Why can't I get/keep a job?

March 4, 2015 4:55 PM

I did get fired from the job I wrote about in my last question. But then I got another job, serving at a gastropub type place. Everything was going fine, or so I thought. I went in today to take my menu test, and instead, I was told that it wasn't going to work out. They need someone with more experience.

There was no negative feedback during training, and I thought I was doing well. I went to a staff meeting yesterday morning, and I left confirming that I'd take the test today.

(I'm especially bitter, because I literally took an entire section Sunday brunch and did a ton of side work, but didn't get any tips because I was just training. Ugh!)

I'd never been fired before last month, and now it's two in a row. What's more, my other job, where I'm primarily a host, said that I'd be able to take lunch serving shifts, and then hired a new server, so no serving shifts for me. I'm running food one night a week, but I'm not serving. I just want to wait tables. Why is this so hard?

I have plenty of restaurant experience, but I wonder if there's something off about my resume or me or what. Is it really this hard to get a decent job in LA, or am I just destined to be a poor, underemployed restaurant hostess? I am lying/exaggerating a little on my resume, but I'm just fudging dates here and there. I wonder if I'm unlucky, and but I also wonder if I'm doing something wrong.

(Sorry for the word soup. Very upset!)

posted by ablazingsaddle to Work & Money (17 answers total)

I am lying/exaggerating a little on my resume

Well . . . about what? Anything a simple background check or a call of your references or an old coworker might turn up?
posted by chainsofreedom at 5:13 PM on March 4, 2015 [1 favorite]

Response by poster: Oh, I should have added this:

A lot of people have recommended a little resume fudging because restaurants almost never check references. Maybe that's not true?
posted by ablazingsaddle at 5:16 PM on March 4, 2015

Try not to take it personally. It sounds like you're a good employee working for some not-great employers and catching some bad breaks.
posted by Ursula Hitler at 5:18 PM on March 4, 2015 [2 favorites]

Best answer: Is there someone (from the former job or the hostess job) you can ask? If so, let them know that they would be doing you a favor by being frank & telling you if there is a problem - it's better to know! A server might be more honest than a manager or owner.

I think it's entirely possible that it's just bad luck, but you'll feel much better if someone from the job can either confirm "bad luck, nothing to do with you" or tell you what's going on so that you can fix it.

I doubt it's resume related though - I would think a resume problem would result in you not getting hired in the first place.
posted by insectosaurus at 5:30 PM on March 4, 2015 [7 favorites]

Could it be something inappropriate or inflammatory on a social media account? People creep Facebook, Instagram, etc all the time.
posted by Jacob G at 5:36 PM on March 4, 2015

Best answer: I am only saying this as a possible explanation, not necessarily THE explanation. But, is it possible that you just aren't very good at waiting tables? No restaurant (especially in a big city) is going to take the time to train or even explain the problem. It's a passive aggressive industry and turnover is high and there is always someone around to take your place. Some restaurants I've worked in don't even tell people that they are fired. They just take them off the schedule and find someone else before the person even knows they have been replaced. Not sure how to figure out if you are any good or not, because it's hard to get feedback from people, but you can always try.

There's also the possibility, in both the cases you mentioned, that someone/the manager had a friend or family member that they wanted to hire instead of you. Sucks, but happens all the time.
posted by greta simone at 5:41 PM on March 4, 2015 [6 favorites]

Best answer: It's a passive aggressive industry

This. I don't miss it at all.

I worked in food service from high school til after college. I got so fucking tired of this shit. The place i worked at the longest, i outlasted so many people. And people were constantly fired over the smallest, dumbest things because it was just so easy to replace people. I think i knew of more than 10 people who didn't last more than a month, and probably at least half of them didn't last two weeks. A couple people did the job seemingly fine, but lasted a day because of some dumb little thing.

I've also found that serving is a job that's almost as hard to break in to as bartending. You have to have experience, and that experience is almost impossible to get because no place ever wants to move anyone up, they just want someone who already has experience. Moving up seems to very regularly be a complete lie.

My advice would just be to shrug it off and get another serving job.
posted by emptythought at 6:02 PM on March 4, 2015 [1 favorite]

Response by poster: I am only saying this as a possible explanation, not necessarily THE explanation. But, is it possible that you just aren't very good at waiting tables?

It's possible. I also wonder if there's something about my personality or appearance that's working against me, but I don't think you folks could diagnose that through a computer.

I've also found that serving is a job that's almost as hard to break in to as bartending. You have to have experience, and that experience is almost impossible to get because no place ever wants to move anyone up, they just want someone who already has experience. Moving up seems to very regularly be a complete lie.

