One of the greatest things about working in a restaurant is all of the interesting characters you can work with. If your experiences are anything like mine, they will become like a little family. But in every family there are always some black sheep. Here are a few of the co-workers you may not invite out with you after your shift for drinks – but the job just wouldn’t be the same without them.

The Angry Chef
Chefs come under a lot of stress in a busy restaurant. Some deal with it with humor while others grow bitter and angry over the years. If this is the case, the best thing you can do is try to play nice and be sure not to screw up.

My favorite angry chef was Eddie*. He slung pancakes at the first restaurant I ever worked at. He was an overweight Dominican man in his thirties who would swiftly go back and forth between oozing his Latin charms and having fits of rage that could result in great bodily harm. He could be intimidating in both respects. As waitresses would look for their orders, Eddie would slime, “Tell me what you need, c’mon mami, tell papi what you need.” As a shy 16-year-old, I found this upsetting because all I really needed were some eggs and a side of toast.

If, God forbid, you screwed up an order, what you’d need would be an icepack for when Eddie threw a hot, empty plate at you. Fortunately, his aim was poor and the wait staff was quick. The only safe staff were the elderly lifers and the fat chick he’d bang in the basement when the restaurant was slow.

The Crackhead
If you work in a bar, a fair percentage of the people you work with will likely drink too much or partake in some recreational drug use. But there’s always one person who takes it a bit too far. Maybe he or she has lead a hard life, misses shifts because of lost weekends, and has been in and out of prison for years. But desperation makes them take the shitty shifts no one wants, so it’s hard to get rid of them.

They may be scary, but they make for good stories. Don’t make them angry. Keep to the sides, and you may end up getting to witness a priceless conversation such as this:

Crackhead Waitress: I don’t know what she’s talking about. I aint no f*cking commissary ho!
Mommy Waitress: A commissary what?
CW: Commisary ho! Don’t tell me u don’t know what a commissary is. It’s like the general store in a prison.
MW: Ohkaay…
CW: You know how, like, some people in prison – they have friends and family to, like, send them money and things? Well some people don’t got that. So they, like, hang out in front of the commissary, like – “I suck your pee-pee for a peanut butter cup.”
MW: What? I don’t have time for this.
CW: Why? You don’t like peanut butter cups?

The Lifer
Where as much of your wait staff is in some kind of transition or are mommies looking for flexible hours, there are always a few career servers. And, if you’re lucky, you’ll get to work with someone who’s been doing it since long before you were born.

Martha and Sally* were the first lifers I ever worked with. They were sisters in their late seventies whose husbands had long passed. They operated as one person, never working at the same time, and would take on the shifts assigned to them as they saw fit.

Martha was a gruff old cigarette smoker with the voice to match. She was a font of waitressing slang with a system of tip-stereotyping built up through decades of experience. Sally was more motherly and wielded a deadly pinch. She was sweet but tough and didn’t like hearing young ladies with foul mouths – especially in a family-friendly restaurant. Since she worked in a place with servers whose sentences contained more expletives than articles, she was often walking through the kitchen pinching the sides of her co-workers in an attempt to “clean up.” Unfortunately, the surprising stab in the side usually forced out another expletive – which would explain why the staff often looked abused.

There are also the sluts, the know-it-alls, and the extremely ignorant. They all pack the same kind of fun-from-afar appeal as these three but probably don’t need as much explanation. After all, doesn’t every job have them?

I’m sure that I missed a few of the favorites. Please tell me what they are. GOJ would love to read about your craziest coworkers.

— by Jersey Waitress
The Jersey Waitress column is written by a real Jersey waitress who prefers anonymity. Got a story to share? Let us know...

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