By Mikey
This was the first waiter nightmare I ever had (out of many). It also happened to be at the first restaurant I ever waited at. One would think that I would take this as a sign from above, but NO!!! Anyway, my dream was a variation of the typical 'In the weeds' dream, so here goes...
I've just gotten finished with the double that lasted all night, and I'm sleeping. It seems that we lived in a barracks in the back of the restaurant. Anyway, the manager came and woke me up at 2:00 am, telling me that we had customers and needed help. (This was right after the restaurant decided to start a new policy where if someone showed up at the door within 5 or 10 minutes of closing, the managers had to reopen the restaurant and let them in!!!).
So I get up and go out to work, and I'm the only person waiting tables, there's a line out the door, and all I can think is "Jesus, we closed 2 hours ago, why won't they just close the Damn door??". Anyway, like I said, this was just the first of many dreams, but by far the weirdest!!! Incidentally, after 5 or 6 years, I've quit waiting tables!!
By Amber
On Mother's Day we served free strawberry shortcake to all of the mothers. After my 12 hour shift that I had worked that day, I went home to bed. I had this dream I was lying in bed and was still somehow in the restaurant's kitchen, and everyone was yelling at me to get up and make the shortcake. All I really wanted to do was sleep. Then my boss came running in and said a big party just walked in and made me get up and take it. She wouldn't let me change out of my pajamas or even comb my hair. It was a horrible nightmare.
By Jenn
There are so many to choose from...
I was spending the night at my boyfriends house one night after a totally hellish Friday night. In my dream I get to work late. I get yelled at by the management, and as punishment, everyone that is working gets to go home, and I am left to handle it all alone. Then there are old people everywhere I look.
I start taking orders and my food is coming up no problem. Everything was going fine until the Cheeseburger. It is taking hours to get a single cheese burger. My tables start yelling and I am on the verge of tears. Finally my burger is up. Out of no where Michelle (a fellow employee) comes and takes my cherished burger and takes a big bite. That's where I loose it. I start yelling at everybody, the customers, the cooks, Michelle. And then it is all over.
The next morning my boyfriend wants to know who Michelle is and why I was calling her name in my sleep. He still doesn't believe my story about the burger.
By Tricky
Weeds Nightmares? I've had tons. The most telling, I believe, is a nightmare I had last week. I currently serve at a pretty good restaurant, which I truly enjoy -- believe that. My previous serving job was Hell in Pennsylvania, though. We made serious money, but the neurotic owner was just a general *prick*. I haven't worked there for about 9 months now, but I dreamed of it last week anyway.
Friday night, (our busiest), the old school crew -- one bartender, two hosts, five servers and one (awesome) busser, (even though there are usually six servers on Friday nights), the restaurant is full, they are two deep at the bar. I'm serving in my least favorite section. It's that six table section where everyone wants to sit, because it houses our only nonsmoking booths. (Every other server always loved it. It was one table too much for me. I'd rather have had the neighboring six table section which was the second choice section. I could handle 5 with my eyes shut. 6 caused me nightmares.) Anyway, we're rocking and rolling, everything is perfect. All of the guests are happy (which NEVER happened) and it's all around a great night. I start to have an allergy attack in the dining room right after I serve food for someone else. I get my watering eyes under control. THEN, I sneeze. Bad move. I look up and all of the guests are still there, but the entire FOH staff is gone. No other servers, no bartender, no hosts, no nothing. Just me. And, my neurotic *prick* boss -- screaming at me because I can't handle the whole restaurant. All of a sudden, I'm behind the bar, taking care of the bar guests. I'm handling it okay -- then the service bar printer goes off. (Mind you, there aren't any other servers around to order any drinks. They all *poof*ed away.) Finally, I make all those drinks and run to the kitchen. Table 32 needs food. Uh oh, my sneeze affected the kitchen, too. I walk in and it's just the expo. Everyone else, the grill guy, the sauté guy, the salad boy, the dishwasher -- all gone. Keith looks up and asks "What happened?". I say, "I dunno. I sneezed. Then they were all gone." Now he's mad at me because I sneezed away his staff. He refuses to cook any more food. Now it's just me.
Just as I was about to burst into tears, my dog jumped up on the bed and licked my face awake. And that's the worst weeds nightmare I've ever had.
