I used to be a waiter, back when the world was young and Noah hadn't yet learned what a cubit was. It was a good gig right out of college, cash business, never too many hours at work, could take the day off when I wanted to. Not a real climb-the-ladder career, though, so I had to give it up.
But not before I had some fun. At someone else's expense.
There were many personalities in the restaurant, single mother, smart-alec and underemployed college grads like me, felons, burn-outs, people on their way to something else. A melting pot. We had one lady in particular, who used to be an accountant but had ended up a waiter. DR we called her, for her initials. She was pleasant enough to be around, but she was stickler for the rules. She worked as a cashier too, and you always had to have your papers in order or it was trouble for sure. By-the-book is what I'm trying to say.
Except for one particular Friday night. DR was working on the North side of the restaurant, but the dish area was on the South side. Protocol called for waiters to take dirty dishes through the dining room, North to South, rather than come through the server alley because it was just too congested to have people dodging the debris from bussed tables.
DR decided that rule didn't apply to her. She was at the very, very front of the restaurant, about as far from the dish area as you could get without going outside, and she carried her trays of empty plates right through the server alley. And DR didn't dance around people, she was a big girl and bulled right through.
I asked her not to do it, to go through the dining room instead. I heard at least three other waiters ask her the same thing, some much more politely than I. DR wouldn't hear it. She had to go through the server alley for some reason.
Friday night wore on and the restaurant became crowded. Full house of customers and full staff of waiters. And DR insists on endangering everyone by charging through the server alley with a large tray of dishes held high. Right towards the dish area where the floor had become soaking wet with soapy water from an overflowing dish washing machine.
In my mind I can still see happen it like I'm standing by the soda fountain. I hear the North door slam open. I see DR practically running through the alley towards me and the dish area, a butch-cut tractor plowing a furrow through her fellow waiters. I glance at the sopping wet floor. I think, for just a moment, that I should tell DR to slow down. I decide against it. She comes forward like a wide-hipped freight train. She gets one step into the puddle. Two steps.
And then... it's like a cartoon. Her feet slip, and then she starts to bicycle pedal. In mid-air. I swear to all I hold holy this is true. Her feet move frantically as she tries to keep her balance and keep from spilling the thirty pounds of dishes she has on her tray. Then... both her legs go rigid - straight out in front of her - and she's suspended in mid-air. Nothing between her and the floor but atmosphere.
She hits the floor and dishes go EVERYWHERE. Crash, bang, crash, clatter, splinter, with the metallic tinkle of silverware and the brittle cracking of glasses added to the symphony of destruction. Being a big girl DR has a lot of momentum, which carries her into the garbage cans where we discarded food and then UNDER the dish counter.
Out of nowhere, Christine - very sexy Christine who played softball and wore the most amazing perfume - appears and shouts 'Safe!' I spent the next ten minutes laughing out loud.
The only thing DR hurt was her considerable pride. And her pants got soaked. And she broke about $200 worth of dishware, wholesale. But for the rest of the night and every shift after that she went through the dining room. The hardest lessons learned are often the best lessons learned.
Ah... good times, good times. But I am so glad I'm not a waiter any more.
Showing posts with label restaurant. Show all posts
Showing posts with label restaurant. Show all posts
Monday, June 13, 2011
Tuesday, December 14, 2010
Safe Inside Or Out In The Nuclear Wasteland
You want to have a little fun with your friends? And by fun I mean start more trouble than you thought you would or are really comfortable handling? You are? Good. Try this:
When you're gathered around twenty or thirty people - friends, family, co-workers, what have you - get one other person and start playing a hypothetical 'what if' game. Or, as Einstein put it, ein Gedankenexperiment. What you'll do is assume that the world has been utterly destroyed in a nuclear holocaust except the building you're inside. Every door and window has been sealed, there is no way for any of the radiation to get you. You're all safe.
However... there are not enough resources to keep everyone alive. So you and your friend have to make the tough decisions regarding who gets to stay safe inside and who gets shoved to almost certain death (or mutation) outside. And you can't do it in secret, you have to discuss this right out in front of everyone. If people ask why you're the ones making the decision just tell them because you thought of it first.
A friend of mine and I did this years ago, between shifts at the Olive Garden. We had some time to kill and decided to rank everyone in sight according to their fitness to stay inside our non-nuclear safe zone. For a while there we had a Purgatory of an airlock, halfway between salvation and damnation, but we had to abandon that idea when the population inside the airlock was greater than that either in or out. Being that we were in our early 20's we kept a lot of the hot waitresses because we'd need breeding stock to repopulate the Earth when the time came, and we kept a few of the smart guys because they'd be fun company, and then most everybody else we shoved outside. We kept only one guy in the airlock, so he could run outside and repair the antenna when we needed him to.
