tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-73172722364977220662024-03-05T02:14:41.657-06:00Waiter LaterI'm off the floor.Guyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18302453432032549612noreply@blogger.comBlogger83125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7317272236497722066.post-56266185919379004162013-07-14T18:28:00.000-05:002013-07-17T10:38:10.942-05:00James Franklin Swenson<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<span style="color: #20124d;"><i><b>This was my Dad: James Franklin Swenson, or as we knew him, "Jamie." <span style="color: black;"></span>I pulled this photo out of one of my old albums of family photos - all of them losing their color now, and all needing to be scanned or in danger of being lost. I chose this picture because there are so many reminders in it of my childhood home and my family.<br /><br />The Christmas Tree<br /><br />Jamie liked to find a tree with something other than the traditional shape, so we'd go out to a state park with a permit to cut down a tree. The Christmas we lived with this tree, it took up most of the living room and anyone sitting on the right half of the couch sat with a lap full of tree branch. It was so lop-sided that it would tip over several times throughout the day and night until Jamie finally managed to secure it to the bookshelves behind it. I still remember the "WHOOMP!" mingled with the sound of tinkling bells and glass ornaments hitting the floor in the middle of the night.<br />(*I realize as I look at the tree again, there aren't any ornaments on it. I think the only thing left is stuff made from cloth.<br />At some point, we decided it wasn't worth breaking any more of them, and we stripped the tree and put them all away.)<br /><br />The Bookshelves<br /><br />Jamie built those himself, as well as cutting and fitting the boards that they are attached to. That paneling is rough red cedar, but the shelves were made of plywood and stained red. All of the books that sat on those shelves were stained red eventually as well because he was probably on to his next project before he got around to sealing them. He was always building, learning or planning something. Those books still read just as good (if not gooder).<br /><br />The Rocking Chair<br /><br />That's my Mom's rocking chair. I know the sound of that chair and the feel of every curve and upholstery nail. All through my years growing up, that chair was most representative to me of my Mom, and I have flashes of memory of what it was like to climb into her lap while she was sitting on it all the way up to leaning over to kiss her cheek before going to bed.<br /><br />The Carpet<br /><br />My folks bought the home where this 1976 photo was taken in 1969, when the house was ten years old. It has hardwood floors throughout, but they had 4 kids, 5 1/2 years apart total, and always at least one dog and a couple of cats, so it was pretty noisy. They had this carpet put down in the early 70s - a kind of coat of many colors pattern. I liked it then, and probably still would today, mostly because I doubt if I would ever see the same pattern anywhere else. That is something they taught me to appreciate: unusual things are interesting.<br /><br />The Plants<br /><br />I think one of those is a Strawberry Plant my folks brought from Michigan. It was the only one they took with them when we moved to Oregon in 1967 in our Ford Galaxy 500 with the U-Haul trailer behind us. The pots were hand made, and I think my dad's brother was the craftsman. The hangers were probably macrame my Mom did. <br /><br />The Artwork<br /><br />Jamie built that ship in the glass case. He built the case also. Then, there's a wooden mask my Uncle Jan bought in Mexico and some skulls Jamie mounted on velvet covered boards. That mantle is the one where, as kids, we knocked one of the clay figurines onto the floor, shattering it, and spent the next 20 minutes arguing about which one of us would take the blame so the others wouldn't get in trouble. We wanted to protect each other and we knew we had done wrong. As it was, my folks just said, "Accidents happen." (Man, that WAS a really good pillow fight, though!)<br /><br />The Presents<br /><br />A quick glance shows several gifts that couldn't almost be anything other than record albums. This might have been the Christmas Hanna gave me The Pointer Sisters' live album recorded in San Francisco, or Liz gave me Elvis' "Aloha Via Satellite From Hawaii." We all gave each other records, though, and that is one of the most lasting and important legacies of my folks. They used to tell us a story of how, when they were first married, they saved up enough money to buy a set of dishes, but on the way to shop for them, they stopped at a record store and blew every last dime on records. Music was always important to my Dad and he even taught himself to play some on the banjo and guitar. He was a great singer and he could appreciate any style of music. The last gift I gave him was a couple of CDs from the folk singer, Taylor Pie.