Challenging Conventional Wisdom – Round Two

I enjoyed writing the last column about Challenging Conventional Wisdom so much, I realized I have a couple more arrows in my quiver. Please, keep in mind, I’m having fun here.

Without further delay, here a couple more etched-in-stone restaurant industry standards that I think are pretty much BS.

‘Never Scoop Ice With The Glass!’

I’d like to apologize: To my first trainer at Red Robin. To all subsequent trainers at every new job along the way. To my managers. To my restaurant’s owners. To my mom. And to anyone who’s generally just a tight-ass about safety.

I’m sorry.

I always scoop with the glass. I only use the ice scoop when it’s faster and more convenient (say it’s a big scoop and I’m filling multiple glasses), or else when the glass I’m using is something unusually delicate, like a wine glass.

For the non-waiters reading this (are there any?), you are never supposed to fill glasses with ice by digging the glass itself into the ice well – an act which is, of course instinctual. Instead, you’re supposed to used an ice scooper, and transfer the ice from the scooper into the glass. So that’s one reason for the rule, correcting what’s otherwise natural behavior.

Others reasons/justifications are:

• Sanitation, supposedly. Your hand goes into the ice, possibly transferring waiter germs.
• Eliminating time-consuming accidents. ‘Oh, shit! A glass just broke in the well! Now we have to burn the well (melt the ice with volumes of hot water till the well is clean and the glass is picked out).‘ If it’s your only well, you’ve got some serious hoops to jump through to keep serving – never mind the labor and time involved with burning the well and refilling it. Even if it’s not your only well, it’s a big pain in the ass.
• Finally, probably the biggest reason (or at least the most politically correct) is safety. It’s virtually impossible to spot broken glass in a sea of ice cubes. You think you found all the pieces . . . well if you’re wrong, you might end up serving a piece of glass in someone’s drink. I believe swallowing a shard of glass would be very harsh on the digestive system.

But I still do it. You know why? Because modern glasses do not break in ice anymore. Today’s water glass is approximately as durable as stone. Have you ever examined a well-used water glass? It is a serious piece of engineering. The lip is beaten and scuffed and worn down, but not chipped or cracked. It is probably made with some silicone or plastic mixed in, much like shatter-proof windshields. Yes, it can be broken – for instance if you dropped one from 10 feet onto a cement floor (I say 10 feet, because I’ve dropped many from 5 feet – shoulder height – or less and had the damn things simply bounce). I’ve actually had dropped water glasses break plates.

Over the years, in my career as an irresponsible, selfish, public-endangering waiter, I’ve broken maybe five or six glasses ‘in the ice.’ I’ve been waiting tables since 1986, and I’ve certainly been a glass-scooper since at least ‘88. That is not a lot of broken glass. In the interval, I’ve saved tons of accumulated time and movement . . .

‘. . . and made my guests happier with my prompt service and in the process . . . made more tips!’ – This message brought to you by every script-reciting, ‘motivational,’ monthly-Saturday-afternoon-Staff-Meeting corporate manager I ever had.

[Incidentally, I just mimed both actions: 1) grabbing a glass and scooping. 2) grabbing a glass, grabbing the ice scoop, scooping, dumping scooped ice into glass. Using the scooper (#2) takes twice as long. It took about 2 seconds to complete #1. How many iced teas, sodas, and waters do you think I've served over the years?]

How To Be A ‘Safe’ Glass-Scooper

There is a technique to glass-scooping, but I hesitate to espouse that if everyone learned proper technique we could, as a nation – as a planet – eliminate all dedicated ice scoopers. Instead, I say simply that this works for me:

1. With a supple and not-firm wrist, slide the glass into the ice. Take care to dip into the center of the well, not at the metal edges of the bin, where you might encounter . . . the metal edges, or else refrozen and hardened blocks of ice. The center is where the loose – safe – ice resides.
2. Do not scoop boldly. Think ‘dip,’ not ‘plunge.’ Consider it more like gathering ice, almost as if it were liquid you were collecting.
3. Do not scoop two glasses at once as they might bang into each other.
4. When you’re done, glance at the rim of the glass. If something has broken or chipped, you should be able to notice it.
5. If there is a crack or a chip on the glass, step away from the well and be very quiet. Wait till the area clears of personnel, then tell the next busser you see that someone has broken a glass in the ice, and ‘we’ need to burn the well.

But, as I say, a beaker has been known to break in the dark practice of glass-scooping. What happens? Well, I catch it. I examine the glass, see that it has broken, and, damn! . . . where’s that busser?

And then I wait another four or five years for it to happen to me again.

**I would also add that I’ve seen many a glass broken by the heavy lead (or aluminum) ice scooper itself. Are we actually saving, net, any broken-glass-over-ice incidents here?

Now, were I a bartender, and that was all I was did – make drink after drink after drink – I would use the scoop. A busy bartender doesn’t have time to be doing visual checks on all her work. It’s like a touch-typist copying a letter – you don’t keep looking at the screen to check your work, you just trust your fingers and go.

Regarding the sanitation aspect of the rule, I have no patience for the idea that putting your skin in contact with ice is much of a health risk . . .

. . .

. . . hmm . . .

(I’m just debating whether to go on a rant about the suspension of disbelief the general public, and perhaps corporate restaurant honchos, engage in concerning the pristine path of hygiene that restaurant food travels before it ends up in front of the guest . . .)

Okay, I’m gonna do it. And I might as well make it my next item challenging conventional wisdom:

‘They Wouldn’t Do That At Home!’ – Round Two

Wherein the general public rails at exposés of poor restaurant kitchen hygiene. We’ve all seen the local news Hidden Camera reports showing Bill’s Bistro dropping food on the ground, picking it up, dusting it off, and starting all over again. And all the other stuff.

Some of us have seen the movie Waiting…, which is actually pretty funny and quite honest in most ways. It is, however, overly-weighted towards the disgusting and filthy apocryphal (kind of) tales of restaurant worker revenge (spitting in food, etc.).

Indeed, egregious and dangerous habits are practiced; there’s no limit the depths of human carelessness and disregard. This is not about those dregs. Instead I refer to the average or better Bill’s Bistros who are just going about business as usual, where mistakes are made.

I’m not here to say all restaurants are cesspools and people aren’t willing to acknowledge it. I’m saying that, yes, We Would Do That At Home!

• We’re at home, breading a chicken breast and it slips – oops! – and hits the floor. Yes. We’re picking it up, rinsing it off and getting back to the business of making dinner.
• We’re at home, and notice some lamb chops have been in the freezer quite awhile, probably too long, but we can’t be totally sure . . . Well, better hurry up and cook ‘em. And make sure to slather on a lot of sauce. Even mint jelly!
• We’re at home, ready to toss a salad (this is before dinner, remember), and the salad tongs are in the dishwasher. Hey, no kidding, we actually grab it with our hands and toss it up!

When You Were A Kid (or Even Now) You Pick This Up, Don't You?

The short-hand justification I’ve heard most recently (from waiters inside the restaurant) is, ‘They want me to make their martini extra dirty with the same olive juice every waiter in the restaurant is dipping his fingers into?’

Even if your restaurant uses ‘virgin’ juice (kept in the well by the bartender, as Carney’s does), you can still get the general sensation of disgust by considering any bar garnish dropped into the cocktail you’re drinking. Fingers, fingers, fingers!

Well, I’d like to give the finger to anyone who has a problem with mine or any of my co-workers fingers. Please, people, release the clutch on your sphincter and instead grip reality:

People are handling your food. Why does it not bother you watching Iron Chef? You know it happens.

Even if in some hermetic dream you are in a place where the chefs all use tongs and spatulas, change rubber gloves after handling each new item, and use hand sanitizer after they snap their fingers (after all, the Thumb might have infected the Middle Finger!) . . . even if . . .

What do you think has been going on further up the ‘Food Service Chain?’ How ’bout the guys at Sysco? Or the meat purveyor? Or the truck drivers who might or might not have cleaned their semi-trailer properly between shipments? Or the boys and girls in the slaughterhouses in Kansas City and Chicago? Or even the damn cow or chicken or pig or head of lettuce itself?

Food is prepared by humans. (And if it’s not, then it’s a plant that’s probably been pissed on by animals.) It’s been that way since the dawn of man. Somehow, civilization has advanced lo-these-many-years with human beings touching the food all the time.

How have people survived?

I have no idea. Must be some sort of built-in defense system in the human body . . .

Challenging Conventional Wisdom

Here at Waiternotes, I’m a progressive sort. I’m interested in advancing the profession. While I endorse learning the ABC’s of the craft (and have done so rigorously myself), I also believe the business is evolving – and even where it isn’t, there can be better ways that no one thought of before. If you read my post about What Makes A Real Pro, there’s a section about waiters using what I call Fuzzy Logic (not claiming I invented the term – I’m just the one applying it to food serving). I just believe there’s always room for creative thinking.

That said, I’d like to submit a couple of commonly held standards/sayings and why I think they don’t hold up.

My number one, which I’ve been championing for more than 20 years:

‘Never Take The Last One!’

Wherein you, the server, reach for the coffee filters to make a fresh pot. Oops! There’s just one filter left. As a responsible waiter who’s learned the ropes, you are required to go to dry storage and restock the coffee filters before (without) taking the last one. Everybody knows this saying. It’s been used since the days a nickel tip was perfectly acceptable.

Instead, I say, ‘You know what? No. Go ahead, take the last one!’

It does not make any difference at all, and I’m going to tell you why.

I first challenged this bromide because I realized that not taking the last one did not save any work, time, or trouble. There is no advantage to it. The person who restocks before the last one is taken is doing no less work, spending no less time, than he would if the last one were already taken. Restocking is still the exact same process of time and effort. So why the hell not take the last one? When the next guy comes along, he restocks.

I say the catchphrase should instead be, ‘Hey, lucky me. I got the last one!’ At least there’s some joy there. It’s great to get the last one in just about everything: last cigarette, last raffle ticket, last one in your size, last call, last chance for romance. It’s a kind of victory, cause for small celebration. Removing that tiny joy is a shame, especially when there’s no good reason for it.

Once I realized not taking the last one saved no labor and created no net convenience, I started to look for further justification for my contrary position.

It turned out, it was actually wasteful in some cases. Let’s take the coffee example (which will also allow me to drop in my disclaimer). If you’re about to pour the last cup of coffee, and it’s the end of the night, and you robotically make a new pot rather than take the last cup, there’s a good chance that pot will be wasted. My disclaimer is that if there’s an item that is ‘made’ (like a pot of coffee) and is usually required on short notice (like a cup of coffee) and there will be an ongoing need for it through the shift, then this is the exception. But this exception really doesn’t go all that far. Imagine you make your own salads as a waiter. You’re going to need salads all night, yes, but how fast do you need them? And how fast can more mixed greens be gotten/produced? In my experience, with the salads . . . ‘Go ahead and take the last one!’

