to do as little as possible and claim as much credit as possible. Until you know better help out everyone you can and go out of your way to make them feel appreciated and on your team. Most of them will return the favor and make your work environment both more pleasant and more profitable. Another thing, when you make people feel good about themselves and work hard, you can develop an almost gravitational pull for good people.
Leaders stand out and it will help your chance for advancement as well as giving people a reason to want to work with you.
Most of us burn out.
One of the best ways to keep from burning out is to focus on getting better. Once you stop improving you start a downhill spiral that will leave you disenchanted and unhappy. Don't forget to get better at the things that will help later as well.
It's in our best interest to keep in mind while waiting tables the skill sets and the connections that can be made. There are tons skills that you can learn as a server that you will have a hard time learning anywhere else. Where else would you be expected to deal with maybe 100 people a night, figure out what they want and help them have a good time? The school of serving gives you people skills that other schools cannot even start to teach. You learn to look at a couple and tell if they have been fighting or dancing or both.
You learn how to start the delicate dance of service just the right way. If you don't all of your nights are hard and you don't make much money. You get a chance to relearn these lessons many times every night. If you don't do it right you are given immediate feedback and when you do it well you are rewarded.
After you learn the beginnings of the dance you move on to the nuances. The "That burrito is soo much better with the green sauce." The "Why don't you try the Madras with the Grey Goose." The "The brownie is OK but the Oreo cheesecake is really good today." You have the check ready when they want it, the drinks stay full and you achieve a state of flow.
Years later these skills will pay off as you read your management, board members, and clients. You will be able to better sell pharmaceuticals, cars, apartment buildings, or companies.
The problem is during the night I usually had no idea of what I spent, only what I had left.
The key here is to set aside something for monthly bills before you go out. There are a couple of ways to do this.
If you have any self-control at all just figure out about how much your housing expenses will be and divide it up by the days you are working and put that much plus 10 percent of your tips in an envelope and set it aside. The next morning you can consolidate it somewhere or bank it.
If your self control is lacking, get a checking account and a ton of deposit slips and instead of putting it in an envelope where you can grab it when you want another beer or two, drop it in the night deposit box.
At the end of the month you should be able to cover rent without totally freaking out and...You should have some extra in the account. If you want you can splurge with the extra (more likely you can use it to get your car fixed or for other emergencies) or better yet, drop it into a savings account for when an emergency hits. At a certain level you will have a ton of cash and can use it to improve your life.
I realize if you are just getting you foot in the door you will often take whatever you get. Especially if you have no experience, the first job can be the most important. At that point you goal is to maximize your profit at that job, and build the skills that will make you valuable at either a higher end wait job, a bartending gig, or maybe you move to another job in sales. The skills you pick up in dealing with people and helping them make choices will translate to almost any sales job. Because, at its heart, a wait job is a sales job.
On a side note, how many of you know how many tables you see a night? How about customers? Does your station size affect you or can you sometimes turn more in a smaller section?
I invite you, next time you are out, take notice of the staff. What are they doing well? What should they do better? What can you steal from them to improve your game?
