After working for about five weeks as a waitress I've got the hang of most of it now. The restaurant I work in is a carvery where the customers get their meals at a buffet. I take care of the drinks, starters and desserts. I make the desserts myself, I only have to pick up the drinks and starters.
Most of the time I enjoy my work as long as I've got something to do. It's nice to talk to the British people, most of them are very friendly. And every time they ask me if I'm from Sweden, Switzerland or Norway. And once I had a woman as customer who had lived in Holland for a while and could still speak it fairly well.
Getting tips are kind of a match here. I'm not very good at it (yet), but the 10 pounds I got from a Christmas party was a pretty good score. Especially because tipping isn't completely natural here. So I was glad when I got three Americans at a table who tipped like they do in the USA (10%).
Most of the time you're lucky with elderly people, they usually like you because you're on your own in a different country and even staying here for Christmas. So afterwards they give you something extra for Christmas or just for being very friendly.
Unfortunately it's not always a nice job even though the money is good. Sometimes it's really quiet and you have to fold napkins or clean the menus. And we (the waiters and waitresses) have to polish the cutlery. But on Sundays when it's really busy you get very behind on that. So someone has to sacrifice him/herself and do it all. I did that one Sunday, but the Sunday afterwards everybody was either too busy or too lazy to do it. Ok, I was too, mainly because I did loads of it the week before. But in the end when my shift (12.00 - 21.00) was already over I found myself polishing again despite my arguments. So I was pretty peed off with the one who made me do it. And very tired because I only had a 20 minute break.
But luckily these are the only downsides from the job. I even had kind of a good time working with Christmas. I definitely enjoyed watching everyone wear those paper hats that came from the crackers. And seeing everyone eat and drink so much because it's Christmas. All the champagne and wine that was sold this day was a record I think. One table of ten people got through four bottles of wine, and six of them were children. I hope they either walked here or took a taxi.
And the best thing was that afterwards we got free drinks. But on an empty stomach and still needing to cycle home I couldn't have too much unfortunately. And now I'm wondering what New Years Eve is like here, which is tomorrow. I think I'm going to a party with my colleagues. And then I will now if there is as much alcohol as with Christmas, and as much food.
Anyway, Happy New Year to all of you.
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