When I peeled away all the layers of the onion, I got to the rotting, black-hearted weevil in the core that is probably responsible for the adoption of this rule:

It was invented by managers.

Who else has the motivation? Every waiter I know is just joyous to get the last one, and hates having to restock. Why would a waiter ever invent that rule? Managers did it because whenever they need something – be it a paper clip, a piece of bread, or that coffee filter – they detest having to do that kind of work. And, of course, if you think about it, have you ever seen a manager observe this rule when he was the guy taking the last one?

‘They Wouldn’t Do That At Home!’

Wherein us waiters and all restaurant professionals complain about guest behavior, pointing out how uncouth it is that a guest just washed his face with the warm finger towel. Or that he just pulled out a pocket-pick and flossed his teeth at the table.

They wouldn’t do it in their own homes, so they shouldn’t do it in our restaurant.

I used to say this a lot, myself. When I said it yet again last month, I paused to examine the statement.

In fact, I think it holds no logic.

Mainly, the guests are not at home. That’s pretty much the whole point of going out, isn’t it? Why would anybody ever go out if it sucked as much as being at home? It would be like cheating on your wife with a woman who complained about you all the time, was 15 lbs. overweight, and didn’t give blowjobs.

In other words, being able to behave differently is the biggest attraction of going out.

• At home you have to make the food yourself. Out, you sit back while we make it for you.
• At home you could never (most of us, at least) order up a complicated meal from your significant other and expect it to be done at all, let alone come out perfectly.
• At home, you ruin the after-dinner glow by doing your own dishes. Out, you just sign a check and think about it not a whit.

Being able to behave differently applies to almost everything you can think up. Sweeping crumbs onto the floor? Check. Impatience? Check. All kinds of special orders/instructions? Check.

I’m not saying a lot of these types are particularly polite or tactful . . . I’m saying that if there’s more or less no harm done, we should cut them all the slack in the world.

Meanwhile, what doesn’t fit the category of Different Behavior falls in the opposite column and disproves the saying (The Wouldn’t Do That At Home!) directly: Yes, they would do exactly that at home.

• A guy’s talking on his cell phone at the table. Can’t we agree this guy probably does the same at home?
• The blowhard shouting over everyone else at the table (and in the restaurant). I’m sure he’s the same obnoxious ass at home.
• Belchers? In fact, they probably do even more belching at home.
• An overweight, over-age slob makes a pass at the waitress at the end of the meal . . . At home he’s leaning back on the sofa, pants unbuttoned, ‘Honey, who needs dessert when I got you? Now come on over here . . .’

The Split Charge Dodger

The wife turned in a great performance the other night . . .

At work, of course! You know we work together. She encountered an archetypal customer and really checkmated him but good.

This scenario is complicated and enhanced by other delicious factors. Usually, Split Charge Dodgers ply their trade solely in the company of their spouses – too embarrassing in front of another couple. Also, these people were Separate Check people as well.

Dave and Jennie are a favorite couple of ours. He’s large and genial; she’s blonde, sweet, and warm. At the beginning of this year’s football season, they recognized us at Monday Night Football Happy Hour at a local restaurant/bar. Dave bought us a couple martinis, sat down and chatted for a few minutes. After that, we were fast friends (restaurant-wise). When we wait on Dave and Jennie, they always insist we pour a glass for ourselves from their bottle of wine. Dave has twice surprised me with the gift of a beautiful Cuban cigar. And, big surprise, they always tip really well – like 30%.

It’s Saturday night and Dave and Jennie have a reservation for four. They arrive a few minutes early and I get them drinks. Dave has brought in a couple nice bottles of wine. I open the first to breathe, and we chat a bit. The other couple joins. She is an attractive woman in her late-40s. The husband is in the restroom. She says she drinks martinis and orders a Goose up with olives, and a house Chardonnay for her husband.

I return to the table and it turns out the husband actually wants a vodka tonic. No problem of course. She gets her martini and goes, ‘Oooh. I’m sorry, but I drink dirty martinis.’

‘I’m sorry, I thought you just ordered Goose straight up. I’ll fix –’

‘You did,’ Dave said to her. ‘You just ordered Grey Goose.’

At this point, the Wife is there to start waiting on them and she says we’ll bring some olive juice on the side, pointing out it will be fine because it’s already chilled. I return to the bar with the wine, order the vodka tonic. A few seconds later Frank the bartender serves up what looks like a Cape Cod. ‘I ordered vodka tonic.’ Frank: ‘I know. But Dave just changed the order to splash cranberry.’ In the service well, I couldn’t see that Dave had slipped around to the other side of the bar. Okay, fine then.

I give the guy his drink. The wife has already dropped off the jigger of olive juice. We’re both sighing. I say, ‘We’ve decided we’re both going to wait on you, because this is obviously going to take two waiters.’ Laughter, and I get out, leaving them to the Wife.

They don’t order for awhile. The Wife confides that the couple – who appear to be new/prospective friends, kind of on an audition perhaps – is a real piece of work. ‘She Dodger’ (let’s call her) is completely wacko, as evidenced by the fiasco ordering drinks.

It’s finally time to place their entrée order. Before the Wife can ask ‘He Dodger’ about his selection, he requests separate checks, ‘Because I don’t eat an entrée.’ Even though Carney’s has a policy against it, Dave and Jennie are friends and good people, so the Wife says okay. ‘But,’ says She Dodger, ‘we want to pay the corkage fee on the wine.’ Dave and Jennie protest a bit. She Dodger: ‘No, you paid for the wine. It’s only fair.’

So She Dodger, Jennie, and Dave order real entrees. The wife gets back and tells me the pathetic story, noting how Dodger Couple think they’re so clever – pulling off in a single swipe, the hat trick:

1. Separate Checks
2. Dodging The Split Charge
3. ‘Splitting’ The Cost Of The Wine In Their Favor.

We immediately start gloating that these cheapskates are going to freak out when they see Carney’s Corner’s corkage fee: $25 per bottle. It’s absolutely going to kill Dodgers Couple when they see that $50 on their half and they realize they could have bought a couple low end bottles right off the list for $20 each. Which, had they been responsible for the wine, they definitely would have done (bought low end wine). Compounding our delight, we know Carney’s secret that $5 of each corkage fee goes straight to us waiters. Ha-ha!

This scenario provided a lot of amusement for us the next hour or so. We were also not surprised to see that He Dodger despite his claim that ‘I don’t eat an entrée,’ went after She Dodger’s plate of food like a homeless man.

Afterwards, Dave is talking cigars and scotch. The wife asks if anyone is up for a nice single malt after dinner. He Dodger, antennae receiving signals of a bigger bill, interrupts, saying, ‘No, just the check.’

Dave is actually a little crestfallen. ‘Well, I guess I’ll have to have that scotch another time . . .’

‘That’s all right, Dave,’ says the wife. ‘I’ve got a couple drink chips. Have your scotch, and take the other chip for another time.’ (Carney’s has free drink chips as promotional tools, or in this case, instruments of torture.)

The wife gets Dave his free Lagavulin, then returns to tell me her master stroke. She really burned He Dodger by coming up with the free drink chips. Through the meal, he showed no shyness towards alcohol, when it was already paid for. But come the end, he slammed the door to avoid jacking up his bill. Then he got absolutely played when Dave ended up with a free drink – and there was no possible way for He Dodger to say, ‘Oh, it’s free? Then yes I want one.’

Pure sweetness.

The final sprinkle of chopped nuts on the sundae came when the wife pulled the old, ‘Two Charges, One Presenter, One Pen’ trick. I like to feel that I invented this trick, wherein, in a split-charge scenario, you make it very difficult for the cheapskate to tip you poorly. With two pens, (and especially with two presenters) each party can retreat to their own voucher in relative privacy – the cheapskate to commit an anonymous drive-by shooting. With one pen, the two people wait on each other, making it too risky that the generous person will see what the cheapskate tipped. Of course, it’s imperative that you give the presenter to the cheapskate, so he does not have the option of signing last and quickly folding his weasel droppings into the presenter before the generous tipper can see it.

Properly executed, ‘Two Charges, One Presenter, One Pen’ usually leads to a consensus approach: ‘So, what do we tip?’

I believe the generous tipper usually wins this, though not always. Generous people are often also courteous, polite people who might be sensitive to making a cheapskate feel . . . well, cheap.

Anyhow, the consensus approach went down, and He Dodger was forced to tip 25%. It just kept getting better.

On that one, I’d like to give the wife a ‘Very nicely done, ma’am!’

Self-Fulfilling Prophecies

As you must know, I work in two restaurants. My lunch job is at Michael’s (high-end chain steakhouse). My dinner job is at Carney’s Corner (somewhat high-end Mom ‘n Pop prime steakhouse). Both restaurants have been hit by the receding economy the last couple years.

My personal stats on Lunch:

• I went from 4-5 lunch shifts a week, to 2-3 + an O/C.
• The money used to average out weekly to $100+ per shift; that’s gone down to about $75.
• Meantime, we used to run 5 or 6 servers. Now we go with 3 or 4.

Stats on Dinner:

• I used to have 4 shifts, now I have 3.
• We used to make a reliable $200+ weekend nights and $150 per weekday night. That’s dropped to about $160 and $100.
• Used to be 4 servers weekends, 3 weekdays. Now it’s 3 and 2.

At Carney’s the owners’ answer to falling business is to cut prices. And that’s their only answer.

I addressed this in abbreviated form a year ago in Hammer And All The Nails, wherein I observed and groused that Carney’s husband Harry had only one tool in his box: cutting prices. The title refers to the old saying, when your only tool is a hammer, eventually every problem looks like a nail.

Sadly, things have only gotten worse. The most precipitous decline in check average came about when Harry collected all the ‘bar plate’ specials (he used to drum up business by offering cut rate entrees for bar customers only – for instance, a smaller filet mignon, with mashed potatoes, and a salad, all on one plate for about half the price of the regular, larger filet) and put them on a special menu supplement – now to be available also in the dining room. Gone were the inserts of the ’specials’ and fresh fish that went inside the regular menus. Now there was a separate open-face ’specials’ menu, featuring about eight cheap entrees, and the fresh fish.

We all know waiters don’t like to sell cheap stuff. We don’t make as much money because we’re tipped on a percentage of the check. That’s why coupons, happy hours, and early bird specials are roundly despised by waiters. Yes, we recognize the need to keep customer traffic healthy. Yes, we understand that these lower-echelon diners will still be paying full price for other elements of their meals (booze, appetizers, whatever). And yes, we know that getting new guests to try the restaurant is a good thing that might yield repeat business down the road.

