Outback
... I was excited when I was one of the eight bartenders chosen. We opened our doors to the public on July 19, 2004. We still didn’t know each other too well, but we were developing friendships. We were learning whom we could trust and whom we had the same things in common with. I was really changing my thoughts about working in a restaurant again, but I still was not totally convinced at this point if I wanted to commit myself to this job. I liked the environment and what Outback steakhouse was about. It impressed me to hear stories of other stores joining together to help fellow employees in hardships or entire crews donating their tips earned in a certain night to benefit a local charity. Outback has supported the troops overseas by flying overseas with their grills and to cook meals for the soldiers, they have taken care of the support personnel involved in September 11th and numerous other philanthropic issues. If there were any restaurant I would want to be at, this certainly would be the one. In another week my decision really became concrete to stay. The highest of our three managers, Eric Farber asked me to be a part of another special event. This one was for the National Underground Railroad Freedom Center benefit dinner. Outback’s parent company would be catering this large benefit function where people would pay $250,000 for a table. Important people like the President of the USA, Oprah Winfrey, and other stars were to attend. It made me feel like I was thought of as a vital part of the organization and that my managers believed in me. At this point I believed I couldn’t work for a better place, regardless of the hours. As for my future with the company, if I can continue to move up in the company, I will stay for a while. I can’t turn away from an organization where I am treated so well, regardless of the hours. Within the store there are two separate main groups of people. We have the “Back of the House” in which the cooks, dishwashers and food preps work. Then there is the group I belong to, the “Front of the House”. It is a larger group of people and consists of the servers, hostesses, busboys, takeout people and bartenders. We are also in the process of choosing key managers who are essentially head servers. There will be a few of them who will be just below our three-person management team in power. So far only one person, Scott Camp, has been chosen for this position I am hoping to get this position also, but I wonder if my inability to work much overtime will hurt me in their decision. For the most part, each group of workers congregates in their own respective cliques. On occasion a worker will cross train to a new position and become part of another group, but they still never really fit into that second group. For example, as I mentioned earlier I am a bartender but at times I an required to serve tables. When I do serve, I am still considered a bartender in the social world in Outback. My serving style differs from theirs and I always do little things differently. More importantly, I am not up on the gossip between their members. A parallel to this is when new employees join the group. They are still accepted into the group, outbackers are some of the most giving people in the business, however they still don’t hold the same power as the original crew. We are looking at promoting a few servers in the future to train behind the bar and I will be interested to see how they are welcomed into “our world”. Each of the groups also holds totally different personalities from each other. Though similar in some aspects: hardworking, kind, considerate, they are also very distinct from each other. The hostesses are a group of thin, pretty girls under 21. The take-out employees are also young, but they consist of male and female workers of not so much of an elite crowd. The bus boys are the third group of young individuals but they are of a different social class also. Although very nice and extremely hard workers they don’t seem to have the same social skills as other groups. The servers are the most diverse of all the groups. Their ages range from 19-over 40. Their experience is also as diverse. For some of them, this is their first serving job while others are seasoned veterans in the field. Many of them hold t...