Being a waiter is not easy. You have to bring a tray with 10 glasses while someone from a table asks you for the bill and a colleague from the bar tells you that the 14 beers from another table are ready. And without throwing anything, or trying. It is difficult not to know someone who, after a misstep or mistake, has finished with the food on the floor. Jesús Soriano, waiter and creator of the humor accounts about the world of hospitality SoyCamarero, with more than 221,000 followers on Instagram and 415,000 on Facebook, tells Verne by phone how his funniest stumble was:
There was a table that kept asking me for bread, and I was running late because there was a lot of work. When I finally went with the bread basket, as I went down the stairs that led to the ground floor of the dining room, where the table in question was, I tripped. The bread came out of the air and fell on several tables, the floor ... And I could not think of anything else to get out of trouble than to say: "Didn't you want bread? Take bread." At least they laughed at it.
After almost half his life working as a full-time waiter, Jesús Soriano, a 33-year-old from Alcire, has decided to start his day: “I currently work part-time as a waiter and I dedicate half to @soycamarero,” he explains. This project emerged in 2017 as a Facebook page "in which to tell, with humor and irony, things that happen to us working in the hospitality industry," he says by phone. Three years later, the project has grown and not only publishes humorous posts and memes: it also offers hospitality job offers, advice and information on waiters' labor rights, and even this year it will publish a graphic novel. And every now and then, he throws questions at his followers. "Tell us about your worst fall at work or that time you spilled something on a client, I read you in the comments," he wrote in a post on August 8. He has received more than 600 responses on Instagram and 250 on Facebook.
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Let's break down in 3,2,1 🤣
A post shared by Soy Camarero (@soycamareroo) on Aug 8, 2020 at 9:25 PDT
"I have stumbled or spilled things many times, so I thought it sure was something common and had also happened to my followers," says Soriano. "Given the amount of responses I have received, I think I was not wrong." Most of the responses are from waiters humorously recalling their bumps, slips, or violations of rule # 1 for dealing with waiters: nothing should be taken from their tray. Not even if you do it to want to help. It's for your good: the tray becomes unbalanced and it may all end up on your head. This is one of the many testimonials that appear in the comments about it:
I was new to the cafeteria and, carrying two coffees, the lady did not let me put it down on the table but instead grabbed it from the tray (you don't do that). I lost my balance with the other coffee and it fell and spilled on the lady's shoes, on my shoes, on the table, on her clothes ... it was a disaster.
We have dived among the more than 800 testimonies of waiters and waitresses to make a selection of the best, by category.
Skating classes (on oil, on food ...)
"One day I saw that a colleague had dropped a baked tomato on the ground, and I thought: 'I'll pick it up now.' When I came back I didn't remember the tomato was there, I stepped on it and fell in such a way that I was left knees on the floor, in the middle of the crowded room. I don't know which was redder, the tomato or my face. "
"Some smart guy threw a lemon wedge on the floor. I slipped on five mixed salads."
"I went to buy comfortable shoes and the one from the store assured me that it was non-slip ... 10 minutes after entering the job I slipped on the wet floor while carrying two boxes of new glasses. I threw myself on the floor for five minutes without move, until my compas could sweep the glass around me so I could get up. "
"I was working at a fast food restaurant and the floor was shit [shit]. I came out with three dishes from the kitchen to take to a table, and the moment I opened the kitchen door and walked a meter, my shoe wanted to slip in such a way that the food fell on top of me and I was, with my knee on the floor, asking all the clients to marry with half-empty plates. "
The hardest yet
"I dropped an Andalusian gazpacho on a client. The gazpacho in his jeans and the garnish inside the bag that he had open."
"Autumn 2016, a excited girl comes with an Apple bag, she had just bought the new iPhone. 'A natural orange juice, please'. It was raining in the street and as soon as I left I slipped and dropped the juice on top of the newly opened iPhone case. "
"I spilled wine INSIDE a customer's bag."