But damn it, I still have a problem with it.

First, let me grouse about the new ’specials’ menu at Carney’s. First, it’s an attention-hog. It’s like a sleazy girl with an okay body wearing a really short, tight dress. Even if she’s not your type, you’re not in the market, or you’re even a gay man, you will take notice and stare. Well, this menu is open faced, as I said. It is staring at the guest every single second. Whereas the ‘real’ menu is two pages book-style. It’s dynamite, loaded with things like Australian lobster tails, double cut rack of New Zealand lamb, New York pepper steak. But it’s closed. I can’t tell you how often diners don’t even open the regular menu. The ’specials’ menu is staring them in the face. The prices are 50-60% of the regular menu. Portions are smaller, but it includes a salad – usually a $6 add-on in the ‘real’ menu.

So, yes, I can hardly blame people for ordering from this special menu. But it does get worse. Everything on the specials menu is a cannibalization of impressive and superior entrees on the regular menu. The specials are basically half orders. The lamb? Just a single rack and already sliced into chops: half price. Pork loins? Sliced pieces from the same amazing thick-cut pork chop: 2/3 the size, half the price. And everything, incidentally, is prepared the same way as the regular menu.

The other day, Carney, herself, pointed to the ’specials’ menu and said to me, ‘You know, this is what’s saving us. This has become 70% of our overall entrée sales.’

Great. Just like when Coca-Cola’s marketing folk introduces five new flavors/permutations of Coke, and then brag about how the new products have become 20% of gross sales.

Well guess what? The pie hasn’t gotten bigger. It’s just been divided differently. And it’s your same pie, you idiots. And further, what you’ve ‘added’ to the mix are actually increased sales of the lowest priced and least profitable items.

Don’t know if you’re keeping track through the blog, but Carney’s does not advertise.

That said, I want to add this: I can’t tell you how many times regular, well-to-do Carney’s guests will sit down – prepared to order their Carney’s Corner favorites – and see this new ’specials’ menu and opt for a small filet instead of their usual 10 oz. baseball cut.

These are people who don’t need to be ’sold’ by lower prices. They are already here. They are here because they already like the traditional Carney’s fare – portion, preparation, price, everything. They are ready to order off the ‘big kids’ menu. But instead our owners just cut their own income in half by billboarding the specials menu.

Harry’s take is along the lines of shearing the sheep many times rather than slaughtering it once. Sure, wealthy people can afford the higher prices. But wealthy people are not immune to fear; they are looking to cut back where they can just like us normal poor people. Harry reasons (though he hasn’t said this specifically to anyone) if these frightened rich people see they can eat at Carney’s for $85 instead of the usual $120, then they’ll come back more frequently – maybe keep up their historical frequency of visits.

And it’s a fact that’s hard to argue with that, but that doesn’t usually stop me. Rather than rehash the argument I made in another post, I’ll just state here that without making people aware of this strategy (read: promotion and advertising) it takes too long to effect. We could well be out of this downturn by the time people are widely cognizant that Carney’s is quite reasonable for a ‘fine dining’ restaurant. But more on that day later.

Rather, for Carney’s my take – stipulating the reality that there’s no advertising going on – would be to have smaller, inferior, and different items on the lower-priced ’specials’ menu. If people are motivated by price, then let them take a flier on some of these items. Why not offer a Choice top sirloin (we serve only prime steaks currently) that doesn’t duplicate the filet, new york, and rib eyes we do serve? It’s a cheaper cut in the first place, it’s also a lower grade. It would still be a good steak. Just not prime.

Meantime, this strategy preserves the primacy of the signature dishes, the dishes long-time guests return for again and again. And they pay the regular prices for them.

Let’s move on to Michael’s, my lunch job. A corporate place, Michael’s has behaved like all the others. First there was the New York and Crab package special. Used to be a summer-only thing to boost business in the slowest months. Lately? I haven’t been keeping track meticulously, but I think it’s been running without cessation for the last two years. It is steak and crab legs and a salad and side item and dessert for each person for $60 per person. Yes, each person gets all of those things. Not shared. It’s more food than you’d know what to do with, at Michael’s quantities. It’s about $100 of food at normal prices.

I won’t lie. As a lunch server, this was a great thing. It was a massive up-sell over our $15-27 lunch fare. For dinner, it didn’t work so well. Mainly, though, I want to show the sign posts on the way to Michael’s self-fulfilling prophecy.

Next, we were dealt the Prix Fixe Deluxe at lunch. A selection from five normal-sized lunch entrees inclusive of a side, choice of soup or salad, followed by a dessert: $22. These items ordered a la carte from the lunch menu would run in the neighborhood of $38.

God bless them, Michael’s at least will promote when necessary. After a moderate media blitz, the Prix Fixe Deluxer’s (let’s just call them Prix) flood into the restaurant, ID tags dangling from their belts, the men in ill-fitting suits, the women wearing hair and outfits that have that ‘I woke up this morning at my boyfriend’s apartment and didn’t have a change of clothes nor the time to do my hair again’ –look.

Business ticked up for about a month, at least volume did. Of course, we weren’t making any more money. Remember Restaurant Overstaffing? Don’t get me started there . . .

Similar to Carney rationalizing the ’specials menu,’ our Michael’s pre-shift meetings featured a lot of talk about how all these Prix are people who wouldn’t normally be coming into the restaurant. And it was easy to agree with that. It was depressing to imagine how many covers we would have had some days without the Prix.

But which came first? The desire to go to Michael’s or the desire to get a good deal at Michael’s? In other words, what would have happened if the moderate media blitz instead promoted the fantastic lunch menu and high quality product and service? I kind of think we would have gotten a similar uptick in volume, and from our core-type guests: people with money.

Both my restaurants have created self-fulfilling prophecies by cutting prices then sitting back and noticing, ‘Wow! This program is really popular for us! It’s a good thing we did this, because it’s only thing people are buying!’

Well of course! And I think a $15,000 Mercedes-Benz sedan and a $75 Louis Vuitton hand bag and See’s Candies for $2.99 a pound would also be popular with their respective clientele. They’d find that quickly those items became the majority of their sales.

Congratulations! You’ve just destroyed your brand.

Which is my final point. Now that this new order has been achieved – Carney’s and Michael’s are successfully selling to more guests by lowering the prices and their profits, while still putting out the same quality – how do you re-convert your core guests once the economy turns around? How do you suddenly (or even gradually) take away these deals your guests have come to expect from, and even to identify with your restaurant? How (just one more rhetorical question, I promise) do you get them to feel good about paying $50 for a steak when they used to pay $30 and be perfectly happy?

The restaurant industry is in tread-water, stay-afloat mode right now. We’re all just trying to get through this till the seas calm down again. Unfortunately, what’s happening to many of the misguided and/or desperate places is they are making the wrong decisions and in the process disfiguring themselves. When they emerge from the economic storm, they will be unrecognizable to those wealthy whales [I know this metaphor has gotten out of hand, but just live with it, okay?] who are ready again to buy $100 lobsters and $200 bottles of wine. Meanwhile, their new ‘regulars’ will recoil when suddenly the ‘little’ menu is no longer available.

It takes some restaurants (Carney’s Corner) years to build up to a reputation of ‘high quality and expensive, but worth it’; and it takes others (Michael’s, who started out that way) years to entrench themselves in that position, able to fend off challengers because all those ‘qualities’ remain constant.

Now that I’m finished mangling my Stormy Seas, Bad Weather metaphor, let me finish with a new one. My restaurants will be like that unbelievable girl you somehow dated one time in high school. Then she appears at the 10 year reunion after too many years of clubbing, bad boys, cigarettes and cocaine. She doesn’t sound the same. She doesn’t look the same. She doesn’t have the same mojo. And even though you know you have a shot at her now, you’re really just not interested.

What Makes A Real Pro

I mentioned before how WordPress.com offers various statistical data on your blog. One of the features is a listing of the most popular search terms readers use to reach the blog. Previously this led to an interesting question about how to handle the hurried diner.

Well, another search has piqued my interest.

‘What is the one specific detail that signifies a real pro waiter?’

Naturally, I figure, why answer a question in ten words when it could be answered in 1000?
Or 3000?

The Details That Signify A Real Pro Waiter:

I’ll start with honorable mention.

1. Anticipatory Service.
   
   1. Waiter shows up with something before the guest can ask for it: drink refills/reorders, a new napkin, having the check in hand as the guest is asking for it, etc.
   2. This is nice, ’cause it makes the waiter look like she’s on top of things. It can humble the guest if he’s inclined to be critical of the speed of service. But at the same time, it can be little more than a parlor trick, akin a bartender tossing bottles and such – lots of flash, little substance.
2. Mad Product Knowledge.
   
   1. Your waiter unleashes a torrent of descriptors of the daily specials, down to preparation details and the components of the homemade sauces. She is similarly fluent on any menu item you’d care to ask about. She knows the ingredients in every cocktail. She can name 20 different single malt scotches, including their specific producing region.
   2. There’s a good chance this person took 7 years to get her college degree – or else she’s still ‘working’ on it, just taking a couple years off to find out where her head is at. She is taking so long not because she’s unintelligent. Rather, she’s very smart, and she’s applied those wiles to her job. She just likes waiting tables better than the idea of getting a ‘Real Job,’ working 9 to 5 (or more realistically 9 to 7), and taking the effective cut in hourly pay.
   3. Again, this can effectively be a bit of a parlor trick, albeit a useful one for the guest. But it comes to bear mainly on the selection part of the dining experience. What do you order? After that question is answered, there’s so much that product knowledge does not affect.
3. Mad Wine Knowledge.
   
   1. See above. But it’s even less important than general product knowledge. I’m convinced that the large majority of wine drinkers don’t want to hear: what they’re tasting/smelling, where their wine was made, what it was made from, how it was fermented and bottled, nor what the winemaker did to make his millions before he got into the wine business.
   2. What wine drinkers want most is to hear why the wine they’ve chosen is good. And almost any waiter can be coached to say: ‘That’s our biggest seller,’ or ‘It’s very smooth, isn’t it?’ or ‘Yeah, not many people are smart enough to pick that off our list.’
4. Great Personality.
   
   1. Sure, as a guest you’re dining with you dinner companions. But you’re also dining with your waiter. If he has a fun personality, it adds to the experience. Who wants a grim sourpuss who mumbles, doesn’t make eye contact, won’t laugh at your stupid jokes? That kind of waiter demeanor becomes a negative focal point of the meal. Instead of enjoying yourself, you’re thinking about your various objections to the waiter.
   2. On the other hand, when the waiter can ‘join’ the group in a fun but not-overbearing way, he adds to the enjoyment. The waiter can provide needed punctuation to the social context. He can tactfully (and thankfully!) interrupt someone going on too long. He can save a boring, punchline-less story with a good aside that gets the teller out from under it. He can amplify what is already a good story.
   3. Alas, a lot of waiters rely on their good personality to the exclusion of developing the necessary chops to master the other aspects of the job. Like a beautiful girl who never cultivates a viable career skill because she’s always lived rich and famous lifestyles being treated to vacations, expensive cars, and carte blanche shopping sprees by her well-heeled boyfriends, these waiters are giving million-dollar smiles when paying attention to their ten-dollar Timex is what’s needed.