By Emma
I was at work in an Indian restaurant watching 3 builders painting things pale blue, then we had to carry them up stairs to the second floor of seats but then we walked up more stairs into another floor to the restaurant that doesn't exist. We got to the bar when the builder in front of me got pulled in by a waiter that I used to work with wearing a Jason mask form Halloween-en, he then came out pretending to be the builder he had just killed so he could get me into the room to kill me, but I had sued him and let the second builder go in before me so he would be killed giving me time to run away. This worked:)
By Annon. In Knoxville
I have waitressing now for about two years (a poor college student trying to make ends meet). I have had so many nightmares but one in particular stands out. In the beginning of the dream I am in a hospital room having surgery performed on me (for what I have no idea). I am aware what is going on in the room when what do you know, my manager rushes through the door. I am totally shocked to see her there in my hospital room. She is out of breath and proceeds to tell me that I was supposed to have been at work an hour ago and my section was full. I become so scared and run out of the room (in my hospital gown and all, right in the middle of my surgery). I am running from table to table getting drink orders and explaining to my customers; "I am sorry it took me so long, I was in the middle of surgery". My tables only stare at me with nasty looks as if to say; "Well I guess she won't be getting a tip today!" Still in my hospital gown (and trying to keep the back closed), I take the orders, make the salads, refills, etc. All the while getting sat over and over. Only when the dream has gone on forever do I eventually wake up and realize where I am. So to everyone out there in this industry, I feel your pain ( and we are AWESOME!!!!!!!).
By Shannon
I keep having these dreams, but they come in twos and threes. In the first dream we're short staffed on a Sunday morning, and I'm at a dead run to keep up. Then I come out of the kitchen and there's no one but me, no servers, no cooks, no hosts, no cashier, and no manager. So I start running and doing everything!!! I usually sit straight up in bed in a cold sweat. Then I tell myself to dream about my husband. I dream about us together in some romantic location and we go out to dinner, but we end up back at my work. This time he's the only cook, and I'm still doing everything in the front of the house. In my dream he starts acting like one of those temperamental cooks we have all worked with and starts throwing food at me to get it out of the window. I wake up yet again and tell myself to dream about something relaxing like a cruise or a deserted island. This time it's the store I work at where ever I dream up, but it's the size of Mile High Stadium and there's little old me busting my ass to get everyone what they want, when I walk onto the server's line and there's one of the girls from work standing there with this clear trash can filled to the brim with dirty silverware to be taken back and soaked before it's washed. "Aren't you going to at least try to keep up with your running side work?" she screeches at me. I've woken up screaming from this one. The crew at work thinks it's great that I work 7 days a week and then go home and dream about the place.
By Amy H.
Dream..
Well, it's been a little over two years since I have waited on a table, having lived the waiter's dream: go to college, get a real job and stop waiting on tables! I did it for 10 years and still miss it sometimes.
However, the catch is, I have this dream every now and then. I am working in my last restaurant, and before I even go on the floor, my station is completely full and I can't catch up. It goes on for hours.. As I said, I still have that dream. It seems much less traumatic written out..
By Jules
I waitressed and bartended in NYC for 11 years...here's a couple of my work nightmares:
In this busy bar/restaurant in the West Village the wait-station on the bar was all the way to one side against a brick wall. I would make change for the wait staff and set it all in piles against the wall so the drinks going out wouldn't spill all over it...in my dream, everyone was in the weeds, my bar was four deep, and my 350 pound manager was behind the bar, in my way. I had someone's change in my hand but couldn't set it down....I tried over and over again but my hand wouldn't release it, all the while everyone's screaming at me...the waitress who needed it kept screaming "PUT IT DOWN!!!" and the 350 pound manager was towering over me, squishing me against the brick wall and screaming the same thing...my arm was a bloody mess from scraping against the wall as I tried over and over to give her the change, when all of a sudden I hear "what are you doing?" in a really quiet, concerned voice...I woke up in my boyfriend's bed wedged against the wall, with my arm clawing at the wall. He had realized I was having a nightmare and had cuddled up to me and tried to kiss my neck!!!!!!! The best part was that he was the restaurant owner's brother, and he got me a week long vacation!!