Yes! Ugh!!
posted by ablazingsaddle at 6:11 PM on March 4, 2015

Looking at this in conjunction with your previous question, both places seem to have taken you on thinking you had more experience/capability than you do. If this is the result of your resume padding, then that might indicate you're not actually getting away with it, regardless of the reference check.

I recognise this is a dilemma - if you find you need to embellish your resume to get any interest, then I can understand you doing that. However, I can also understand how employers might be less forgiving of any deficits in your experience if they feel that they've been lied to.

However, I'm not in your industry or your part of the world, so I can't rule out the interpretation that greta simone and emptythought put forward.
posted by Cheese Monster at 6:57 PM on March 4, 2015

Best answer: There are a few "tells" of an inexperienced server (and I myself am pretty inexperienced, so hopefully someone will chime in with more). But a big one is not being able to travel quickly and efficiently. Another could be not being able to quickly pick up the computer system. It also sounds like your last place was teaching you about carrying plates and things.

But yeah, there's also just a lot of favoritism and unprofessionalism, so you might just be having bad luck.
posted by salvia at 7:41 PM on March 4, 2015

This is the handful of restaurant/bakery/food related jobs *I've* had too - what emptythought said times a million.

In fact, I just assumed I was a terrible waitress and went and got temp jobs instead (which led to a government job that pays waaaayyyy more than any restaurant gig fwiw). I actually feel a lot better having read this thread... maybe I wasn't as bad as I thought!!!

Don't lie on your resume. I can't say about food service, but I ALWAYS check references (and the quality of references matters too).
posted by jrobin276 at 7:53 PM on March 4, 2015

Response by poster: Sorry to chime in yet again, but since people are hung up on the resume fudging:

I've added a month or two to a few jobs. Nothing crazy. I'm not completely fabricating anything.

I'm wondering if I'm exhibiting the "tells" Salvia mentioned, and that's given me some good things to think about.
posted by ablazingsaddle at 7:59 PM on March 4, 2015

I'd be careful about adding a month or two to positions since it sounds like you're still a relatively inexperienced server. If, for example, one of your previous positions only lasted one month but you said it lastedthree, they will think that they're hiring someone who has had a fairly thorough introduction to the job when you actually have not.

At this stage, i think you should focus on becoming a really good hostess. Pick up extra hours when you can, learn about food service, memorise the menu at your restaurant. Get a solid work history to put on paper and then look again for something better. Something not necessarily in food service.

When I was first getting into the industry as a teenager, I had a lot of dead end trials. I think a lot of places try to get free or cheap labor that way, so it's possible that this happened here. Or otherwise, maybe it's just not the job for you
posted by kinddieserzeit at 9:21 PM on March 4, 2015

Best answer: Maybe the Universe is trying to tell you that there's something more for you out there than restaurant work.
posted by sam_harms at 8:02 AM on March 5, 2015

If food service is what you really want to do, it sounds like you could use more front-lines experience so that you're moving efficiently at speed and not screwing up. If you've got the "tells" of inexperienced staff, maybe you actually do need a bit more practice.

The first job you asked about had requirements about how you take the plates out, how elegantly they must be carried and presented, etc. The gastropub that you just left presumably is about food and fancy ingredients and is implied to also be somewhat upscale. How long have you really waited tables at someplace crappier? It's reasonable for these places to expect that everybody there has put in their time at Applebee's and can easily balance trays, juggle the timing of 10 different tables, and smile perkily at all sorts of annoying customers. That's why they pay more than TGIFriday's.

And please don't read this as me assuming you don't know what you're doing. I'm not judging. I'd actually go with sam_harms statement of "Maybe the Universe is trying to tell you that there's something more for you out there than restaurant work," but I don't want to tell you that you can't do restaurant work if that's what you really want, so I thought I'd suggest trying for a skills-builder instead of a resume-padder.
posted by aimedwander at 10:03 AM on March 5, 2015

Response by poster: Since it keeps coming up:

I have about eight months of serving experience. Beyond that, I serve private parties at my current job where I'm usually the lead server/captain, and I run food/hustle/run drinks. I'm a very good hostess, thank you very much. I was also shadowing and not actually taking tables for pretty much the entire time I was training, so honestly, I have no idea what the fuck happened. We had a staff meeting and there was a general concern that servers were not selling the new bar program/cocktail program well, so maybe they're looking for someone who has more experience in that realm. Never mind that I had to explain to a bunch of the current servers the difference between Campari and Aperol . . .

It's not that I really want to work in food service, but I'm an actress and I that's what I'm qualified to do at the moment. Longer term, I'm looking into getting my pilates instructor certification.
posted by ablazingsaddle at 11:00 AM on March 5, 2015 [1 favorite]

Response by poster: That's not to say, though, that this thread has given me ideas of where/how to improve once I do get a chance.
posted by ablazingsaddle at 11:08 AM on March 5, 2015