[… drum roll here …]

And now, the top attribute of a real pro waiter . . .

1. Control.
   
   1. Okay, there are a lot of bad connotations to that word, control. But this is the common and dominant trait of all great waiters. Go ahead and conjure again the memories of waiters with the previous four traits, the great experiences you’ve had dining with each one . . . Well, when I was a basketball player and someone made a lucky shot, we always used to congratulate him with the line, ‘Hey, even a blind squirrel finds a nut now and then.’
   2. So let’s break off the Top Five list and discuss why Control is the signature trait of the great waiter.

Control, control, wherefore art thou?

Control is most obviously (obvious for waiters, if you’re one and you’re reading) exhibited by ‘having control of your table.’ It’s been the main directive of every employee manual and greenhorn training lecture since the year BC 0001, when the staff was briefed and pumped up before that epic party of thirteen (though Judas left before his entrée was delivered – he said he had to go meet a man about some silver – then gave Jesus the Hollywood kiss, ‘. . . wish I could stay longer . . .’).*

*Supposedly, when the check came, the rest of the guys tossed in one silver denarius each. It was heard amongst more than one, ‘Hey, it better be enough. This is three days pay for me. Unfortunately for the waiter, who was working in the one of the best restaurants in town, that really wasn’t enough for an average meal – never mind the volume of quality wine these guys were accustomed to drinking. When all the denari were collected, and the other guys left (remember Judas didn’t pay for his appetizer, nor his Sour Apple martini), Paul was left to settle, and, yes, it was short. He made up the difference himself and tossed in a couple denari for the waiter, who had of course suffered through one of the most tense and ulcerous quarterly sales meetings in history (then or now). After all, Paul reasoned, even if things with the firm were horrible, it wasn’t the waiter’s fault, and he did a good job.)

That guy did a good job, apparently, because things seemed okay when the guests left. And I guess I’m wrong for digressing into his situation because that was a strange and exceptional night in what was probably an average good restaurant.

In a normal restaurant, where the fate of life, love, war, and religion for the next 2000 years is not hinging on prompt pouring of the wine, control matters a lot less. Not that any of us is happy that server Sextus was good at his job when Judas told him, ‘I’m gonna kiss the main man. Pour him first. He’s my boy!’

But back to modern times, it matters a great deal when the guest can see he/she’s in good hands. The waiter is the Captain of the ship, the Pilot of the aircraft. Even when all hell is breaking loose, the waiter’s calm makes the difference between mutiny and a smooth experience.

There are so many ways the waiter can maintain control. There is a jackass, loose-cannon guest in a party of four, and the waiter accepts his broadsides, doesn’t back down from them, and in fact triumphs over them with stainless steel witticisms – this makes the entire party, including the jackass, feel comfortable and accept they are going to have a great meal. It really is coasting from there.

The kitchen breaks down and there is going to be a long wait for . . . whatever. The pro waiter hits his tables with frank information, with near- and long-term solutions. ‘Things got backed up. I put your order in right away, but it’s going to be a longer wait than normal. Work with us here, we’ll get you some complimentary desserts or drinks.’

The pro waiter acknowledges readily what has gone wrong (but only if the guest knows already – no need to draw attention if no one is bothered). When she arrives for the first greeting five minutes late and the guests seem to have been waiting for her, she says, ‘Sorry to keep you waiting. I’m ready to get your drinks ASAP.’*

*I’m also sorry that this is such a monumental problem for corporate restaurants. Anybody who’s worked corporate knows there’s a 60-90-120 second minimum rule (depending on the patience of individual corporate Mount Sinai Tablet Engravers) for greeting new tables. I think it’s bullshit. Yes, I do understand what is perfect (the rule), but there are exceptions every single shift where that rule cannot be met. When the server is making cappuccinos (or whatever takes a long time) in back and a new table is seated, let’s say the server is even just finishing those cappy’s and then delivers them. Is it even possible to be there to greet the new table in less than 120 seconds? Or what if a waiter is entering the full order for a 6-top in the computer? Come on! It’s not realistic all the time. Instead, restaurant trainers should emphasize . . .
yes, Control. Get communication with your tables and it won’t matter so much that they waited 3.5 minutes to be greeted.

Sometimes I think corporate restaurant honchos are like the boss in the Dilbert comic strip. ‘What’s the shortest possible time before a guest will start to wonder where the server is? Sixty seconds? Then let’s err on the side of caution:
The Rule Is 30 Seconds!’

Are they aware that pouring yourself a cup of coffee at home, including getting the cup and the cream, takes about a minute? What is wrong with these supposed ‘corporate restaurant professionals’? Do they not drink coffee at home? Have they not been in a restaurant where each waiter is serving four or more tables at once and even might be getting that same one-minute coffee for any or all of them at the same time?

Here’s something I’d like to see in corporate management: fuzzy logic. It’s essentially what their best waiters employ every night. Let’s see, five different tasks each designated as Right Away. I can’t fulfill one obligation right away but I can instead work one in the meantime, making the former (and the other three) just a little late, but it will save me time on the whole
as a group.

For instance, my lunch restaurant, Michael’s has strict guidelines about replacing used steak knives (even if used for buttering bread) before each course. Well guess what? With all the other obligations of service at this high-end place, my judgment is that I don’t always have time to handle that steak knife thing. I’m doing things like clearing plates, running some else’s hot food, bringing a check to a diner that’s ready to go, greeting a table within 60 seconds . . . In the hierarchy of these essential service steps, where does replacing a perfectly good and guest-acceptable (albeit butter-’stained’) steak knife fit in? Practically dead last. But corporate management likes to fall back on terms like ‘non-negotiable’ and ’spec.’

Mind you, I’ve never gotten busted for the re-knifing thing (or lack thereof) – perhaps they respect my experience, savvy, and grey hair? – but other waiters do get ‘noted.’ So when I train waiters for the day shift at Michael’s I tell them readily, ‘There is what they call ’spec,’ and there’s what I call ‘getting it done at lunch.’ I will cite my steak knife example, and point out the inconsistencies of ’spec’ vs. what is sometimes required to Get The Job Done. For another instance, is it necessary to bring the dessert tray to a table that has already indicated it is in a hurry and needs to get going?

Well, at Michael’s, the dessert tray is another ’spec’ mandatory step of service. Instead of fuzzy logic, some jackass looking to enhance his own promotion potential advocated mandatory dessert tray presentation as means of possible 0.13% increased dessert sales, over 123 stores that means $31,117 annually . . . Congratulations. Meantime, greenhorn waiters who don’t know any better are wasting 320 seconds presenting the dessert tray while . . . Wait! A new table is going un-greeted and another table is waiting for their check to be dropped!

‘I’m sorry, GM, but I had other those other things to do, I couldn’t offer the dessert tray to that table.’

‘Yes, but in that situation
you should have asked someone for help greeting your new table, and running the check for your departing table, and expediting the re-fire for your other table. That’s part of your job. Even if you have to ask us (management – but don’t actually do it if you ever expect us to regard you as competent). We’re here to help you. ‘

. . . Maybe the restaurant business is just like every business. In each company there are a few people who excel at their jobs, i.e., who’ve mastered the subtleties and idiosyncrasies that make them a success, and there are the rest who are more or less new-hires that don’t know shit and are actually holding back the progress of the company until they learn (if they ever do). A small subset of companies (Microsoft ’80s-’90s, Google ’00s, TGIFridays mid-’80-’90s, etc.) obtains new-hires who are best-of-best or else are such go-getters that this doesn’t happen immediately – the culture and the carrot/success possibilities is so strong that everyone is first-class, or else rises to the level of the peers.

But most are not of that class. A successful restaurant concept in a given market is like a cloud of chum in the water for quality waiters. Unfortunately, it also attracts the hacks. But even so, the good servers will congregate around the best new restaurant in town. The place will thrive. Every other restaurateur will be jealous about how they do everything so well and they are ace-ing our shit . . .

Well, that’s because all the real pros are working their Fuzzy Logic waitering magic. When business slows down, and the pros leave for the next Big Thing (unless management and corporate management makes it happy for them to stay), the restaurant enters into the hopeless cycle of hiring ’spec’ greenhorns to work with the few Fuzzy Logic specialists remaining. And the tide never seems to turn. The good people drain away two by two, replaced by greenhorns one by one and one by one.

What I’m saying is that it’s impossible to manage large groups (really large groups like chain restaurants)

Yeah . . . So where was I? . . . Was I anywhere?

Right . . . It’s part of control. Problems are like a dike springing leaks. If you don’t acknowledge them with that little verbal ‘finger,’ (no jokes, please) they keep leaking. Isn’t it irritating when a waiter pretends nothing is wrong? Yet, when something is wrong and it is noted and promised to be attended to, guests quit worrying.

That’s the key to Control. The guest knows you’re in control and they don’t have to worry about how their meal experience comes out. That’s why they’ve come out to eat instead of doing it themselves at home. Who wants to fret about that junk when you’re paying $30-100 a head? Why should they?

That’s why Control is the best trait of the professional. Guests can forget their usual concerns/worries about putting on a meal and just enjoy the eating and their company.

Who cares about your smile or your great jokes or the fact you know the swimming-depth of Chilean Seabass?

Diner: ‘If there’s a problem, tell me how it’s going to be handled. Otherwise, let go of me and let me enjoy myself.’

Blackie Takes Down Another One

[This is Part Two of my Blackie post. Click My Old Friend Blackie if you haven't already read Part One.]

I’m sharing a party with Blackie. Of course I’m cringing, but these things happen. You get through it.

The party arrives, Blackie gets order for bottled water. She’s weak and infirmed, so she nominates me to pitch the featured entrees (see: expensive dinner items) for the group. This pitch at Michael’s is a ten-minute piece of performance art. I say that’s fine, but I in turn nominate her to pitch appetizer samplers to the party while I greet the two new tables in my section (good work, front desk!).

She strikes out on the appetizer thing. As I replace her, I tell her I’m going to do the Features, and all I need from her is to take out the starters for both my new tables. I did a great job (or had great luck), getting them underway before my 10 minute disappearance into the black hole of the Feature Pitch. ‘They’ve got drinks, the first course is already fired, everything’s already in the computer,’ I tell Blackie. She nods.