"I hit a customer with the dataphone in the face. It was a large table, and each one paid their part with a card, so I took my mobile to calculate and the dataphone to charge. My mobile was going to fall and trying If he fell, my dataphone slipped. I hit him on the forehead. "
"Working at a bachelor party, a mop had been passed down the hall because something had fallen. I go out with the tray, I slipped and ... I literally stayed sitting on the floor. I took my ass ... I spent days with a sore ass, but I got the tray to come out intact. "
"Working in a tavern, I attended a table of about 15 people. They asked me for 11 canes and as there were many trips I decided to be brave, try it and use the tray. I note that I had not been working for a month, and had not used it Never. The trip to the table was hell, worse than crossing a rope from side to side on a cliff. I get to the table, all right ... I start to put the rods on the table, and I did not notice the balance issue . I managed to control it and, after so much, I dropped the last of the rods when I put it on the table of the pressure to which I was submitting myself. Touch your feet! I had already passed the most difficult thing and in the end I screw it up ".
"I was pouring a glass of wine and I don't know how I managed to remove something from the table and take the glass I had just served with me. I stained the client's jacket, thank goodness it was usual and she didn't care Running, I picked up and everything and scrubbed the floor but, when I returned to pour another glass for him I forgot that the floor was getting wet and I flew off, just like the new glass. "
Memorable reactions from waiters and customers
"At a meal for some priests and altar boys. I fell, hit the bar and because of the damage I did to my wrist, a: 'I shit on God!'. I wanted to die, I needed to get out of there" .
"I work in a chicken rotisserie, and I carried the chicken in its container to put the sauce on it when I slipped with oil from the floor. Pieces of chicken fell on my head, on the floor ... The woman who was going to pick up the Asked he said: 'Don't worry queen, if it was for croquettes ".
"I was carrying the tray with all the food from a table and it slipped on me. The customers, thinking that I was going to throw all the food on the floor, started screaming, but I saved the tray. I laughed and said: 'What did you think? ? I'm a tightrope walker! 'They started laughing, thank God I was saved. "
"In my first week, the five customers at a table asked me for half-liter jugs of beer. When it was time to bring the tray and put the first one on the table, I dropped everything else. I bathed, yes, I bathed, to a grandmother. She was soaked with beer and she, very kind, told me that nothing was wrong. She went home to shower, which was next door, and returned to the table. "
"When I was starting to work as a waiter I dropped an open bottle of water on the tray and spilled on top of the woman I was serving. I have to thank her for taking it with humor: while I asked her forgiveness, very red with shame She told me not to worry, that she was hot and had cooled her down! "
"A few years ago, in one of my first waitress services [...] I began to collect the beer thirds [...] and they ended up being poured on the shoulder of a man. All very well, very good vibes: it was Christmas And they were quite affected alcoholically speaking and he took it with humor, so much so that every time I went to the table to put or pick something up they shouted in unison: "It's coming! Coming! What is coming! "And they threw themselves to the opposite side."
"My first day as a waitress, I threw a tray full of beers to a client in the middle of a communion. Although the man was a love, the thing did not stop there: when he was going to go for the mop, he called me again. Very He secretly told me that I was wearing the zipper of my pants open. I wanted to die of shame. "
Record throws
"I skidded across the room and a plate of paella flew like a flying saucer to the end of the hall. It was funny."
"Carrying a kettle with chickpeas and 40 liters of broth, I slipped in the middle of the kitchen (because as you all know, the kitchen floor is non-stick, not non-slip). I threw the kettle to one side so that it wouldn't fall on me and it came out. fired releasing a trail of broth. I fell to the ground on top of the rich broth and stayed like a crucified Christ, but on the ground ".
"The floor was slippery with oil from a salad, I forgot to tell her and a colleague fell. The worst thing is that I started to laugh at how she had fallen, but karma appeared the moment I helped her up: I slipped also with the oil and a plate he was carrying, he flew out. It ended up in some customers' soup tureen. We laughed a lot, and the customers did too. "
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