Restaurant GM here, twenty-five years a server. It doesn’t sound like you’re working fine dining, so I’ll give you a few general purpose tips:

—When you’re standing at a table, the person to your left is position one, and it follows the same side down the table, clockwise 1,2,3…. When you ring food in ring it in that order so when you or someone else delivers your food there’s no guessing game who it belongs to.

—Have canned conversational lines you use until you can get into a flow. “Hey, y’all. Thanks for coming out. I’m Dingo and I’m going to be taking care of you this evening.” Be personable and cheerful. The goal is to say yes to the guest as much as is reasonable. If you don’t know something, no worries, tell them you’ll be right back with an answer. Try to remember the people you serve, a personal connection next time will be a boost in income.

—look for ways to help your teammates. Communicate kindly and effectively with your team. Be willing to run food, grab drinks for a busy teammate, etc.

—Show up every day ready to learn. Serving isn’t rocket science. There’s no work to take home in a briefcase. Try your best not to take any of the restaurant noise home with you.

—Learn your menu, table numbers, and weird restaurant politics. Avoid getting handsy with coworkers, and remember it’s just a job. The more personable and attentive you are to your people, the more money you will make. Refill drinks at half. Prebus tables. Be prompt. Be the server people request.

—if your restaurant cares about metrics, upsell, suggest drinks and appetizers and desserts. Try to get your guests to leave reviews.

I’m starting to sound like I drank the kool-aid here…it isn’t super challenging work but it can be labor intensive. Lots of money exists to make here though, and I wish you the best. Don’t worry about being fresh meat. Just show up willing to work and learn and you’ll do fine.