I’m done with the pitch. I cruise my tables to see their progress, expecting to fire the main courses for both right away.

Uh-oh. Table 22 has one guy finishing his tiny cup of gumbo, while the other guy is staring at empty white table cloth. Right. Blackie didn’t bring out his shrimp cocktail. Which was right at the same pantry counter with the two salads from the other table she successfully retrieved. Thanks.

I was momentarily enraged, but calmed quickly, reminding myself this is what you get with Blackie: Never expect a positive result from any interaction with her.

The big party needed a few minutes to decide. I spent the time tending to my other tables; I retrieved a drink for one. When I came back on the floor, I saw Blackie at the other end of the restaurant taking the order on our big party. Knowing the standard ‘Position #1,’ I could tell she was already half-finished. I decided to let her finish with no help from me, even though this is counter Michael’s policy.

These are the kinds of rules waiters break because sometimes things just work better that way. Number one, there are definite advantages to having a single ‘point man’ in taking the order: consistency, no translation problems, a global first-hand knowledge of all orders at the table. Number two, at that point my joining the order-taking wouldn’t have saved much time at all. So I did something else.

Next thing, manager Mickey is on my ass about Blackie taking the order all by herself. ‘You have to get over there and help her right away!’

So I did, and took three of the eleven orders. Blackie and I went to the computer and she tried to shove the whole mess on me (remember, she’s weak and infirmed). I normally acquiesce, but here it made no sense, considering her handwriting is indecipherable and she had the majority of the data. I gave her my sheet of three orders, clearly translated my writing to her, and let her do the ordering.

Being weak and infirmed, she was too flustered to enter the entire order for 11 at once. She only punched in the first course. (I can hear you old pros out there groaning. And you’re about to be right.)

Next significant thing is that . . . yes, the salads are eaten and she has not entered the main course into the computer. So she’s scrambling with that. I’m helping her by maintaining her tables while she struggles . . . and there she goes . . . last order, position #11 . . . Send To Kitchen!

Ten minute lull while with tidy up the big table and wait for the kitchen to come through. But now the recession-sized understaffed kitchen (just two guys on the line) is freaking out that we didn’t – as per policy – ‘Preview’ the big order. Really it’s just an excuse because they’re screwing up and have a chance to blame someone else. Understand, it was not actually a busy day. For instance, instead of four tables, I had two deuces and my share of the big table. Blackie also had only two other deuces. The other waiters on the floor did not have full stations. Therefore, what would be so different if instead of the one 11-top, three waiters each got a 4-top? No preview required to ‘help’ the kitchen there, and no net difference in business.

[Don't get me wrong. I understand the reasons for this 'Preview' rule. It makes perfect sense when there are multiple large parties, or when it's a busy day/night and there is a major crush during a short stretch of time, or when the big party is a REALLY BIG party. But please, not when the cooks have only three other tickets on the line . . .]

After the usual amount of cat-herding all the garnishes, entrees, sides, sauces, and special requests left the kitchen and were on the table. (You ever herd a bunch of cats? Even if you haven’t, you can imagine how difficult and chaotic it would be.) I would say the whole ordeal took 10 minutes longer than it should have, which at lunch might or might not be a big deal, depending on the demeanor of the guests.

Turned out the guests were perfectly fine. We got a solid 20% (Michael’s does not allow for automatic gratuities, which often leads to disaster, but again, what can you do?).

But at the end of the shift I got pulled into the office and received a write up:

1. Not teaming to take the order with Blackie.
2. Not ‘Previewing’ the large party order.

For some reason I took the high road and didn’t blame it all on Blackie – though of course it was all her fault. If she had found me before starting to take the order, we would not have been guilty of #1. If she had put the order into the computer promptly, she would at least have had the opportunity to ‘Preview’ it; and at any rate she was completely the one in charge of the order, so it was not even possible for me to ‘Preview’ anything for the cooks.

I took the write up like a man. I blamed the order-taking problem on a lack of communication in our team. But I made sure to point out that Blackie was in control of the order and that I would have entered it all at once – just, she didn’t.

The managers were kind of apologetic about it, actually. Mickey made a point of telling me that I could write down my side of the story on the write-up form. It all kind of made me wonder if I was just getting collateral damage because they were finally targeting Blackie in hopes of rooting her out of the restaurant?

I can only hope.

My Old Friend Blackie

Here’s what happened the other day. (Not a bad approach to take with a blog, eh?)

Arrived at Michael’s at noon and was immediately assigned a table of 11. My partner was to be Blackie, the most reviled server at Michael’s.

Every restaurant has one or more Blackies. She is old, slow, an absolute cancer of negative energy and gossip. She simply lives for the rules and regulations of the job. Why in the hell would a person live for and embrace the arcane, misguided, and senseless rules of a corporate restaurant? Because it’s those rules that allow her to keep her job.

An illustrative story about Blackie:

Five years ago, when we were both starting the Michael’s gig for lunch (Blackie came from Claim Jumper and continues to work there), there was male-model-handsome bartender who started with us. Mitch wasn’t much on learning the job; he wasn’t much on performing well; he wasn’t much on showing up for work sober. But he was good-looking, charming, and always ready for a party. Well, Michael’s draws a wealthy clientele, skewering decidedly past age 45. It so happened that the well-alimonied ex-wife of a VIP took a liking to Mitch. She used to visit the restaurant in either a limousine or a Rolls-Royce. She was not a bad looking woman, for her 50+ age. Mitch was very excited when she invited him to a weekend at the track in Del Mar. It would be first class all the way: limo, hotel, restaurants, etc.

A couple of weeks after this dream weekend – and a few other dates – Mitch has given up a few shifts here and there. So now we’re speculating that he’s become a gigolo. Hell, maybe he always was. So one day in the service well, two other waitresses are watching Mitch squire (be squired by?) his benefactor at the opposite end of the bar. And as human nature will have it, they were speculating on their relationship. I knew both waitresses well, in terms of work; we were friendly.

Waitress One: Do you think he fucked her?

Waitress Two: Oh, no doubt.

Waitress One: Is she paying him off for it?

Waitress Two: One way or another.

Right then, Blackie walks up and asks what they’re talking about? Now, even at this early point in Blackie’s tenure, people already have their antenna up about her, so the girls demur.

Blackie: No, really. What were you saying?

Waitress Two: Nothing. Really.

Blackie: No, come on, tell me.

Waitress Two: Forget about it. We were just talking about Mitch.

Blackie: What? What were you saying?

Waitress One: We think Mitch is a gigolo and we were wondering if he fucked Mrs. _____.

Blackie turns on her heel and leaves. At the end of her shift, she lodged a formal grievance about ‘hostile work environment,’ citing the exchange with the other two waitresses. If you understand corporate restaurants, you know there was a colossal freak out over this that went on for more than a week. It ended up with the two other waitresses getting written up, while Blackie walked away leaving management and corporate management petrified to cross her.

That’s Blackie. And please understand that is just one glaring example of her M.O. In the same five years she’s been out on disability/injury claims five separate multi-month occasions. She has written directly to corporate offices three times with various complaints – and those are just the times I know about. She visited another Michael’s once and actually wrote a complaint letter about her server, sent it to corporate. Because he made a flippant remark about a small piece of cork floating in her glass of wine, and then didn’t replace the glass.

She hits on old (late 60s or older) single men dining in the restaurant, probably to establish Sugar Daddy relationships. I know this because one of them told me, and because of that interesting story I was able to note two other older men she gravitated towards and traded phone numbers with.

She is coffee shop trash. Most waiters start in coffee shops, and some of them belong there forever. She never stopped wearing day-glo lipstick and nail polish when the ’80s ended. Her face is beaten and weathered from sun and alcohol and bad karma.

TRYING TO BE FUNNY, BUT THIS IS A LOT CLOSER TO BLACKIE THAN YOU WOULD IMAGINE

She drones endlessly about her ‘boyfriend.’ For a year his name was Steve, but amazingly, when his name changed many times after that, he always sounded like the same person. ‘Steve’ always only calls her up when he wants sex or is out of money. He only goes on vacations with her if she’s the one paying. When he goes on a trip, it’s with the Boys. Most recently, ‘Steve’ was driving drunk (Blackie in passenger seat) and they hit a big tree trying to avoid a cat running across the road. Blackie ‘broke her back’ and ‘cracked (her) teeth in 29 places.’ This, incidentally, led to what became her summer vacation, 2009. (The other multi-month injury claims mentioned above also fortuitously happened at the height of summer.)

When the corporate brass finally thought they had a chance to get rid of her because she’d been out so long with a non-work-related injury, they notified her that she would have to report in two weeks or lose her job.

Miraculously, Blackie was able to overcome her ‘broken back’ and all those ‘cracked teeth’ (that now might not need to be replaced like she said originally), and return on the last possible day.

That’s Blackie, and now we have her back.

Okay, okay. One more Blackie story. My very first one. Our training process at Michael’s was brutal. It’s normally an intense two week deal. But three things conspired to stretch ours out:

1. This was to be the grand opening for lunch – Michael’s was previously dinner-only. A class of 20 people was recruited.
2. We were one of the pilot lunch programs for the entire chain, so corporate was super-involved. They even came in for their own two week training period with us.
3. The restaurant integrated remote printers simultaneously. Previous practice was to order in the computer, collect a bunch of chits at the ‘local’ printer, then when you needed to ‘fire’ you would physically walk your chits to the appropriate location, i.e., the hot line, the pantry, the bar, etc.

Amidst this cluster-fuck, the trainers had to arrange on-floor training shifts for all these waiters. Obviously it won’t do from a guest perspective to have 20 trainees following 12 waiters around all night. It really won’t do even to have 6 following – it’s just too much traffic and it’s distracting to the guest, makes it seem like a place doesn’t have their act together. Expensive places need to maintain an air of permanence and stability, and nothing says the opposite better than a cloud of nose-picking trainees swarming around on a Saturday night.

The trainers took down our individual schedule constraints (of course we all had other jobs during this five-week process – we had to survive), and then apparently disregarded them entirely, drawing up a complicated two-week floor training schedule of 3-4 servers per shift. When this schedule was unveiled, everybody had conflicts and we all spent about a half hour at a large table bartering shifts to fix our schedules.

I was having terrible trouble with a particular Friday night shift – one week away. Blackie heard me asking around about it, and volunteered that she could probably switch it with me. Great. That was my last hurdle. She just said I had to call her two days later to make sure she was available to do it.

Six or seven calls and 6 days later, she still hadn’t committed, leaving me hanging after each phone call that maybe she’d know the next day. I finally gave up, pled my case to the trainers, and they figured out what to do with me.

That extended episode was the equivalent of being on the floor and a server asking, ‘Do you need anything?’