<br /><br />Jamie passed away on Friday, just a little over two months past the diagnosis his doctors gave him of stomach cancer. I got to talk to him on Monday, with my sister Katie holding the phone, and I told him about how I loved him, and I was proud of him, and that I hoped I had as much dignity as he when my time comes. Then, I played a song for him on the piano that his mother taught me. None of us know the name of it, but I play be ear, so I remember it. Jamie told me once that she would play it for him and his brothers every night when they were tucked in bed, and they would call down from their bedrooms, "Play it again, Mama! Play it again!" I did play it through twice, and came back to the phone, and Katie told me, "He's moving his feet a little in time to the music, and he squeezed my hand. I think he wants you to play it again."<br /><br />And so I did.</b></i></span><br />
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This photo is the last time I saw my Dad, when my folks were driving back to Oregon from visiting me in Texas in October of 2011. </div>
Guyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18302453432032549612noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7317272236497722066.post-17556167859075763182013-04-25T17:38:00.004-05:002022-01-31T13:32:27.232-06:00The End of The Beginning<span style="color: purple;">I was reprimanded by four of my supervisors, in an Emergency Meeting, when I worked for Sears (in a thankless job in one of their merchandising offices) for something I didn't say, but that many people thought I said. This happened over 30 years ago, and now, probably everyone that was in that meeting except me is dead, but I still remember it. I was told,<i> "It isn't important what you said or didn't say. What is important is what everyone thinks you said." </i>And that it was my fault that the person who misheard me spread this rumor all over the office. I was also told to use more caution.<br /><br />I'm less inclined, in my personal life, to be railroaded today, but I still see evidence of this prevailing mentality: The Facts Don't Matter. It is easier to base our actions on a well-publicized lie than deal with the truth.<br /><br />I should probably add a word of warning right about here. I am about as left-leaning of a liberal as you will ever meet, so if that kind of writing offends you, leave now. When I started this blog, I made a barely-critical comment about G.W. Bush and a couple of people stopped by to pee all over my post about it. I revised the article to comply with their sensitivities. They probably never even noticed. Too busy whining somewhere else? Well, those days are done. This blog is mine. Part of being a waiter, <i>later</i>, is not having to suck up to people, pretending to be something I'm not. Fair warning, then, that if you stumble upon this, I didn't write it to offend you, but I'm not changing it to please you either.<br /><br />I think the dog and pony show at Sears is on my mind today because I've been thinking about other instances of stuff that isn't true that people react to as if they are because <i>"it's important what everyone thinks you said."</i> I think it's more important to go back and identify that original lie. Dispute the false evidence that the claims are made upon.<br /><br />For instance: Standardized testing in public schools.<br />We know this doesn't work. People do not learn the same way, have the same skill sets, express themselves identically, etc and we would be in one helluva mess if they did, but we evaluate students, and their teachers' performance, based on the premise that all of this is true, and excuse this travesty by claiming we "must have standards." The lie is that the only standard permissible is conformity. I wonder, how has it happened that our teachers are the last people we look to for answers about how best to educate? Instead, they are accused of being lazy, their job security and wage structure are attacked, and they are told how to teach - by people who have never taught a day in their lives. The standardized method is class warfare. It is a method of indoctrination and a tactic for weeding out critical thinkers to create a paint-by-numbers hoard who will do as they're told (by their privately educated peers of the wealthier class).<br /><br />Another instance that gives me the same knot in my stomach as my Sears days is the whitewashing that's being pulled on the American public with tort reform.<br /><br />In spite of the fact that measures are already in place to deal with abuses against the court system, we have been snookered into thinking that some sweeping, generalized cap limit on the amount of money we are allowed to sue for damages. This, supposedly, is to protect us, keep services and merchandise affordable, and weed out all of those people who take advantage of the court system.<br /><br /><i>WTF!</i><br /><br />We're going to neuter due process, but let the corporations run wild - unregulated, no holds barred - for our protection? There's <i>A Modest Proposal</i> if I ever heard one.<br /> </span><br />
