Busser

“Busser” is actually another word for Bus Boy or Bus Girl. In restaurants, a Busser, naturally, is the one who “busses” or cleans up the table after diners have left.

Though most places hiring for this job are restaurants, Bussers can work pretty much anywhere with table service. This means that, if you’re a Busser, you might work at a diner, country club, café, hotel, or resort.

Wherever you work though, your job is to clean off the dirty plates, silverware, and glassware when guests finish and leave. You take the dishes and dirty napkins to the kitchen. And once there, you bring the dirty dishes to the dishwashing station, and the cloth napkins to the laundry area. Then you throw away any trash that you have collected from the table.

Out in the dining room, you wipe down tables and chairs, and reset place settings. You put out clean napkins, silverware, and glasses, and sweep up any spilled food on the floor. You don’t usually interact with guests, though you might help out with basic requests like those for new silverware or extra napkins.

This position is pretty low on the restaurant totem pole, and you shouldn’t expect to make much money from. In fact, you might occasionally do the work for tips only.

Sometimes, the job is done in combination with host duties. In this role, you seat guests as well as clean off tables when they finish. This type of combination position is usually done in smaller restaurants that don’t have many tables.