‘Well, yes. Could you please take two coffees to table 16? That’d be a big help. Thanks.’

‘Okay. I just have to take an order on 25 first . . .’

Huh? You just asked me if I needed help . . . If you’re gonna screw around and not do it now, don’t waste my precious time asking me and making me think about it. I’d be better off if you never asked and I handled it myself.

Incidentally, Blackie pulls this move as well. Sounds like this: ‘Nee-n-thing?’ She says it ten times a shift to each server – meaning it not a single bit. At the end of the day she has done zero favors, even when someone is stupid enough to respond that that, yes, they do ‘Need anything.’

So now we’re 1200 words in and you still don’t know what happened. Sorry. This is too long, so I’m going to have to break it into two separate posts.

Click to read Blackie Takes Down Another One.

Waiting On The Big Guys

Worked Michael’s for lunch and I had to wait on the Big Guys.

It was the founder of the chain, the regional VP (in charge of the entire West Coast) and a regional supervisor. Again, that’s the Founder. The guy who created the very first Michael’s from scratch those decades ago, and who continued to build it into a nationwide brand.

I’m 47 years old. I’m not jaded. I try not to be. I’m professional, and I’m experienced. And . . . yeah, I’m old. I don’t get over-excited about dealing with important people. I’ve served captains of industry, mobsters, and movie stars, and I know how to keep my heart-rate down and do a good job.

But I’d be lying if I said the adrenaline doesn’t pump when you get these people (celebrities, important businessmen, corporate honchos) in your station. And I don’t believe anyone else when they claim they they’re not affected when they wait on the Big Guy.

* * * * *

If nothing else, it gets my competitive juices flowing. I know how to do this job. I’m good at it. And I can be as charming as necessary. Let me at ‘em!

At the same time, a seasoned server has also become accustomed to running things his/her own way. Michael’s has canned verbal scripts for waiters that it sends out to all its restaurants. Every server is expected to learn the new pitch, word-for-word. Most do not – and quite deliberately. We have the idea that we are doing an extremely good job for the restaurant (have been for years) and that we know the new data, and can deliver it if the situation arises, but there’s no reason to change the direction of a charging bull.

This puts me in a funky position waiting on corporate honchos, because I don’t really do everything by the book. It’s been so long, I have a hard time remembering what the book is. And now these guys who wrote that book will be evaluating me.

The might be evaluating me. Most of the time, honchos couldn’t care less about the meal they are having in one of their own restaurants (as long as it’s made well and things go smoothly). They are talking business. They’ll give you a polite and sincere hello, and call you by name initially, but that’s usually the last eye contact you’ll get until you give them the check to sign (and maybe not even then).

That’s why it’s silly to get too worked up about serving the Big Guys – they’re not even paying attention to you.

But sometimes they are, at least to some degree. This meal was not really about the service, thank goodness, but the Big Guys did order every course: appetizer, salad, entrée, dessert, and coffee beverages. This was pretty rare. I think they really were checking things out. At the same time, they were deep into their conversation whole meal.

The beginning went well for me. I told them about a special sea bass, and two of them were actually surprised. Which in turn surprised me. Michael’s is very corporate. We do not do specials designed by our in-house chef; specials are passed along through corporate channels. There also was some discussion about a new salmon we are using for lunch only. The Regional VP was bragging about what an improvement it was on the salmon salad, and I was able to chime in with an affirmation. One guy ordered the sea bass.

The most perilous part, for me, of an uneventful meal was when I had to pitch the entire dessert tray. These guys definitely knew everything on it, but I was required to do the full verbalization. They listened intently, but at the same time, I knew they couldn’t care less about my verbalization. So I did what any good waiter would do. I read my table and ripped through the presentation, so as to save them the time and pain. They ordered three desserts, a coffee and a cappuccino.

Everything was just fine in the end, and I got a $30 tip on what would have been a $144 check. My best table of the day. I ended up walking with $110 on the day.

Staying Off The Booze With Cocaine

My last post about my Fourth Waiting Job at the Rusty Pelican was kind of a set piece. I got lost in the reverie and unloaded. Meantime, the last ‘regular’ post was early July. So there’s a lot of catching up to do.

There have been two great developments at Carney’s Corner.

Frank the Bartender – previously known for his pious 6-year AA status, his Vicodin habit, and his slutty wife – has a new calling card. This one comes courtesy of his slutty wife. We’ll just call her Tara Reed, as homage to the actress with the similar name, because she didn’t take Frank’s name when they married, because she has a not-bad body, and because all she does is party and skank around.

TARA REID: 33. SO THE RELATIVE AGE IS OFF. FRANK IS 52, HIS WIFE IS 48

Tara (Mrs. Frank the Bartender), generally makes nightly visits to Carney’s to have a free drink or two and then head off to some other bar or club to meet her various boyfriends. Sometimes we waiters at Carney’s speculate that Tara picked Frank as her husband based on a rigorous qualification showdown. What are some of the things Tara needs to support and facilitate her lifestyle? As a major heading, she needs a

Reliable Hard Worker who is So Desperate and Insecure:

1. He works his five shifts week in and week out. When he takes a ‘vacation’ it will really be just an extension of an existing holiday, with an extra day off or two tacked on.
2. He, in order to illegitimately maximize his income, diligently rips off his employers week in and week out.
3. He has a non-negotiable work schedule locked in for the evening, club-going, cheating hours. From 5 p.m. till midnight (or later) Frank will be in exactly one place: behind the bar at Carney’s.
4. He is absolutely never going to come home early and surprise her. The bar closes late, and Frank is always there.
5. He is a non-drinker who can pick her up from various bars where she has gotten too hammered and needs a drive home.
6. He will willingly suspend all disbelief that she is cheating on him, because he can’t stomach the improbability of his getting another woman.
7. He will pretend there’s nothing unusual about the fact he works his ass off while she doesn’t have a job (not counting breeding her dog) and yet parties every night.
8. He is the one who actually does all the work breeding, caring for, and cleaning up after the dogs.
9. He has a job which puts him in contact with various sources of drugs and who can easily ‘trade out’ for those drugs, or for better deals on them.
10. He is pliable, forgiving, and clueless. He has no spine. He will adopt her hobbies. He will adopt her vices. He will adopt her rationalizations.

So back to Frank’s new calling card, besides Vicodin, etc.

It’s been a developing story with Frank, Tara, and Vicodin. We knew plenty about the Vicodin addiction, how his connection would come in and hand him a batch, how Jacqueline (another waitress) would hold some of his stash for him so he wouldn’t fiend it all away in one night, how Frank would be so flushed from his early-shift dose that his head looked ready to explode . . .

Ciera, who’s no stranger to drugs and anything else completely- or semi-sordid, had been saying for the last several months that she thought Frank was doing cocaine, not (just) Vicodin. We didn’t put much stock in her take on the thing. We thought it was just knee-jerk critique about a guy who was wigging out.

But. Ciera is friend and customer to Slick, the dealer who is Frank’s main connection – a bald guy with CIA-level clearance who made most of his bones doing foreign soil top-dollar construction work for the government because so few people were qualified at his level. Slick, says Ciera, is mostly a small-timer. He dabbles in the drug dealing enough to pay the bills; he’s mostly in it for the chicks and the social life. Ciera says she knows from Slick that Tara has become a regular customer for coke. A friend of Tara’s likes it a lot and had come into some money because her octogenarian millionaire ‘husband’ had finally died, leaving her (35 years old) the estate. Of course the Family had something to say, so she didn’t get everything – actually more like a few percentage points: a couple hundred thousand. But I digress . . .

So because of this background knowledge, Ciera is increasingly suspicious/convinced that Frank is doing not Vicodin, but cocaine. When we say, ‘Frank’s on his Vicodin frenzy right now,’ Ciera would counter with, ‘Or else a coke rush.’

Frank had no compunctions about hitting up Ciera for a Vicodin. One time she told me about him, jaw quivering, pleading if she could lend him a Vike? . . . she said she found one in the crease at the bottom of her purse. It was snagged with lint, there was even a pen mark. ‘He didn’t complain at all. He just thanked me,’ said Ciera.

Well, it finally happened. The other day Frank sidled up to Ciera and said, ‘Hey, you don’t have bump, do you? I could really use it right now.’

Of course, for the unfamiliar, ‘bump’ is slang for a snort of cocaine. Like, wanna do a bump?

Mr. AA. And he still is. No alcohol . . .

* * * * *

The other biggie is that Schotz, the well-to-do electrician who is friends with the owners of Carney’s Corner (Carney and Harry), dropped a bomb on Carney last Sunday. And all of us waiters want to find his address, go to his house, and shower him with gifts, flowers, kisses, and free drinks.

But first a little background.

Schotz is an extremely pleasant and affable guy. He’s part of the core buddy crew for Harry and Carney – those who’ll sit in a booth playing dominos for four hours. Schotz is also one of their go-to guys. Whenever they need some serious electrical stuff done, they call on their ‘friend.’

For instance, when Carney and Harry had to replace their old dishwashing machine, they took the opportunity to blow out a decaying and poorly-wired and -plumbed wall in the dish station area. They had Schotz in and he did all the electrical heavy lifting, delivering a first-class, up-to-code product. In this case and others, he politely refuses money (as a master of his craft in an upscale locale, his real rate would probably give them a heart attack), so Carney and Harry will give him restaurant gift certificates as compensation.

However, the only time Schotz and his wife eat anything at Carney’s is when they come sit in the dining room to redeem a gift certificate. They never even buy a quick bite in the bar. Which proves the gift certificates mean nothing to them – or else they’d be eating at Carney’s all along. To his credit, when Schotz and wife get their free dinner, he often tips 100%. Great guy.

Carney and Harry are extremely underdeveloped socially. Carney lives a life of rigidly-constructed delusion to protect her from feelings of severe inferiority. Harry is a late-stage alcoholic who drinks from sun-up till early evening, when the bedroom TV goes out of focus and his brain and liver finally surrender to the booze and THC.

They are not competent to have friendships outside of their controlled domain: the restaurant. Invitations to weddings, funerals, dinner, drinks, or miscellaneous outings like a movie or concert are rebuffed with excuses about how busy they are, how hard they work, how Carney has to have another colonoscopy the next day, or how Harry has to get another test on his prostate cancer.

(Incidentally, this fatal disease syndrome has been going on and on since I started there five years ago. And, no, they never have anything. Carney only regales us with tales of their medical woe. Ironically, the only thing honestly plausible – Harry contracting cirrhosis of the liver – has never been mentioned as a life-threatening ailment.)

Further in this direction, the owners absolutely refuse to allow any employee (or probably customer, for that matter) to have worse circumstances than their own.

