The job

The thing with this job is, it's not just the job. It's never just the job. It's the people, it's the food, it's the time of day; it's the weather, or lack of it; it's the drama, or the fact that there hasn't been any; it's that the soup-bowl warmer has died, or the bread guy didn't show up; it's everything, and nothing, all at once, all the time.

It's life.

So I here I sit, 80 minutes from Monday, 12 hours from check-in, tensing up. Why? If the thing with the job is life, then why should I tense to meet it? If it's all the same, why shouldn't I be placid, peaceful, sure of my place in the restaurant, if not the world?

Let's catch up a bit. I'm a server. I work at an Olive Garden. When you come into my restaurant (if you get sat in my section, which is another can of worms), you'll get the standard greeting from me. It'll sound like this:

"Hi there. How're y'all doing?

"I'm Sean and I'll be your server. Have y'all eaten at the Olive Garden before?"

Let's pause in the middle of this prospectus to point out a few things: No, I'm not an automaton. If you ask me questions or otherwise break up my flow, I'll just go with it. This conversation is grooved to keep business flowing. There's even jokes, like when I say ...

"... so this wine, or any other wine available by the glass, can be sampled for 25 cents, and we donate the quarter to charity. In this case, when you're sampling, you are actually drinking ... ... for the children.

My god, for the children? That's great. Yeah.

This line always draws a laugh. Sometimes the laugh is the sitcom courtesy-laugh, but more often it's surprised, honest laughter, which I cherish like the tiny, tiny dollars at the end of the meal.

In some ways, that's the job: The tiny joke, the waiting for an interesting response; seeing that the woman at 12 needs a Bellini tea and the guy at 9 wants an ashtray and the two women at 10 are totally pissed that their chicken alfredo only came drenched in sauce and not swimming in it.

I think about telling the women about the 100 grams of unsaturated fat in the lunch portion of chicken alfredo, but they seem really determined to push that to 140, and whoamItostandinthewayofcommerce? Seems un-American to me. And I'm certainly not unAmerican. So I just get the ramikin of fat cheese sauce; I serve to the guests; and when they tip poorly, I recommend 'An Omnivore's Dilemma' or 'In Defense of Food'.

Maybe, when they get home, they'll stop sucking. And then, maybe, they'll start tipping.

That's always the hope.