What for us was a way to kill ten minutes turned into a days-long back and forth, complete with negotiations and pleas and backstabbing mutterings. Our population grew from just those people we could see that afternoon to the entire population of the restaurant, cooks, bus boys, waiters, cashiers, bartenders, managers, regional mangers, absolutely everyone. People really got into it, with those we kept inside very proud and disdainful of those outside, and those outside eager to make their case as to why they should stay safe and become part of the 'in' crowd. Those we relegated to the wasteland eventually decided they were going to form a radioactive mutant army and come back to storm the restaurant and take it by force. Until we pointed out that, because they would be contaminated by radiation, if they did breach the walls they'd just be turning the last hope for non-mutant humans into more nuclear fallout. And then we told them their lack of foresight is what made us put them outside in the first place.
It was a very telling exercise in human nature, one that took us entirely by surprise. Who knew that people would take it so seriously? And, you know, now that I'm thinking about it, if I'd been a little quicker on the uptake back then that whole business probably could have gotten me laid.
Ah well, live and learn.
When you're gathered around twenty or thirty people - friends, family, co-workers, what have you - get one other person and start playing a hypothetical 'what if' game. Or, as Einstein put it, ein Gedankenexperiment. What you'll do is assume that the world has been utterly destroyed in a nuclear holocaust except the building you're inside. Every door and window has been sealed, there is no way for any of the radiation to get you. You're all safe.
However... there are not enough resources to keep everyone alive. So you and your friend have to make the tough decisions regarding who gets to stay safe inside and who gets shoved to almost certain death (or mutation) outside. And you can't do it in secret, you have to discuss this right out in front of everyone. If people ask why you're the ones making the decision just tell them because you thought of it first.
A friend of mine and I did this years ago, between shifts at the Olive Garden. We had some time to kill and decided to rank everyone in sight according to their fitness to stay inside our non-nuclear safe zone. For a while there we had a Purgatory of an airlock, halfway between salvation and damnation, but we had to abandon that idea when the population inside the airlock was greater than that either in or out. Being that we were in our early 20's we kept a lot of the hot waitresses because we'd need breeding stock to repopulate the Earth when the time came, and we kept a few of the smart guys because they'd be fun company, and then most everybody else we shoved outside. We kept only one guy in the airlock, so he could run outside and repair the antenna when we needed him to.
What for us was a way to kill ten minutes turned into a days-long back and forth, complete with negotiations and pleas and backstabbing mutterings. Our population grew from just those people we could see that afternoon to the entire population of the restaurant, cooks, bus boys, waiters, cashiers, bartenders, managers, regional mangers, absolutely everyone. People really got into it, with those we kept inside very proud and disdainful of those outside, and those outside eager to make their case as to why they should stay safe and become part of the 'in' crowd. Those we relegated to the wasteland eventually decided they were going to form a radioactive mutant army and come back to storm the restaurant and take it by force. Until we pointed out that, because they would be contaminated by radiation, if they did breach the walls they'd just be turning the last hope for non-mutant humans into more nuclear fallout. And then we told them their lack of foresight is what made us put them outside in the first place.
It was a very telling exercise in human nature, one that took us entirely by surprise. Who knew that people would take it so seriously? And, you know, now that I'm thinking about it, if I'd been a little quicker on the uptake back then that whole business probably could have gotten me laid.
Ah well, live and learn.
Wednesday, September 22, 2010
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.
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.
Friday, September 17, 2010
The Earl of Sandwich
Who doesn't love a good sandwich?
Well, people who have wheat allergies, I suppose, but other than them people the world over adore sandwiches. There's just something about two pieces of bread with stuff in between that quiets a restive soul. I could wax rhapsodic about the sandwiches I've consumed over the years, with their pillowy bread and tangy mayo, zesty mustard and sharp cheese, succulent tomatoes and wonderfully salty oh-so-processed lunch meat, cut into triangles like equilateral slices of heaven...
Ah, sandwiches. I've had good, I've had not so good, and I've had downright terrible. The difference, I've found, is love. And I don't mean that to be sarcastic - I understand that sometimes I can come off that way, totally unintentional* - love really is the difference. Not necessarily the love of the sandwich preparer for me (though Mom sandwiches are the best), but the love the preparer has for the ingredients, for the process, for the Aristotelian essence of Sandwich.