‘How was your day off, Carney?’ I’ve asked many times. The restaurant is closed Mondays. ‘Hope you had some time to relax.’

‘Oh, no. Busy, busy. We were here at 7:30 waiting for the new air conditioner. Then when they were installing it, they knocked out a breaker, and Harry spent the next three hours fixing it. They got it in, but it wasn’t working in the front so . . .’ etc.

Or other times she might ask how I’ve been?

‘Pretty good,’ I’ll say. ‘I kind of had a stomach ache three days ago, thought I was coming down with something, but I guess it passed ’cause I feel great today.’

‘Oh, I’m sorry. I’ve had diarrhea for three days running . . .’

Well, so, anyway. It’s Sunday. Schotz invites Carney and Harry over to his place for evening cocktails on Monday.

‘Oh, I don’t know,’ Carney said, ‘we’ve just been working so hard lately . . . we just really need that day off to rest. Otherwise we wouldn’t make it through the next week.’

Schotz said, ‘You know what? I’m getting fucking sick of always hearing how hard you two work. I asked if you wanted to come over for a drink. Just answer the fucking question.’

It’s just so great because Schotz is such a beautiful guy, even Carney and Harry can’t spin that he’s just a jackass. One of the nicest guys in the world unloaded on her about their self-aggrandizing, selfish dishonesty, and for a change there was absolutely nothing she could say.

My Fourth Waiting Job

[There was a prelude to this account. I felt it was necessary to set the stage for this turning point in my career/life. Click to read about How I Got To My Fourth Waiting Job.]

THE ACTUAL RUSTY PELICAN WHERE I WORKED

Were things in 1986 so much different than nowadays? I don’t know.

I moved up to NoCal with about $1000. Most of that was allocated to rent/deposit and the cash needed to set up my new residence: utility bills, washer and dryer, perhaps some really bad furniture beyond the slightly-better furniture donated by local friends and relatives, a mattress for my bedroom floor, and a chair and desk for my radical (Apple II clone) Franklin Ace OMS (Office Management System) computer and dot matrix printer.

I didn’t mention that I had a job waiting for me.

That’s because I didn’t.

For some reason, I considered my 8-month résumé (Red Robin, Baxter’s, Olive Garden) impeccable. No problem getting a good serving job with a history like that, right?

Pretty stupid in retrospect, but I didn’t know any better.

At the same time, it worked out just as I’d stupidly expected. I hit the pavement right away searching for work – best places first – and luckily got hired at the best place. The Rusty Pelican.

Contrary to the funky coffee mug graphic, this location was very state-of-the-art, top-level – at least in NoCal. Although it was 1986, the restaurant was only a couple years old and was very modern. There were multiple levels, pillars and pond-like divisions made of hedges and walls of big stones, burnished wood furniture, brass and glass in the walkways, and all of it with great lighting. It was a grotto on a sea of perfect carpeting.

And then there was the bar, on a separate side of the building. As in, walk in the front doors: Hostess Desk at center, dining room to the left, bar to the right. There was a stage for live music, and an extensive patio. As you might expect, there was a back connection between the bar and the kitchen.

My second interview was with manager Tom. There were three of us, and we walked well, apparently. I didn’t know it at the time, but later, manager Tom told me he always had new hires ‘Do the walk. I don’t let them follow me into the kitchen – I make them go ahead so I can watch the walk.’ From his tone and the smile on his face (when he told me this) I took it to mean he mostly wanted to see the girls’ bodies. But to be fair, knowing if an applicant was athletic, graceful, balanced and confident would be good information to have as a manager. I assume you believe that . . . hey, it was the ’80s! Anyway, we all got hired.

The initial deal was lunches only. The Pelican didn’t hire directly for dinner shifts; they filled openings in the dinner schedule with promotions from lunch. The path was lunch waiter to expediter at night to dinner shifts. It was Monday through Friday, no lunch on weekends. I usually worked all five days.

But first there was Training.

You must understand the lofty position The Rusty Pelican occupied in the restaurant business for a period seven or eight years. Each store offered 20-30 varieties of fresh (never frozen) fish each day, prime rib on weekends, a New York steak, Australian lobster tails, and the usual variety of fresh seafood appetizers. I was not any kind of experienced diner at that time, so I’m sure there were comparable or better restaurants in places – especially in more established areas like Orange County, where the chain started. But as the company expanded and put stores in Brea, Woodland Hills, Portland and my town in NoCal, these stores were a healthy cut above the best those areas previously offered. Do you remember when you first entered a TGIFriday’s (or am I dating myself even more?) and looked around at all the crazy, eclectic décor, the massive menu, all the fun cocktails, and the lively atmosphere? Didn’t you think, Wow! This place is cool. This place is going to be really busy.

That’s the effect a new Rusty Pelican had on its clientele, but at the high-end dining level, not casual dining. And that’s what happened. Lunches were just average – there wasn’t a serious concentration of businesses to provide the customer base. But dinner and the bar was crazy busy. People drinking sophisticated wines like Beringer Chardonnay. Or the king of them all, Grgich Hills Chardonnay . . .

What did I say at the start? Was it a different time? Yes, it was. I’m not sure younger readers will understand how mind-boggling it was that people were spending $40 for a bottle of wine. This was the first step out of the White Zinfandel era. What we take for granted today about guests’ awareness about and willingness to order wine, was just getting started. And The Rusty Pelican was at ground zero for this as it reached the masses in California.

Not to mention all the ‘flown in daily’ fresh fish. Twenty-five varieties, all fresh! I came in on the second wave, where we had to ’spiel’ five charbroiled fish, five sautéed, and the swordfish Malia (name of the executive chef) and blackened Mahi-Mahi. The first generation was responsible for reciting every single fish and stating how it could be prepared.

So training was going to be a bitch. First day, we received 8″x11″ training manuals that were two inches thick. That was the food and drink knowledge manual. There was another manual half the size dealing with policy and systems.

Every fish had 3-5 adjective descriptions. We had to know the ingredients in everything from the clam chowder (both Manhattan and New England) and salad mix, to the Teriyaki Chicken dish. We had to know how to make Prime Rib and how long to broil a fish on each side. We had to learn how to make every classic drink, including garnish. Yes, we’re talking Mai Tai, Old Fashioned, Long Island Iced Tea, Tom Collins, Martini, Manhattan, Sours . . . pretty much anything famous and popular. We even had to know what glasses each drink came in (names like Fiesta and Hurricane). We had to learn general descriptions of the various varietals of wines (Chardonnay, Cabernet, Merlot, etc.), and what to pair with them. We had to understand (and answer questions about) after dinner drinks like cognacs and ports.

Our head trainer told us that once we finished training at the Rusty Pelican, we could wait tables anywhere. He was right, at least as far as mechanics and fundamental restaurant/product knowledge went. If the whole of possible waiter knowledge is (an unattainable) 100% and I’m at 90% today, I learned 80% at the Rusty Pelican.

The test was tough. The food and service sections, though long and detailed, were pretty easy because we had actually done the service and seen/eaten the food. So there was a tactile memory there to help. But the Rusty Pelican was dead serious about the bar test. No joke, every single one of those drinks and their components was on that test. And, of course, we didn’t have the benefit of tactile memory in this case.

Regardless, I passed. I’ve always been good at tests.

It was kind of tough doing the job at first because, like a lot of restaurants, the training is focused on the dinner experience. After all, that’s usually where the house makes the big money – and its reputation. The pitfall being that lunch is a different experience and it attracts a different diner. I spent all that time learning drinks and no one’s asking me about them (or ordering them – even worse!). I’m just filling iced teas and placing orders for seafood sandwiches and shrimp salads. And obviously the pace is way quicker than I was led to believe.

I remember my first complaint. Though I was green, it really was not my fault. It was a classic scenario. Four women having a ‘leisurely’ lunch. They ordered White Zinfandel, and actually sent a bottle back. Oddly enough, it really was sour – actually a bad bottle. But what are the odds? Anyway, they refused to place an order: ‘Oh, we haven’t even looked yet!’ I finally got the order about an hour into their visit. The food came promptly. They ordered another bottle of wine. The meals were fine. I cleared the table promptly. They declined dessert and coffee, wanting only to finish their wine. I brought the check. For the next 20 minutes, they sipped their wine and ignored the check presenter entirely. I looked in on them at 3-4 minute intervals. I check on them one more time . . . no progress. I go in back to continue my side work. Within 90 seconds, a manager is back in the kitchen holding the check, calling my name. ‘Where were you? This lady came up to the desk and said she wanted to pay but their waiter wasn’t around.’ The ladies got a few free appetizer cards for their outrage.

Remember that old classic Irate Customer gambit?

Early on I waited on football great John Elway. He was then a quarterback at Stanford and about to be drafted into the NFL. I believe at that time he was interviewing prospective agents. Also, Ronnie Lott, the famous safety for the 49ers used to hang out in the bar. That’s pretty much the extent of celebrity sightings for me in NoCal.

At any rate, my new life was now set. I was making $25-35 per lunch shift. With pay checks I was making around $600 take home a month. (I just found a letter I’d written in those days. Rent and utilities were running me $300 a month. I had a $1500 Visa bill – my only debt.) Now I had enough to be scratch-even – whew! Of course, that’s all I was. I was always crying about needing just another $50 a week so I could have some fun. This left me plenty of time to write. I wrote/finished a few short stories. I wrote letters to friends down south.

What about that romance novel I was supposed to write with my friend and new roommate, Dick, you ask? That got started okay. We spent some good hours doing a few drafts of the general plot. Then it just kinda stopped. Whereas early on I would get off work around 2 p.m. and head home to work on the book with Dick, now I was heading home to . . . play about three hours of Wiffle ball.

DON’T KNOW IF THEY COME PACKAGED LIKE THIS ANYMORE, BUT THEY DID IN MY DAY

If my other roommate was home early, he’d play too. Or sometimes other old friends would drop by. But mostly it was one on one. Our games were honed scalpel-sharp. We could make that ball dance the Charleston or drop deader than pigeon shit. I won’t get into the rules, save for the one defining refinement we added that has never been matched or improved on: the Garbage Can Lid, aka Gong.

My wiffle ball career has been played entirely in driveways, with home plate right in front of the garage door, pitcher’s ‘mound’ on the sidewalk. The garbage can lid was hung from two wires in front of the garage door, behind the batter, strike zone high. Because of the lid, there was no need to count balls – there were no walks. We still had strikes (swings-misses and foul balls). And then we had the ‘Gong’. If a clean wiffle ball pitch ever hit that garbage can lid, you were out instantly. (If you clanged on a foul-tip after the 2^nd strike, you were also out.) The beauty of the Gong was that it was irrefutable and unmistakable. Even the slightest grazing of the Can Lid made a distinct bell-like noise. There was no arguing with the Can. You didn’t have to be watching to see if the pitch was good or not – your ears would tell you.

