Pondering Restaurant Work, Pt One
It was dead slow in the Restaurant Where I Work(TM), and I’m standing around up at the counter with my thumb in my ass. All of my side work is done, none of the staff needs any help, the restaurant is all neat and tidy and whatnot, and there’s about four tables in the place.
I have one customer up at the counter, an old, retired fellow who is a regular, reading the paper. As I putter about, wiping down things, he looks up and says, “Hey, how’s your vocabulary?”
“Pretty good,” I answer, wandering over. “What’s up?”
He points out a word in an editorial in the newspaper. I don’t recall the word exactly — “insularity”, “insular” — something like that, but a verb form I hadn’t seen very often. Whatever. Anyhow, I looked at it, scanned the context, and figured out the meaning of the word. You know, like you’re taught to do in second grade. They were talking about an insular country or culture. I explained to the regular, “It means a country or a culture that doesn’t want an outside influence changing how they do things.”
“Oh, okay.” He said. “Pretty good!” He says, meaning it as a compliment for knowing the word.
I grinned and shrugged. “College was good for something.”
He looks up at me and blinks in surprise. “You went to college?” His tone is mildly incredulous.
It’s been a week, and this is still annoying the shit out of me. Yes, I went to college. I understand that I work in a dingy-looking diner. I understand that most people think that you end up working in dingy-looking diners, or in customer service of nearly any stripe, because you’re a dumbass. I know it’s a stereotype that’s never going to be defeated because of a minority of customer service reps who are such spectacular dumbasses that they’ve tainted the good reputation of the rest of us. I know. I get it. But goddamn it, yes, I went to college. I did pretty well at it, too.
I didn’t finish college for a variety of reasons. Some were good, some were bad, some were unavoidable, and some were my fault. I didn’t go back to college, because I could never come up with a good enough reason to spend that much money. As a result, I work in a dingy-looking diner for a living.
Speaking of a living, I do alright. My bills are paid. I have a reliable car to drive, and a nice roof over my head. I have decent clothes to wear, and plenty of food to eat. I have health insurance (even though no one takes it for a thirty mile radius around my house except chiropractors and ophthalmologists). My husband has a retirement fund — I don’t, but that’s my own fault, because no one is stopping me from trotting my happy ass down to the credit union and starting my own. We have two working cars, and two computers, cable, Internet access, and we bought a nice house. We’re doing a hell of a lot better than a hell of a lot of people around here, and I’m grateful every day for it. And, we both work in restaurants — customer service.
I could have done better. I sometimes spend way too much time thinking, I only I’d finished college, or gone into this, or gone into that . . . or whatever. But, I’m happy and healthy and doing reasonably well . . . in customer service.
I like my job. If I didn’t, I wouldn’t be in it. I like the pace of the work. I like a lot of the people I meet, and I like the people I work with. At the end of the day, when I’m tired, I know it’s because I’ve earned it. Yeah, I bitch about things, but I defy you to find a sane person who doesn’t have something to bitch about in their jobs. That person is a rare find. And, I’m good at my job, which is a very rewarding feeling. Most of all, it pays the bills, which is the important part.
It seems like a lot of people like to think that someone who works in the service industry is stupid, and that’s not the case. I’ve worked with a lot of stupid people at various restaurants. I work with some now. And, I’ve also met some of the smartest people I know working at restaurants.
At a good restaurant, the core staff, the folks that don’t quit after a few months, they become like family. They’re there for you when you need them, both for emotional support and at the job. I don’t know how many times we’ve all circled around one person or another to help them through a tough time. The waitress who’s getting abused by her boyfriend, and wants to leave, but doesn’t know how — we help her. The cook who just got dumped. The dishwasher who’s sister just died. We commiserate and support one another, and we’re right next to each other, busting ass and working like a well-oiled team when we’re so busy we don’t know which way is up.
Restaurant work gets into your meat and bones, and it’ll eat you alive, and it won’t let you go. You hate it, but you love it. You hate the bastard customer who’s treating you like garbage, but at the same time, you’re thinking, with some kind of warped pride, You couldn’t do my job. If you tried, you cry, or hit someone. It’s adversarial and conspiratorial. It’s slamming, it’s dead, it’s kicking your ass, it’s the easiest thing you’ve ever done. Any monkey could do it — of course, that’s why I have to spend so much time drumming out people who just can’t cut it. Even we make fun of it — how often do I look at my partner in crime and say of a new trainee, “Man, how dumb do you have to be to not be able to wait tables?” We say it, and yet, finding someone who actually is good at the job, who actually is a good, solid waitress or cook or dishwasher — it’s like digging up your flower garden and finding the Hope Diamond. Good restaurant staff is hard to find, and invaluable. Y’know, because the job is so easy.
Whatever.