<span style="color: purple;">And the third really upside-down rationale floating around right now is about guns.<br /><br />The Second Amendment so clearly states that being permitted to own guns is for the purpose of a well-regulated militia. When the Supreme Court elected to redact the 13 words that precede our right to bear arms, we became more loyal to <i>"what someone thinks they said"</i> than to what they actually said. And this has become the basis for a defense for people buying guns for their kids, allowing all manner of assault weapons with multiple rounds of ammunition, and giving criminals easy access to weapons by blocking gun laws. We don't want to know the truth, and we don't want to fix the problems of rampant gun violence. We want to protect the corporations that manufacture the guns because this is about protecting assets more than lives.<br /><br /><br />When I waited tables, my job often required me to acquiesce to a customer's unreasonable demands and cover for the inadequacies of my employer or the inferiority of their product. Slowly, but surely, as I distance myself from the mindset of pleasing others and learning how to stand up for myself, I see that none of us are doing each other any favors by accepting these commonly used lies about standardized tests, tort reform, or gun control. Rather than allow the folks who benefit from these abuses to set the playing field for our discussions, we ought to be revisiting their initial flawed premises. If I could go back 30+ years, I would say to these bullies at Sears, <i>"Yes, it IS important what I said, and if you are willing to ignore what I said in favor of something that is not true, I can't trust you."</i><br /><br />Still, if I hadn't lost that crappy job, I might never have taken that Greyhound bus to Denver with $300 in my pocket, and begun my glamorous life as a waiter. (And he lived happily ever, <i>after</i>.)</span>Guyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18302453432032549612noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7317272236497722066.post-8361146650074239622012-12-02T02:26:00.002-06:002012-12-02T02:29:44.313-06:00What Is Your Real Job?<span style="color: #351c75;">It's been a long time since I contributed to this blog. I started it full of ideas - and I made a list of those ideas - but my computer crashed and I never quite got back into the swing of things. I don't wanna give up on writing, but I think I've got more to write about than my old waiter stories</span><br />
<span style="color: #351c75;"><br />Back when I was still a waiter - especially when I worked in the pancake house - customers would sometimes ask, "What is your real job?" Bearing in mind, ya gotta be nice to them if you wanna be tipped, I would never tell them what I thought about their question. It is ironic that, these many years later, the only job I've ever had that felt "real" was being a waiter. It was serendipitous, then, when I found out, after being asked to serve as a deacon at my church, that deacon actually means "waiter." It's from the Greek word, <i>Diakonos. </i>So, here I am, a waiter again!<br /><br />I think I'll use this blog as a place to share recipes, stuff about plants, and maybe the occasional memory if one happens to shake loose. Friends could share their ideas about gardening, or food ideas in the comments and maybe it will be more interactive that way, and less of a monologue.<br /><br />Basically, that's a long-winded way of saying I can't remember much anymore about my years as a waiter.</span><br />
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<span style="color: #351c75;">I hope you like what I come up with.</span><br />
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<span style="color: #351c75;">-Guy</span><br />