TWI-NIGHT GAME IN THE LEGENDARY SEASON OF ‘86. I’M TAKING THE PICTURE. CHECK OUT THE ‘CAN.’

Dick and I played Wiff (as we called it) 5-6 days a week. Sometimes I would get home early and call him at work. ‘What the hell are you doing, you piece of buttcheese?’ I’d say when he answered (this is the way immature guys talked to each other back then). ‘Don’t you realize the grounds crew has already dragged the infield, laid the chalk, and now the ump is wondering where the hell you are?’

‘I’m out the door in five minutes,’ he’d say.

‘Well hurry up! We’re burning daylight!’

We didn’t doctor the ball beyond a single stripe of black electrical tape around the circumference. But we did customize our own bats. A little weight on the fat end was desirable to increase the centrifugal force, the whipping effect. This was accomplished in a variety of ways, from wrapping layers of duct tape around the barrel of the bat, to stuffing the barrel with things like old rags, Elmer’s glue and rice, and rubber cement with crumbled cork (the last two being my innovations). We also decorated the outside with different colors of electrical tape applied in eye-catching patterns.

Both Dick and I were good pitchers, but neither of us had unhittable stuff. As a batter, however, I caught a groove for about five weeks that almost had Dick hanging up his spikes, retiring from the game. Of course, I would have none of that. I talked him out of it with a Knute Rockne pep talk. Hell, he couldn’t quit now – I was on the tear of my life, this was too much fun for me.

We have since joked that at that time we were probably some of the best wiffle ball players on the planet.

It was either joke about it or cry. It’s embarrassing having spent enough time playing to become the best on the planet. We were supposed to be writing . . .

The Wiff was a constant, but elsewhere in life, Dick was getting serious with his girlfriend, spending most nights at her house. I segued from lunches, to expediting two days a week, to being promoted to dinners.

And the money started to roll in. Now I was making $70-100 a night. I had some money. I could actually do things.

But what was there to do? I have reread my old letters. At the time, I was outraged at the lack of beautiful girls in NoCal. I had no right to be outraged, considering what a self-centered dork I was. But at the same time, we must admit that SoCal is in some very rarefied air when it comes to beautiful women.

Being half-introvert, half-engineer mentality, half-Midwestern rube, half-writer geek – and with all that not even half a man . . . I naturally elected to spend my extra money paying off my $1500 credit card. Besides, there were only two girls working at the Pelican I really liked. One was an 18-year-old hostess who was an absolute goddess. I struggle to describe her, and the best I can come up with is that she truly could have been a Playboy model. Her body was so perfect it was almost like a caricature. She could have been a Vargas Girl model.

PRETTY MUCH LIKE THIS, ONLY MORE NORWEGIAN. AND SHE DRESSED AS A DEVIL ON HALLOWEEN.

In truth I had only an intellectual interest in her: My mind was telling me that this girl had a perfect face and body, and I appreciated that perfection in an abstract sense. Really, I’m only partly joking here. I wasn’t actually hot for her – it was more the principle of the thing, her being perfect and all. If that makes any sense.

The other girl was a cocktail waitress named Vicky Pope. She was a few years older than I, and had more of a normal-type perfect body. Plus, she was sunny and friendly. And way out of my league, with a grown-up boyfriend somewhere.

So I made no play for either of these beautiful girls, paid down my credit card, and further refined my Wiff game.

The Pelican was a thriving company. The ranking executives visited each store regularly to stoke up the staff. They threw great employee parties. The managers were cool because everyone was making money, enough even for managerial cocaine. There was even money around for a Pelican basketball tournament pitting other stores against each other. As a baller, I was recruited, along with a few cooks and three managers. We drove to Sacramento and played against three other stores in a big community college gym. I made some friends in management. I was really the only good player on our team. And in fact I was one of only two good players in the whole tournament. The other guy was my age, a 6′5″ college caliber player. He also had a pretty good all-around athlete as his wingman. We lost to them as the big guy got layup after layup on our big guy, 6′5″ General Manager Greg Kayes. Greg was probably a pretty good player 20 years earlier, but then he was in his mid-40s and far out of shape for serious full court hoop. I was able slice and dice at will off the dribble, but had trouble finishing because of the bigger guys inside and no one reliable to pass to.

Still, though we lost, the managers thanked me profusely, saying with all sincerity, ‘You saved us. We would have been humiliated without you.’

Back at the restaurant, I suddenly started getting better parties in my station . . .

There was a new crop of lunch servers shortly after I was promoted. Among them was a cute girl named Charlize Evans. I didn’t see much of her until she began the inevitable progression to expediter and on to the dinner staff. Charlize was also a very impressive looking girl. She was friendly enough to me, but I’m such a shy guy I always take female friendliness at face value, while hoping it means more. Then I’ll wait patiently to see if it ramps up to the next level. When the friendliness goes to flirting, I get happy, but, conservative as always, wait to see if it’s not just an act or folly on her part. She would next have to initiate physical contact with me, like touching an arm when talking, or punching playfully when I joke or even a tender touch of affection . . .

Yeah. Then I’d wait again. No, I wasn’t so stupid to understand what was going on. Now my problem was that I was just nervous/afraid to make a move.

It would come down to the girl making a definitive move to kiss me, or else me being drunk enough to fulfill my hunter role. In my life, a 50-50 shot which happens when the girl breakthrough occurs.

I went through those stages with Charlize and then the perfect storm evolved one Saturday night after a very profitable dinner shift.

It was summer in NoCal. The nights are delightful, with the 90-degree heat of day evaporated up into the starry skies. Mix that with the euphoria of having a massive pocketful of money, and free drinks from the bartenders . . . well, the band was playin’.

We hooked up despite my non-committal way and had a few drinks in the raging bar. It was around 11:30.

Besides a couple of beers and a shot or two, we had Portland Steamers. As is the wont with bartenders worldwide, if they don’t know how to make a drink, they’ll wing it. The Portland Steamer at NoCal Rusty Pelican was Bailey’s, Tuaca, and milk in a snifter, quickly steamed with the cappuccino machine.

So the band was cookin’, the bar was packed, we were drunk. Despite being our home turf as waiters there, the place was so busy and full, it was like actually being out in a bar. Charlize and I were alone for all purposes. The band broke out with a particularly great song (“Rocky Mountain Way” by Joe Walsh) and I grabbed her hand and rushed her into the cloud of bodies on the dance floor. Steam and sweat, and cool air from the night through the open patio doors. Some dancing, and the time was finally right. We kissed.

After that we had a couple of dates, she invited me to her place to sunbathe at the pool.

JUST SO YOU KNOW I’M NOT LYING ABOUT CHARLIZE. CHECK OUT THE ‘CAN.’ (OOPS! WIFFLE BALL CAPTION!)

We went to Sacramento to visit her mother.

That was an interesting night. Charlize’s car had died so her mom was going to give/lend her a Toyota Corolla. I was happy to lend my services for the two hour drive. It was summer and warm. We got started kind of late, and got to her mom’s apartment after dark. Her mother was a beautiful lady. She complained that since her hysterectomy she had gotten fat . . . which was weird, because she had a great body. There was some boyfriend there. They gave me a beer. The vibe was strange because, filling the void, I did most of the talking. Charlize’s mother talked exclusively to me, about me. The mother and daughter didn’t say much to each other. Then suddenly they flew into a snit with each other. Next thing we were saying goodbyes and Charlize and I were out the door, car keys in hand. The visit was no more than 30 minutes.

It was late, but Charlize wanted to stop and get some food and drink. We found a Baxter’s (remember them from My 2^nd Waiting Job?), had some food and a couple of drinks. Charlize didn’t want to go right away so we went into the ‘club’ side. We drank some more, Charlize downing two Long Island Iced Teas – hey, it was the ’80s! There was nothing happening in the bar, and we could tell the town was shutting down, so we hit the road. Yeah we were both drunk, but, hey, it was the ’80s!

Charlize insisted on driving her ‘new’ Toyota, me following in my Honda. It was 1:30 a.m. and she was really weaving. Sure enough, here come some red lights and a siren, and she’s getting pulled over. The cop chastised her, came back to talk to me, then just gave her a warning and let her ride home with me. I guess compared to Charlize right then I appeared downright sober, though I had five drinks in me – two of them Long Island Teas . . . hey, it was the ’80s!

We left her car on the side of the road and I drove off as steadily as I could. Just out of town, she had me pull over so she could throw up. Back on the road another fifteen minutes, I started to lose it. I had to pull over. I could barely drive – I just wanted to sleep for a few minutes. We slept for about an hour but then Charlize woke me up and said we had to get going. I wasn’t so sure. She said, fuck it, she would drive, she was okay now. I let her, and she got us back to her apartment alive.

The sky was starting to lighten. I had a raging hangover headache as we got into bed. Charlize, puke-breath and all, wanted to kiss. I kissed her, then rolled over, saying, ‘Please don’t tell me I have to have sex with you now.’

It was crazy. We were both sick as dogs and completely wiped out. I couldn’t imagine a worse way to finally consummate a relationship – and it seemed that’s what she wanted to do right then. I thought she must understand how crummy that scenario was.

Nevertheless, it was a callous thing for me to say. I never did have sex with Charlize. And that had nothing to do with my comment. Surprisingly, she seemed to harbor no resentment about it. Maybe that’s another reason she was such a great catch.

Behind the scenes, the wheels were turning rapidly for my return to SoCal. My old running mate down there, Scott, was buying a house with his parents and needed roommates. We’d kept in touch. I desperately wanted out of NoCal, so it was arranged that I would rent a room once the house was fixed up. Move-in date was July 18^th.

Writing this I wonder now what kind of an imbecile I was? You’ve got to understand how hot Charlize was. And she was very cool. And I liked her a lot. And she liked me a lot too. Talk about not taking the bird in the hand! Ostensibly I was returning to SoCal because it was boring in NoCal. It wasn’t any fun. So I would return to the L.A. area and kick up my heels and have fun . . . What exactly does that entail? Well, going out, drinking, dancing, um . . . meeting girls and getting laid . . . umm, mainly the girls. Right? The hot girls. The pretty ones. And, like, without the girls, the drinking and dancing business is pretty useless and not-fun . . . yeah. Sheesh!

The Pelican was great about transfers, so I figured I had it made. I had a manager call to arrange a transfer to the legendary Newport Beach store – but they said no. So anyway, there were a few other stores in the general area. Another call was made. I was assured a certain other store would take me.

Meantime, my last official act in NoCal was attending Dick’s wedding. Charlize was my date. She told me she was going to look super hot to impress all my friends. She did. I’ve got some pictures to prove it.

And after that it was back to my SoCal destiny.