The multitude of other nightmares are all basically the same, all the debris around my bed and the furniture turn into tables of customers ordering stuff from me, and I'm half awake so I keep thinking "Jesus Christ, I served you all night long, can't I get a fucking rest?" Even though I cant move, I keep trying to serve them as I worry that I'm naked....
I just recently started waitressing again, and I'm NOT looking forward to more nightmares!!!!
By Karen
This was a nightmare I had ... I was working in a bar/restaurant and was very busy. It was my job to wait on a handful of tables and take care of people at the bar and make drinks for other servers. I had a couple sitting at the bar. She was eating a bean burrito with chili. He was eating a beef burrito with chili. I checked on them a few times and everything was fine. But later, as I was coming out of the kitchen I noticed the guy looking hopping MAD. I immediately went over and asked what was wrong.
"Look what my wife found in her burrito!!" the man said and held up a twisty-tie.
I was horribly embarrassed and told him I would, of course, not charge him for the burrito. He was angry and told me he didn't intend to pay for any of the meal, and he and his wife stalked out. I went to scream at the cook, who told me this couple had a scam going to get out of paying for their meals.
"You see me spread the beans on the tortillas. A twisty-tie would tear through the tortilla. Besides, all our bread comes with the plastic clips. We don't have any twisty-ties around here."
I realized he was right.
That night I dreamt that we were slammed in the restaurant. I ran to the kitchen to pick up a huge order of burritos. They were covered with twisty-ties) sort of like the crunchy Chung King noodles Mom always put on chow mien when I was a kid). When I protested to the cook, he yelled at me,
"Burritos are good that way! Hurry up, they're getting cold!"
I woke up screaming in a cold sweat.
By Nathan B.
It's been a while since I waited tables but even thinking about this recurring nightmare makes me shudder. I used to have a waking dream, where people would start filing into my bedroom as I was sleeping. They were all crowding around, setting up tables and trying to get me to take their orders. I kept telling them that I wasn't working, that I was trying to sleep, but they wouldn't leave me alone.
I would sleep only in my boxers and for some reason, in the dream, I wouldn't have a blanket and the sheets would never cover me very well. I was always embarrassed that I was in my underwear around all these people.
I would get so mad that people were in my room while I was trying to sleep that I would get up to chase them out. Getting up would wake me all the way up and I'd realize it was a dream and go back to bed, only to have it start all over again.
By George M
I have the uncanny ability to be able to wake my self up from dreams and act how I want to act. Called Lucid Dreaming, this comes in handy when I have had a stressful night.
If I dream that I am polishing cutlery then I know that I will stay in the dream until I have finished. I then have to force my self awake. Or else I will wake up feeling as though I was stiffed out of my wages.
Another is the deliberate insubordination towards my superiors that I know that I will only get away with in my dreams. Yes, I have had a few good ones there. Especially with guest in my dreams. The reactions are priceless.
By Joy
In my dream I am waiting tables at a high end bar similar to one on the Market Street in Charleston. But instead of serving drinks in glasses and mugs, they were in round and ten gallon fish tanks. I was running around as fast as I could and everyone was ordering drinks, but the ten gallon tanks were so heavy I couldn't carry more than one at a time. The place had recently been remodeled and management thought it would be neat to have a six foot high bar, so all the stools reached up to the bar and the bartender was on top. I am only five foot two, so I had to climb the bar stool to tell the bartender my orders. While trying to climb down the bar stools with the fish tanks I was spilling all my drinks and flooding the bar. I ended up flooding parts of the city because I was so busy. The locals called the police, who then showed up at the bar to "see what the problem was." Seeing as how I caused the flood, a high speed chase insuded.I ended up skidding my car and hiding under a bridge, alluding the cops.
I've had dreams about forgetting to bring back creamer, but this is definitely one of the strangest Waiter's dreams I've ever had.
By Jim
I've had the usual waiter's nightmares - it's 2am and the hostess/General Manager is still seating me and I'm going,
"I've already worked 12 hours, you CAN'T make me take more tables!"
But a lady I worked with once had the best waiter's dream I'd ever heard of.
She dreamed that she was outside in a field, with wide, rolling hills. Each hill was very far from the next. And - you guessed it - on top of each hill was another table of customers! Can you imagine having THAT station? Aaaarrrgggh!
2005 De
Voss Restaurant Group