SERVING UP LIFE
From learning how to say no to empathizing with others, here’s how waiting tables prepares you for future careers
S TEPHANIE Danler has one piece of advice for the thousands of 22year-old men and women moving to New York City each year despite the lack of entrylevel jobs: Get a gig in the service industry.
“Any time you have the ability to take a job with that time-to-money ratio, where it’s in your favor and you can maintain some quality of life, you should take that job,” advises Danler, now 32 and splitting her time between Los Angeles and NYC.
Of course, she knows a thing or two about starting from scratch in the Big Apple.
As a 22-year-old in 2006, she moved to the city straight out of Kenyon College in Ohio. Unlike so many men and women who move to the city with big dreams, Danler’s plan was much more straightforward: To work in restaurants.
“I didn’t move here to become a writer,” says Danler.
“I had parts of a novel I thought would be easy to finish, but I’d been working at restaurants since I was 15. I knew that’s how I’d support myself. What I didn’t realize was what an intense and professional experience it was.”
She landed a coveted serving gig at Union Square Cafe, the Danny Meyer-helmed staple. It was this experience in the trenches of the NYC service industry — a total of nine years spent at Union Square Cafe, Buvette, Tía Pol and two wine stores — that found its way into her new novel “Sweetbitter.” Danler attracted a lot of buzz last spring when she sold the novel to Alfred A. Knopf with a two-book deal and an advance in the high six figures.
“Sweetbitter” tells the tale of Tess, a 22-year-old who comes to the city and works at a thinly veiled Union Square Cafe. It perfectly captures the raw possibility of a young woman’s first year in New York, opening up to a whole new world of wine, food, love and heartbreak. And even if you don’t plan to pursue a career in hospitality, working in the service industry can teach you lessons far beyond proper silverware placement and how to navigate a wine list — lessons that will serve you well in any future career. Here are the top four lessons Danler learned over the course of nearly a decade tending to others.
It’s OK to say no
Handling difficult customers is the perfect training for dealing with future bosses and coworkers. “I think that so much of the service industry says ‘The customer is always right, let me make myself small for you,’ ” says Danler. “But really, what it taught me was when to say enough, and no. The first time, finding your voice is scary and it gets really scary — with customers, co-workers, peers. It’s the lesson of my 20s.”
Don’t apologize
While women may have a hard time saying no, they have no problem saying sorry.
“Women in general spend a lot of time apologizing when what they mean is ‘Excuse me.’ When I was managing restaurants, I tried to encour- age my staff to be deliberate with their words and be mindful of that. The words become self-fulfilling.”
Cultivate an extra level of empathy
“Danny [Meyer] has this concept of hiring ‘51 percent’; 49 percent is mechanics, 51 percent is something you can’t train for. As I understand it, at the end of the day, it’s empathy: The ability to empathize with other humans quickly, to establish trust,” says Danler. “It allows you to do your job quickly, to anticipate quickly. Taking that outside of the restaurant, it’s something that turns into a lifestyle and a character trait. You can practice it. Sometimes you fail, sometimes you succeed. But his awareness of it was incredible training for me.”
Take care of each other
“So I’m taking this from Danny, and this is his first tenet. It comes before taking care of the guests or the business,” says Danler. “That ethic applied to my real life is to take care of myself, and that will trickle down in the same manner to others. And that’s shockingly hard to do, especially in NYC.”
I’ve been working very late hours — not because my boss asks me to, but because there is so much work to get done. And now he is telling me I can’t put in for all of that overtime pay because he didn’t authorize it. Is that fair?
Assuming that your position is an hourly, overtime-eligible position, it’s not only not fair — it’s not legal. It is true that an employee cannot unilaterally decide how much overtime he or she wants to work and rack up 1.5 times his or her pay accordingly. It is also true that an employer must “authorize” you to work OT. However, if they don’t expressly tell you that you can’t work those hours, and allow you to work OT without officially approving it ahead of time, they are still obligated to pay you for those hours worked. Now, to be fair, if you’re not actually “working” every hour that you stay late — which happens, as people can socialize at work — you’re not technically entitled to be paid for that time. So unless you want to punch a clock in and out, consider whether there is a compromise in how many hours you actually worked and how many for which you should rightfully get paid.
I’m a veteran and am having trouble transitioning to a civilian career. Any advice?
Do I have advice for a vet on Memorial Day?! Can a Navy SEAL swim? First of all, thank you for your service! Hug, kiss, buy a beer or simply say thanks to our servicemen and women this weekend. As far as career services, the Veterans Administration — despite the bashing it is taking for how it handles medical care — does a good job of offering career counseling and employment services on its Web site. Military.com is another good place to go, or go directly to the Web sites of employers, many of whom have special hiring programs for vets — including Walmart, for example. And here’s another service: Any veteran who sends me his or her resume will get a free, personal, online resume review. Just submit your resume as an attachment and put “VET REZ” in the subject header. Stay safe my friends, and thank you again.