<br />Guyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18302453432032549612noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7317272236497722066.post-79589670895908989812012-04-23T01:27:00.002-05:002012-04-23T01:34:00.252-05:00Bar Experience<span style="color: #274e13;">I was tending bar when Susan was hired to be our new Supervisor. Mini-skirt, 4-inch high heels, push-up bra and press-on nails (she lost one in someone's salad once. Yuck.) Mark, the lecherous putz of a Food and Beverage Director, said she had "a lot of experience working in bars" but we all wondered on which side. Apart from flirting with the cooks and just about anything in pants, Susan liked to decorate the Happy Hour buffet table. All well and good, but she didn't ever seem to take into account just how that table was going to be used, so plates could wind up just about anyplace and items that should have been placed in near proximity could be at opposite ends of the table. Susan's deal was "making it look pretty."</span><br />
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One particularly memorable "pretty" buffet was for a Mexican themed variety of hors-d'ouevres. Lots and lots of crepe paper strewn all around the legs of the chafing dishes - plenty of streamers and confetti and paper mache shared the table with candles and several large cans of Sterno. In a word: Kindling. As soon as someone walked in the front door, the wind blew the streamers into the open flame, setting off a kind of fuse that soon had the entire ten foot table erupting in flames. I managed to put out the fire with a couple of nearby pitchers of water and a wad of table cloths, while Susan said things like, "Hurry!" or "Oh, gawsh!"</div>
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From time to time, she'd come behind the bar to "help." This usually meant, I helped her get her high heels unstuck from the floor mats while she helped herself to my tips. She didn't know how to make a drink, and she couldn't use the register, so mostly she just talked to the customers, ate the cherries out of my garnish trays and got in my way. Inevitably, she mistook the relieved look on my face when she finished "helping" for gratitude, and always promised to show up again when she was needed. (I should be so lucky.)</div>
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<br />Guyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18302453432032549612noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7317272236497722066.post-28884676434161066292011-06-17T23:44:00.003-05:002011-06-17T23:47:25.409-05:00Bonnie Parker, Former Waitress, Killed Dead<span style="color: rgb(102, 51, 102);">I was at a double feature at the Paramount tonight, <span style="font-style: italic;">"They Live by Night"</span> and <span style="font-style: italic;">"Bonnie and Clyde." </span>As I left the theater, I heard the woman behind me say to her friend, <span style="font-style: italic;">"Well, I guess that's better than being a waitress all your life."</span></span>Guyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18302453432032549612noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7317272236497722066.post-29629454221653908312011-03-24T22:28:00.003-05:002011-03-24T22:41:33.633-05:00Betty, Please<span style="color: rgb(102, 51, 102);">Even before I became a waiter, I had been given the nickname, "Betty" by some of my co-workers in Washington who remembered this Laverne and Shirley episode (at the time, the show was still on the air). A few years later when my friend Curtis and I were waiting tables around Denver together, he also started calling me "Betty" and I named him Hazel. This clip is really funny, but I think because there is truth underneath the slapstick surface. There is nothing quite like the chaotic experience of being "bombed," "in the weeds," "slammed" or "going under" in a diner.</span><br /><br /><br /><iframe title="YouTube video player" width="480" height="390" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/X7oHvQu-dc4" frameborder="0"></iframe>Guyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18302453432032549612noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7317272236497722066.post-47371699772147526102011-02-14T00:50:00.006-06:002012-04-06T15:08:53.434-05:00Well done, good and faithful servant<span style="color: rgb(102, 51, 102);">I don't think I was ever really cut out to be a waiter, even though that's what I spent most of my life doing. There are some things about me that were a decent fit: I am intuitive, fairly quick-witted, and I motivate well with short term goals and the regular affirmation that being tipped affords. However, I really suck at multi-tasking (unless it's big picture, planning-ahead stuff) and my feelings get hurt way too easily.