Waffle House

Hello. Today I'm writing about my new job.

I've been looking for a part time job since last fall. At first I was very hesitant to work in fast food, I wanted to work in some sort of retail store. I applied to a LOT of different places, Food Lion, Target, Walmart, Big Lots, Walgreens, CVS, everywhere. Most places did not even call me back or contact me in any way after I filled out the online application. A month or two ago I had finally stooped down to applying to McDonalds, and it was looking like that was a possibility. I still need a lot of hours driving in order to get my driver's license, so I was out one day driving with my mom when we stopped at Waffle House. We ate their for lunch and it was pretty good, and mom pointed out a Now Hiring brochure on the table. At the time McDonald's was looking like I was going to be hired, but I had to try applying there too just in case. I applied online and within a day, someone had called me asking to schedule an interview there. It was the fastest I'd ever been contacted by any place I had applied to, and of course I accepted the interview. I went to the interview and it was mostly just a couple questions you would expect, mostly just clarifying things I had on the online application. The interview went very well, and they scheduled a second interview. The second interview was mostly about what I would be doing there at Waffle House. The manager said that he would like to make me a Door Corp, which is someone that comes in on the weekends and greets people, seats them, and cleans tables after they leave. Eventually he said he would make me a Grill Op, which is a cook. I thought that sounded great, and he wanted to quickly get me to start my classes so I could get started working. The only problem was that the classes were only on Thursdays and Fridays, during school hours. Unfortunately I had to wait until school was out to take those classes so I could start work. The Thursday after school was out I showed up to the Waffle House in Inwood for my interview in my black pants, black shoes, and white dress shirt. The classes were very boring and we sat in a very small, cold, back room filling out huge Waffle House books and watching cheesy information videos. I was very glad when it was over on Friday. Last Monday was when I was first working on the floor at the Waffle House I had applied to. I was getting paid of course but I wasn't getting any tips because I was shadowing another server in her section, so I took my own orders, but it was all in her section and she taught me a lot about how the restaurant worked. Tuesday was also a day where I was shadowing, and I quickly became sufficient at taking orders and calling them out to the cooks, which is the hardest parts about being a server. Last Thursday I had to go to the Inwood Waffle House one last time in order to get my Red Star Certification, which is what you need to be an official server at Waffle House. I got my certification easily enough, and showed up for my first real day working that Saturday at 6:30. It was pretty busy compared to the other two days I had been working there, but according to my coworkers it was slow for a weekend. I served twenty tables over the course of seven hours, and I did side work in between like filling up the ice containers, working the dishpit, and cleaning off tables. At the end of my first work day I was very tired and a little stressed from all the busyness, but I had come out of it with $59 worth of tips, and that was awesome.

Having a job is really great and although it's going to be tiring and sometimes stressful, it feels good to be doing it. Bye.


- By Ashton