Pens are valuable items in a restaurant. There are never enough to go around. It didn't take me long to learn the basic pen rules of a waitressing job.
* Get the clicky kind with a handle. The handle part should be obvious - you need to be able to hang these pens on your apron, shirt, notebook, whatever. You can't be digging through your pockets all the time. It looks a little silly and wastes valuable time. Trust me, that absent-minded thing is only endearing with professors and not at all with servers.
As far as clicky vs. capped, this one was only obvious to me after the first day, the day I brought in capped pens. There is no graceful way to uncap a pen while holding a book. And if you leave it uncapped, the pen will go dry, and that's no good either. Plus, the handle is usually attached to the cap, and the pens come loose from their perch too easily when the caps come off and then you lose the handle altogether. Some old lady is likely to slip and fall on the handle, and then you lose your job, all because you didn't get a clicky pen. Think, people.
* Find your magic pen number. That is, the number of pens you need on a daily basis to be able to have some for customers with credit card receipts to sign, but still keep one for yourself. Obviously, the ideal situation would be to have a row of twenty pens lined up like an adorable pen army on your pocket. But that's not practical or even necessary. It is rare that you will ever need more than a certain number of pens, even if there is more than one credit card receipt out at a time. At most, you may have to give a customer the pen you use to take orders. But in the short amount of time it takes someone to sign their name, it is unlikely that you will have to take an order than you can't remember. On those rare occasions where the magic number proves to be not enough, it is allowed to temporarily borrow a coworker's pen with the promise of immediate return.
My magic pen number is three. I have to borrow a pen from someone once every month or so. Once I tried carrying four pens. I lost a pen, the only pen I have ever lost in all these months of waiting tables, on the very first day of the four-pen experiment. I found it about a month later in the employee parking lot, looking like it had been run over a dozen times, though it did still work. Rather than put it back in my pocket, I took the incident to be a sign that magic pen numbers are not to be messed with.
* Get matching pens. This is practical just to prevent pen loss. If someone finds a wayward pen, they'll know it's yours because it looks like all your other pens. There is no room for confusion here. Plus, it just gives a more professional look about you, you with your little row of mathcing pens peeking out of your pocket, ready for order-taking action. It definitely makes up for the marinara stains on your shirt. My pens are all solid dark blue, thin basic pens.
There you go. Even if you never have the experience of being a server yourself, pay attention to your next server's pens. A lot more thought went into those than you'd ever think. Unless they break all the rules, then either your server is a very bad one, or they're just not as anal-retentive as I am. Both are equally likely.
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