</span><br /><br /><span style="color: rgb(102, 51, 102);">I didn't ever know how to take advantage of being a waiter like using the job to network, sucking up to the cooks for free food (or stealing food), moving around from restaurant to restaurant (or city to city, working the circuit) or knowing how to sweet-talk customers into bigger tips. Instead, I was the kind of waiter that wanted to please people and was flattered or hurt by the size of my tip. I also didn't have the sense God gave a pig to know that eating a side of toast that was never served and was going to be thrown away wasn't a kind of </span><span style="font-style: italic; color: rgb(102, 51, 102);">"stealing"</span><span style="color: rgb(102, 51, 102);"> that would hurt my employer. I was going hungry, trying to make a generic loaf of white bread last for three days of meals, but I'd throw the toast away at work because I hadn't paid for it. My conscience got in the way of common sense. </span><br /><br /><span style="color: rgb(102, 51, 102);">When I worked at the Pancake House, every waiter was supposed to <span style="font-style: italic;">"dip butters,"</span> meaning, we each scooped small balls of whipped butter into portion cups on large baking pans that were stored on racks in the refrigerator and used for pancakes and waffles. There were times I would realize after I had walked over a mile from the restaurant back to my apartment that I hadn't dipped my butters and I would walk all the way back just to take care of it. Didn't matter if it was snowing and I was dog tired and cold. I was also the kind of waiter who would keep working if someone from the next shift didn't show, even though I knew my loyalty wouldn't even be noticed.</span><br /><br /><span style="color: rgb(102, 51, 102);">I behaved on my job as if I worked in an office and could expect a promotion some day for my dedication, when I should have stayed on the move, always looking for the money. That is, if being a waiter had ever been about the money for me. Instead, I think waiting tables was a matter of honor. I knew it was a hard job, and I wanted to be good at it. Of course, wish in one hand; I'm not sure that I ever succeeded. There are times when I'd like to have just one more run at it to prove to myself, but I'm pretty sure I'd just be chasing after that proverbial carrot. Still, I don't think of my career as a waiter as misguided: Skills or not, I did want to be a waiter. To paraphrase Florence Foster Jenkins, </span><span style="font-style: italic; color: rgb(102, 51, 102);">"They may say I couldn't wait tables, but they can never say I didn't wait tables."</span>Guyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18302453432032549612noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7317272236497722066.post-1824854968987298952011-02-05T13:13:00.005-06:002017-02-20T23:06:13.377-06:00Bright-Sided<span style="color: rgb(102 , 51 , 102);">A friend of mine just posted on Facebook that he's in a noodle restaurant and he that he loves being </span><span style="color: rgb(102 , 51 , 102); font-style: italic;">"the only Caucasian in the place."</span><span style="color: rgb(102 , 51 , 102);"> That reminded me (your time's comin' you'll see ... when you get older, everything </span><span style="color: rgb(102 , 51 , 102); font-style: italic;">"reminds"</span><span style="color: rgb(102 , 51 , 102);"> you of something) of the groups of Asian tourists and businessmen that stayed at one of the hotels where I was a banquet waiter. At least at that time, in the 1980s, that thing about Asian tourists taking a lot of pictures was completely true. Our hotel was the first place in the United States these folks would see after arriving at the airport, so whoever happened to be working when they arrived usually wound up posing for a lot of photos.</span><br />
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<span style="color: rgb(102 , 51 , 102);">One evening, I did give a group of Chinese businessmen plenty to laugh (or be alarmed) at. I had decided to bleach my hair blonde that afternoon, but the processing took longer than I expected and I didn't have time to put a toner on it. I had also spent a little too long in the sun the day before, so my skin was rather pink. It looked especially pink next to my very yellow hair. For those of you who have never bleached your hair, it's a two-part process. When you take the color out, your hair is pretty brassy, so you need to add a color back in to soften it to a more natural looking shade of blonde. What I had was the color of a hi-lite marker.</span><br />
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<span style="color: rgb(102 , 51 , 102);">I didn't know ahead of time who I was gonna be waiting on that night or consider, even after I knew the group was Chinese, just how conspicuous I would feel being so much more brightly colored (and at least five inches taller) than all of my guests. Every time I walked in the room, flashbulbs would go off - way more than usual - and every eye was on me. And, of course, they were laughing. </span><br />
