Tales From My Past – Too Seriously

Years ago I was a waiter at the Olive Garden. Chiefly because I could walk there from my parents' house, where I moved after college. I didn't have a car, which was why walking was important. That was a fun time, technically an adult but still living at home – and paying rent, mind you – with nothing but free time to my day. I worked as a cook too, which gave me some skills other than writing and walking and carrying heavy trays. The restaurant had many, many different kinds of people, from carefree sorts like me, to ex-cons, to people very serious about the quality of their pot, to people just passing through, to single mothers. All sorts mingling under one roof, and it all just kind of worked.
   Until one day…
   If you've never held a job as a waiter, you should know that many restaurants require their waiters to do sidework. Rolling silverware into napkins, for instance, or cutting lemons for iced tea, or re-stocking desserts in the refrigerator, that kind of thing. Usually the sidework is something that benefits all the waitstaff so there's peer pressure to get it done.
   There was one particular girl – I think her name was Bree – a complete Daddy's girl, a spoiled princess working there over the summer, and generally a worthless waiter who got by on her looks and a truly epic rack. I mean it was GREAT, worth writing home about. She was the absolute worst at sidework, though, almost refused to do it, and if she had to do something vital like refilling the salad station you could guarantee your tips would suffer because of her.
   One day as the shift was winding down and half of us were cleaning our tables and getting ready to leave for the day, Bree was having lunch. Which she probably didn't pay for. One of the waiters still working came out and fussed at her for not doing her sidework. She blew him off with a laugh. Then I told her she was screwing all of us up when she didn't do what she was supposed to. She tried to ignore me. Then some of the other waiters laid into her, and she started to get upset.
   "Some people just take this job too seriously," she snapped. She said this in front of Evelyn, a single mother who supported her two kids on what she made as a waitress. If anybody was entitled to take that job too seriously it was Evelyn. Or Tess. Or Joyce. Or Roxy. All mothers who worked long, thankless hours at a low-paying job just to do right by their kids.
   As luck or karma would have it, right then our best manager happened by and overheard. Josephe took Bree into a vacant section, sat her down, and had a 'discussion' with her. Josephe's discussions usually ended up with someone weeping – never himself – and this time was no exception. Bree left the restaurant in tears, her half-eaten lunch still on the table.
   But the next day she finished her sidework.