Why is it, for instance, that you can go into a Subway on a Tuesday and get a half-assed thrown-together mess that barely passes for lunch, but you can go into the exact same store on a Thursday and get a sublime, delicious meal that makes you happy you wandered by right when you were hungry? The ingredients are the same, the store is the same, you're the same, the only thing that's changed is the person behind the counter. The best and worst sandwiches I ever had were at the same Subway. One was a haphazard, borderline-inedible pile of garbage, the other was an almost picture-perfect pleasure to consume. The guy who made the good sandwich didn't take longer, or use better ingredients, or slip me $100 to say this, that guy took pride in what he did and had a love for making food that showed in the work he produced. The other girl would clearly have been happier working anywhere else.
A friend of mine gave me the title of a sandwich cookbook about a year ago, and I've had the proposal for the book sitting half-done in my computer for a while now. I think it's time to dust it off and put out a cookbook that's also a personal philosophy. Anybody interested in buying the first copy?
* okay, that was sarcasm
Well, people who have wheat allergies, I suppose, but other than them people the world over adore sandwiches. There's just something about two pieces of bread with stuff in between that quiets a restive soul. I could wax rhapsodic about the sandwiches I've consumed over the years, with their pillowy bread and tangy mayo, zesty mustard and sharp cheese, succulent tomatoes and wonderfully salty oh-so-processed lunch meat, cut into triangles like equilateral slices of heaven...
Ah, sandwiches. I've had good, I've had not so good, and I've had downright terrible. The difference, I've found, is love. And I don't mean that to be sarcastic - I understand that sometimes I can come off that way, totally unintentional* - love really is the difference. Not necessarily the love of the sandwich preparer for me (though Mom sandwiches are the best), but the love the preparer has for the ingredients, for the process, for the Aristotelian essence of Sandwich.
Why is it, for instance, that you can go into a Subway on a Tuesday and get a half-assed thrown-together mess that barely passes for lunch, but you can go into the exact same store on a Thursday and get a sublime, delicious meal that makes you happy you wandered by right when you were hungry? The ingredients are the same, the store is the same, you're the same, the only thing that's changed is the person behind the counter. The best and worst sandwiches I ever had were at the same Subway. One was a haphazard, borderline-inedible pile of garbage, the other was an almost picture-perfect pleasure to consume. The guy who made the good sandwich didn't take longer, or use better ingredients, or slip me $100 to say this, that guy took pride in what he did and had a love for making food that showed in the work he produced. The other girl would clearly have been happier working anywhere else.
A friend of mine gave me the title of a sandwich cookbook about a year ago, and I've had the proposal for the book sitting half-done in my computer for a while now. I think it's time to dust it off and put out a cookbook that's also a personal philosophy. Anybody interested in buying the first copy?
* okay, that was sarcasm
Sunday, September 20, 2009
Waiter Dreams
I used to be a waiter, a long, long, long time ago. They wanted us to say 'server' but I never could get behind that, it sounded like what it was, a term made up by corporate weasels. It was fun gig right out of college, a cash business where you got your meals for free, especially if you worked as cook too, which I did. While it is not a fast-track job for the career-minded, it does take a certain kind of person to be able to handle the stresses inherent in waiting tables.
Not only do you have crazy-ass people who come into the restaurant believing they're entitled to something by virtue of having their butt in one of your seats, you have to deal with incompetent restaurant managers, dim-witted hostesses, and cooks who are either coming down from their latest high or thinking about the next time they can get high. It's a delicate dance between all sorts of volatile personalities to get what you need to get your job done. Roll all of that together put it under the pressure of having to make rent money on the last day of the month and you can see why there aren't many really old waiters.
Everyone who's been a waiter has had the waiter dream - you're the only one in the restaurant when a bus full of senior citizens pulls up, or you're in the kitchen trying to get back out to your customers but something always keeps you from getting through that door, or you're working at full capacity already and the hostess seats you a party of twenty. You're panicked and sweaty and rushed and nothing ever goes your way; usually a waiter dream is never resolved, you just wake up, shake it off, and try to go back to sleep. They're stress dreams, and I used to have them all the time when I was actually working as a waiter. And in the years since, from time to time, I'll have another waiter dream and I'll know that my sub-conscious mind is trying to tell me something.
I've been having waiter dreams recently. Maybe this unemployment thing is getting to me more than I realized.
Not only do you have crazy-ass people who come into the restaurant believing they're entitled to something by virtue of having their butt in one of your seats, you have to deal with incompetent restaurant managers, dim-witted hostesses, and cooks who are either coming down from their latest high or thinking about the next time they can get high. It's a delicate dance between all sorts of volatile personalities to get what you need to get your job done. Roll all of that together put it under the pressure of having to make rent money on the last day of the month and you can see why there aren't many really old waiters.
