The ticket order lady who read my mind on a 50-top

Had a brutal Saturday with a 50-top walk-in and my expo was drowning. The ticket printer ate three orders and we were guessing on temps. This older server, Maria, came back and just started writing tickets in the order the food needed to hit the pass, not the order they came in. She said, 'the ticket is a map, not a list.' It was the simplest fix and it saved my whole station. Has anyone else had a front of house person who just gets the chaos and makes it worse or better?

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the_julia1mo ago

Oh, bless Maria for that. But I gotta gently point out that she didn't read your mind, she read the flow of the kitchen. That's a big difference. Reading minds is magic, reading a rush is a skill, and she's clearly got it. I've seen servers try to "help" by rewriting tickets and they make it worse because they don't know the cook times or the pass order. Maria knew exactly what she was doing, and that's not luck, that's years of paying attention. Keep her close, because that kind of sense is worth more than any fancy system.