Information about Waiter

Waiting staff, wait staff, or waitstaff^[1] are those who work at a restaurant or a bar attending customers — supplying them with food and drink as requested. Traditionally, a male waiting tables is called a "waiter" and a female a "waitress." Some people prefer to use gender-neutral language, using waiter indiscriminately for males and females, waitperson,^[2] server,^[3] or waitron, an Americanism coined in the 1980s.^[4] Waiting staff can also be employed in (mainly large) private households, but there such specialisation is rarer with the general domestic staff performing the function of waiting staff.

Waiting on tables is part of the most common occupations in the U.S., which is the service business (along with nursing, and teaching). The Bureau of Labor Statistics estimates that, as of May 2005, there are over 2.2 million persons employed as waiters and waitresses in the U.S.^[5]

Many waiters and waitresses are required by their employers to wear a uniform.

Duties of waiting staff

The duties of waiting staff include preparing tables for a meal, taking customers' orders, serving drinks and food, and cleaning up before, after and during servings in a restaurant. Depending on the restaurant, other less common duties may be required, such as singing birthday songs to customers who are celebrating a birthday. A theme restaurant may even require staff to dance (e.g. Joe's Crab Shack). There are now event caterers that outsource waiting staff to events and specific functions.

Silver service staff are specially trained to serve at banquets or high-end restaurants. They follow specific rules of service and it is a skilled job. They generally wear black and white with a long, white apron (extending from the waist to ankle). The Head Waiter or Head Waitress is in charge of the waiting staff, and is also frequently responsible for assigning seating. The functions of a Head Waiter can overlap to some degree with that of the maître d'hôtel. Some restaurants employ busboys or busgirls, increasingly referred to as bussers, to clear dirty dishes, set tables, and otherwise assist the waiting staff.^[6][7][8]

Tipping

Main article: Tip

In the United States, United Kingdom, Canada, most other Western countries and the Middle East, it is customary for customers to pay tip to a server after a meal. In many U.S. states, waiting staff, like other "tipped" employees, can be paid a lower minimum wage than other occupations. For example, waiting staff in Georgia are generally paid around $2.13 an hour. Tips are commonly between 10% and 20% of the total bill, depending on the level and quality of service. In the UK, where minimum wage rates are not lower for waiting staff, around 10% is a standard tip and 15% - 20% is considered standard in the U.S. In restaurants where a ‘service charge,’ also called a gratuity, is automatically applied (18% for most US restaurants) an additional voluntary tip is not usually given. Service charges are normally optional and often only apply to large parties.

In contrast, waiters and waitresses in Japan refuse tips, which are sometimes even considered an insult. It is believed there that leaving a tip implies that the staff are not being paid enough by their employer, or that the customer believes the server must be paid extra to deliver a proper service.

Tipping is not customary in Asia, Australia and New Zealand and is not factored into wages of staff. However, tips are appreciated especially if the customer or party has been unusually difficult or has left a mess. For example, parents of small children may leave a small tip.

Waiting staff in fiction and film

• William Somerset Maugham: Of Human Bondage
• James M. Cain: Mildred Pierce
• Terrence McNally: Frankie and Johnny in the Clair de Lune (filmed as Frankie and Johnny)
• Garçon! (Claude Sautet; France, 1983)
• Amélie Poulain (Audrey Tautou) in Le Fabuleux Destin d'Amélie Poulain
• Tyler Durden from Fight Club
• Reservoir Dogs features a lengthy dialog on the principles of tipping. Pulp Fiction has a brief cameo by Steve Buscemi as a cynical Buddy Holly-lookalike waiter
• Various characters from the 2005 film Waiting...
• Buscemi plays a waiter again in Jim Jarmusch's Coffee and Cigarettes.
• It Could Happen to You
• Cocktail with Tom Cruise as a barman
• Joanna (Jennifer Aniston) from Office Space
• Trixie Norton (Regina Hall) and Alice Kramden (Gabrielle Union) as waitresses in The Honeymooners.
• Isaac Asimov's Black Widowers mysteries, in which Henry the waiter always solves the mystery
• Cammi (Missy Doty) in Sideways
• Caroline (Marisa Tomei) in Untamed Heart
• Camerieri Marco Messeri; Diego Abatantuono; Paolo Villaggio by Leone Pompucci, Italia, 1994
• Lois Lane works as a waitress at the Talon in seasons four and the first part of five of Smallville.
• Lane Kim works as a waitress at Luke's Diner in the later seasons of Gilmore Girls. Her husband Zach van Gerbig takes over for her when she goes on maternity leave in season seven.
• Liz Parker and her best friend Maria DeLuca work as waitresses at Liz's parents' diner, the Crashdown Café, on Roswell.
• Debbie Novotny, mother of series protagonist Michael Novotny, works at Liberty Diner on Queer as Folk.

References

See also

• Garçon
• Table service