The Bear
I watched the first two seasons of it a while ago. Just now catching up on this new season.
For some reason it's labeled as a comedy. It has the random funny bit here and there. I mean, you have to when most of the characters are screaming at each other. Anyway, so far so good.
This show reminds me of when I worked in restaurants back in college. Nothing this fancy of course, we only had 2-3 cooks in the kitchen total at any of them. Everything is super perfect on TV anyway, always lots of room in the back, no mess, no chaos. Well, they show chaos for a few seconds then it jumps back to hyper-clean empty kitchen.
The kitchen after service was wild. The chefs and bus boys would clean up, mop, and all that while we cleaned the front of house and the bathrooms. When you wait tables you don't just wait tables you also prep food, clean bathrooms, roll silverware, vacuum, clean coke machine, and make dessert.
Some nights, Fridays and Saturdays in particular would take us an hour to get done. We opened at 11am and closed at 11pm, wrapping up and cashing out at midnight or later. This was back before 2008 so people still had money to eat out on the weekends. The front would have a pile of customers waiting two hours just to eat there. (We didn't do reservations due to the way we handled service, being a hibachi place.)
But the nightmares you had for years even after quitting were caused by the rush from 6pm to 9pm. Those three hours you were on your feet, handling two to three 12 tops at once, a few 4 tops, maybe the bar too. We had 7 total waitstaff. During the weekdays we used up to 4 but on weekends the volume was too high and we brought in everyone we could.
So your shift started slow, then your two dozen customers would get seated at one time at the grills. You now had 24 drink orders to take and serve and they all wanted your attention at once. You handled it as quick as you could so you could collect orders after you gave them drinks. Once the orders were in you brought them a soup and salad while they waited on the chef to come out. While he cooked you had a chance to handle the other tables or if you timed it right you had one table cooking while the other was eating, etc.
At worst you had both in sync and for 3 straight hours you didn't stop running around. Drinks, appetizers, more beer, togo boxes, extra soy sauce, more drinks, the check, why is it taking so long, hurry up.
You got nightmares about being sat the entire restaurant at once, and as you took drink orders another table would be seated in your section, and it would be a never ending spiral of never being able to catch up while the customers scream at you.
I mean, they did that irl but not often. Hungry people who waited 2 hours to eat are void of sanity. Things go wrong in the kitchen and they take it out on you. Things go wrong in a restaurant, there is no amount of prep and execution that can stop that from happening. But the waitress is the point of contact for the customer, so you get the first blow to the face.
Then there was the front of house/back of house/managers conflicts. Which is more what The Bear is about, but still. The Bear isn't a comedy. It's like having PTSD and watching fireworks on purpose.