Everyone who's been a waiter has had the waiter dream - you're the only one in the restaurant when a bus full of senior citizens pulls up, or you're in the kitchen trying to get back out to your customers but something always keeps you from getting through that door, or you're working at full capacity already and the hostess seats you a party of twenty. You're panicked and sweaty and rushed and nothing ever goes your way; usually a waiter dream is never resolved, you just wake up, shake it off, and try to go back to sleep. They're stress dreams, and I used to have them all the time when I was actually working as a waiter. And in the years since, from time to time, I'll have another waiter dream and I'll know that my sub-conscious mind is trying to tell me something.
I've been having waiter dreams recently. Maybe this unemployment thing is getting to me more than I realized.
Monday, July 27, 2009
Texas vs. California - Restaurants
The examples below are real. Only the names have been changed to protect the clueless.
Texas Restaurant
Hi, are ya'll ready to order?
I'll have the brisket plate.
Cole slaw or potato salad?
Cole slaw.
Anything to drink?
Iced tea.
Thanks, that'll be right out.
California Restaurant
Bonus day, ain't it bro? Can I tell you our specials? We have a great ahi tuna salad.
Actually, I think I'm in the mood for salmon.
Oh... bad news... we don't have salmon on the menu.
I know, but I wonder if you have any in the back?
I'm pretty sure we don't.
Could you make actually sure? I'm in a salmon mood.
~~ time passes ~~
I asked my manager and we've never had salmon, like, ever.
Oh, I was just holding out hope. How is your salad prepared?
Tossed.
Could I get a... hmm... so tough to choose... grilled chicken salad?
Excellent choice.
I'd like to have the chicken with no grill marks, though. Is that possible?
So, grilled chicken with no grill marks... you're trying to blow my mind, right?
Would your manager know?
~~ time passes ~~
Okay, we can do that, he's pretty sure. Workin' some of his manager voodoo. The salad comes with grilled vegetables, is it okay if those have grill marks?
That's fine. But are they marinated?
It's a totally righteous marinade, man.
Could I get that on the side? I prefer to marinate myself.
Sure, okay.
And could I have the dressing on the side? And an extra little ramekin of barbeque sauce. I don't want a bowl, that's too much, a ramekin is just perfect. When the salad comes I'm going to need some fresh black pepper, some slices of limes - NOT lemons, limes, if you don't have them I don't want anything else - and a few tiny shavings of Parmigiano Reggiano. Some balsamic vinegar, too. Oh, and artichoke hearts, I'm sure you have those in the back.
(writing furiously) Okay... got it. Anything else?
No, that's it. I don't want to be any trouble.
Texas Restaurant
Hi, are ya'll ready to order?
I'll have the brisket plate.
Cole slaw or potato salad?
Cole slaw.
Anything to drink?
Iced tea.
Thanks, that'll be right out.
California Restaurant
Bonus day, ain't it bro? Can I tell you our specials? We have a great ahi tuna salad.
Actually, I think I'm in the mood for salmon.
Oh... bad news... we don't have salmon on the menu.
I know, but I wonder if you have any in the back?
I'm pretty sure we don't.
Could you make actually sure? I'm in a salmon mood.
~~ time passes ~~
I asked my manager and we've never had salmon, like, ever.
Oh, I was just holding out hope. How is your salad prepared?
Tossed.
Could I get a... hmm... so tough to choose... grilled chicken salad?
Excellent choice.
I'd like to have the chicken with no grill marks, though. Is that possible?
So, grilled chicken with no grill marks... you're trying to blow my mind, right?
Would your manager know?
~~ time passes ~~
Okay, we can do that, he's pretty sure. Workin' some of his manager voodoo. The salad comes with grilled vegetables, is it okay if those have grill marks?
That's fine. But are they marinated?
It's a totally righteous marinade, man.
Could I get that on the side? I prefer to marinate myself.
Sure, okay.
And could I have the dressing on the side? And an extra little ramekin of barbeque sauce. I don't want a bowl, that's too much, a ramekin is just perfect. When the salad comes I'm going to need some fresh black pepper, some slices of limes - NOT lemons, limes, if you don't have them I don't want anything else - and a few tiny shavings of Parmigiano Reggiano. Some balsamic vinegar, too. Oh, and artichoke hearts, I'm sure you have those in the back.
(writing furiously) Okay... got it. Anything else?
No, that's it. I don't want to be any trouble.
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