Just hit 10,000 covers in one week and nobody warned me about the burnout

Ngl, I thought I was ready for it after managing a 500 cover Mother's Day, but the sheer pace of back-to-back services had me questioning my whole career choice by Friday. Has anyone else hit a big number like this and realized the kitchen culture just expects you to push through without checking in?

3 comments

3 Comments

caleb_ross1218d agoOG Member

Whoa, hold on, that salt in the espresso story is brutal. I once worked a double where we ran out of clean towels and I ended up wiping down a flat top with a bar rag I found in the dish pit, just desperate to keep going. It's funny how you look back on those moments and laugh, but in the moment you're just surviving.

henderson.vera18d ago

Oh man, 10,000 covers is insane. I was working a brunch shift once and we did like 300 in one morning, and I was so fried I accidentally put salt in the espresso machine thinking it was sugar. The owner came out and was like "who did this" and I just stood there with a tray of scrambled eggs trying to remember my own name. It's wild how nobody talks about the mental crash that comes after a big push like that, you're just supposed to suck it up and show up for the next shift like nothing happened.

blake69118d ago

Call me crazy but this feels like a lot of drama over a busy week. @henderson.vera the salt in the espresso thing is funny but 10,000 covers just means you had a lot of tables, not that you need a therapy session. People have been doing these numbers for decades without needing a mental health check-in after every big shift.