Thread: Summer jobs?

I hope to do as little professional work/activity as possible.

I hope to do major clean-up/repair projects at home, get out and about a bit, relax, read, and SLEEP.

Yeah, see that's a problem when you have two young kiddos at home Sleep? What's that? Clean? WHY? They just mess it up again LOL!

I love spending time with my kids in the summer--we do a lot of daytrips and swim a bunch. But I also need to have some time to myself hence my desire to find a little work. I applied at our local bookstore so we'll see how that goes. I only want to work one or two nights a week.

Young kids at home? I just have one; a grandson.

He's pretty good about letting me sleep, though. As long as I pay some attention to him when he's awake, he'll let me sleep. We have a pretty smooth routine. I'm an early riser, and therefore go to bed earlier. His dad stays up later. Dad's in charge of the evening routine, I get the morning. I've been up for an hour or two when he gets up, even if I slept late.

I took a nap yesterday; we'd been busy with several projects, and he asked if he could watch a movie since it was raining and he couldn't be outside. I stuck a movie in, curled up in my recliner, and snoozed away. He tucked me in and watched the movie while his dad was busy with other chores at their end of the house.

He's just one, though. When my sons were small, I never could have napped while they "played." :wink: [/quote]

Here's an idea for summer employment.

Be a server! Work in a restaurant as a waiter or waitress.

Amazingly enough, this job can pay quite well. If you're willing to work on Fridays, Saturdays, and Sundays which are the peak business times for most restaurants - you can make $100/hr. or more.

How much you make depends upon a number of factors.

1) Who do you work for? There's no doubt that the average per ticket charge for the Outback Steak House is considerably more than dining at Bob Evans ... but servers at the Outback have to split their tips with the busers (who clear tables) and the bartender while servers at Bob Evans don't have to split their tips with anyone.

2) How good a server are you? Most restaurants will train you to be a server. Even if you've worked as a server before - each restaurant has different ways of taking orders and conveying these orders to the kitchen. In the end, after all training is completed, the question of gratuities will ultimately reflect the diners' opinions of you. Did you get the orders right? Were the orders promptly delivered? Did you follow up to see how the guests were enjoying their meal? Did you take corrective action if the guests were unhappy with their meal? Did you offer beverage refills? Did you offer desert? Were you reasonably accessible to the guests or did they have to flag you down? Were you polite and friendly?

Good servers make money. Poor servers don't.

3) How good is the restaurant you work for? Good servers can only go so far. The best server in the world can't make customers happy if the kitchen keeps botching the orders and/or taking a long time to prepare food. Good servers cannot make money if the restaurant doesn't do sufficient business.

Serving isn't for everyone ... but if you're people oriented and have the ability to multi-task, serving offers good income potential.

I've been a waitress, bartender and host before. I made good money bartending but I suck as a waitress! I always forget what people ask me for....I have a terrible memory! But I'll keep my eye out for a bartending job. Thanks for the reminder!

Originally Posted by borntoteach

I always forget what people ask me for....I have a terrible memory!

LOL! I'm a horrible waiter myself. I can never quite remember the abbreviations. The restaurant I trained in taught us to take orders in a round robin sequence from left to right ... but of course guests are always speaking up "out of turn" - interrupting each other, changing their minds about what they want, adding orders and so forth.

I can host but don't really enjoy it. On busy days when the restaurant is packed and we've broken out the waiting list, people stare at you as if by staring they'll somehow speed up the entire seating process.

On days when we've been short staffed, I've had waiting guests go ballistic because they can see empty tables that aren't being sat! Why aren't they being sat? It's because we don't have the servers to support them ... but some guests don't understand restaurant operations or don't care. They see an empty table, point at it, and get belligerent. "WHY HAVEN'T YOU SEATED ME! THERE'S A TABLE RIGHT THERE! I'VE BEEN WAITING FOR TEN MINUTES! WHAT KIND OF OPERATION ARE YOU RUNNING?"

Many's the time that I've wanted to tell some of our loud mouthed belligerent know-it-all guests to shut the h--- up ... but of course we can't do that because it isn't service friendly.

(sigh)

Given a choice, I'd rather bus tables, wash dishes, or be in the back of the house cooking ...

I actually ended up taking a part time position teaching classes at our local children's museum. I had written a letter inquiring about the possibility of making some of their classes available in the evenings. I have two kids of my own that I'd love to take classes with but my work schedule just doesn't allow for it. They told me they didn't have staff willing to work evenings, I offered to do it for them

So I'll be working part time at the Lutz Children's Museum for the summer. Hopefully I'll be able to offer classes for other working parents like me. I'm really excited!

Now I just have to decide what kinds of classes I'd like to teach!

I'm going to drive a truck this summer making hot-shot deliveries. It's going to be a blast!

Hot shot deliveries? Now what on earth is that?? You've got me all curious now!

I'm excited for my summer job too. I was initially hoping not to do anything "teacher related" but I think this will be fun! They are short classes and I get to choose who and what I want to teach Now THAT sounds good to me!