Jobby Job

Hiya.

Been a few days. Just started my new job, see? Starting yesterday I get up at 8:30, am hitting the interstate by 9:45 and in Nashville by 10:30 where my day begins. So far that day goes like this:

Park 3 blocks away from the small bistro where I am now employeed and walk down the hill to the back door. Enter the tiny kitchen where there are three cooks on the line, quietly preparing the lunch menu. Clock in and fill the newspaper bin with fresh papers. Steal a page of the crappy City Paper and begin Windexing the glass in the doors. I flip on lights. I buff some brass.

Then I orchestrate the flow of the 30-table dining room with the aid of my trainer. I note times at which tables are seated, estimate waiting times for those in the lobby, rotate the servers evenly so that they don’t get in over their heads, all the while keeping an eye on the flow of people coming in with the kitchen staff in mind. I tell people 10-20 minutes and they drop their chins and ask me, in all seriousness, “Is it really going to be that long?” Like I’m fucking with them. Or can predict the future. I smile and assure them we are doing the best we can, and bask in the knowledge that in 10-20 minutes they are someone else’s problem. Today I’m not their server.

Because right now I am training for the host position. Gotta start somewhere, and it’s been a long time for me since that somewhere has been the beginning. (That made no sense.) It feels nice to do something different, something that’s wage does not depend on the whim of someone else.
A paycheck. What a concept! Host work is pretty easy work. And honestly, it’s refreshing.

For a limited time only. Because Thursday I begin server training. That will last three days, probably, and to tell you the truth I’m scared. The menu has, seriously, about six things on it I can’t pronounce. Or can, but I am visibly unsure of myself when I do so. And the clientele is drastically different. At the steakhouse place I was overrun on a nightly basis by the most backward, toothless motherfuckers you can imagine. No lie. I sometimes couldn’t believe it myself. I am remembering now this table full of rat-tails and racing t-shirts with the sleeves cut out real big so everybody could see their armpits and shit. I grimaced when I saw them sitting down. The first thing they told me when I approached was that they’d need two more ashtrays. For six people total. But then, almost like I was in a sitcom or on candid camera, this infinitly more redneck guy sits down demanding Busch in a can. He proceeded to eat with his hands, shout his order loud enough for my entire section to hear it and grab me by my arm. Twice. The first time he did it I did my best to ignore it and instead went immediately to the sink to wash up to my shoulders. The second time I informed him he wasn’t allowed to put his hands on me, and I’ll never forget the black-gummed smile he smiled back in my direction. I nearly vomitted.

No, at this place it’s all alligator boots, and famous local personal injury lawyers with bad hair and shittier commecrials, and “No no no, this won’t do. I don’t sit at the back of the restaurant.” I’ve never seen so many people be so incredibly picky about where they sit to eat. They want to sit where they can be seen. Window seating goes first, so that they can get a glimpse at who might be coming in. So they can get a head start on the snarky, socialite banter. No one–no one at all–wants to sit by the kitchen. One lady made this known by grunting “Uh-uh, Uh-uh, Uh-uh, I’m claustrophobic. I can’t sit there. I want a table for four upstairs. That one will do.” And proceeded to sit her scrawny, The French Shoppe-covered ass right down at that table.

Snootiness aside, everything else about the place is pretty perfect. Small kitchen run by a professionally trained staff, just a few servers and a couple of hosts, all of whom are in their mid to late-twenties (no obnoxious newbie 18-year-olds) and seasoned veterans. The managers and owners are kind and cool and so incredibly understanding that they let a bartender take vacation even when there was no one to cover for him. They managed the situation by having a server pour drinks for tables and closing down the bar stools for service. It was only for lunch time, and so it wasn’t as though they took a huge hit from him being gone. No corporate place is going to even think of allowing that.

And the kitchen is so respectful, comparatively. At the other place I’d have fry cooks screaming “FUCK YOU” at me through the window because a table came in late. I shit you not, my friends. Managers watched it happened and said nothing.

Today my new manager sent one of us on a run for smoothies at 1:30 and laughed when the opening server found a half-smoked joint in one of the ashtrays. She joked it wasn’t hers…that stuff was too brown and shitty.

Sigh. I think I am going to like it there.