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<span style="color: rgb(102 , 51 , 102);">I fixed my hair the next day, and the sunburn gradually eased into a tan, but my moment of shame lives on in the rolls of 40 men's rolls of vacation film, someplace in China. No doubt some of their children are now traveling to the United States, hoping to catch a glimpse of one of our pink and yellow giants. I've seen the colors kids are putting in their hair these days; I'm glad they won't be disappointed.</span>Guyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18302453432032549612noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7317272236497722066.post-67998139327086375402011-02-04T20:41:00.005-06:002012-04-06T15:12:53.798-05:00If You Let Them Treat You Badly (They Will)<span style="color: rgb(102, 102, 0);">Snow in Texas?</span><br /><span style="color: rgb(102, 102, 0);">Yes, it's true. And I was okay with it, since I didn't have to work, but it reminded me of the many times being snowed in in Denver meant working 'round the clock. You wouldn't know it by how often I visit my own blog, but there was a time when I was a very dedicated - really, to the point of being obsessive - worker. I would actually come in to work when I wasn't scheduled when there was a blizzard, knowing there would be several who wouldn't risk the drive. Because so much of my f & b years were spent in hotels or 24 hour restaurants, my work ethic was a perfect match for their needs. </span><br /><br /><span style="color: rgb(102, 102, 0);">Did they appreciate my dedication?</span><br /><span style="color: rgb(102, 102, 0);">Almost never.</span><br /><br /><span style="color: rgb(102, 102, 0);">I remember one night in particular when the blizzard had started while I was at work serving an evening banquet. The storm was predicted to close the airport, strand our hotel guests, and make the roads impassable, so the general manager told me he'd arrange for a room for me at the hotel if I'd open the restaurant in the morning. When the banquet ended and we'd cleared and cleaned up the kitchen, the rest of the staff went home to their families while there was still a chance of getting home, and I went downstairs to get my key. It's pretty common for a hotel to put up staff in extra rooms when they're needed for quick turnaround shifts, long hours or emergencies like blizzards, so I wasn't anticipating any trouble, but the front desk told me they had not been </span><span style="font-style: italic; color: rgb(102, 102, 0);">"authorized" </span><span style="color: rgb(102, 102, 0);">to give me the room. It was about 1 in the morning so they weren't gonna call the GM to verify my claims, but since I'd promised to open the restaurant at 6, I didn't think it was likely I'd get home and be able to get back.</span><br /><br /><span style="color: rgb(102, 102, 0);">If I had it to do over today, I would have left. However, I was duty-bound to keep my promise to management and not inconvenience the guests of the hotel, so I went back up to the banquet kitchen and made myself a bed on the floor out of the soiled linens from the party I had just worked. I didn't even let myself have clean tablecloths! I didn't even try to get Housekeeping to give me a blanket! </span><span style="font-style: italic; color: rgb(102, 102, 0);">"Oh no. Just a spot on the cold linoleum wrapped in dirty wadded up laundry is good enough .... I can only sleep for 4 hours anyway."</span>Guyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18302453432032549612noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7317272236497722066.post-61689169712305340522011-01-18T02:00:00.006-06:002011-01-18T03:12:24.510-06:00Dipping Sauce<span style="color: rgb(102, 51, 102);">Have you noticed it's everywhere now? Even gravy and ranch dressing and preserves become various kinds of </span><span style="font-style: italic; color: rgb(102, 51, 102);">"dipping sauce"</span><span style="color: rgb(102, 51, 102);"> on menus. Maybe it's just that there are more foods with sauces, or foods that need sauces, or more finger foods?</span><br /><br /><span style="color: rgb(102, 51, 102);">I don't know why the term annoys me sometimes. I'm afraid I'm getting that crazy old man "Get off my lawn!" disease and I'm gonna wind up on some random child's porch telling them about Country Time Lemonade some day. I suspect it might be that I am resistant to the trendiness of it. I react similarly to the terms </span><span style="font-style: italic; color: rgb(102, 51, 102);">"Meme," "Tone-deaf"</span><span style="color: rgb(102, 51, 102);"> (when not applied to music), and people getting their drink </span><span style="font-style: italic; color: rgb(102, 51, 102);">"on"</span><span style="color: rgb(102, 51, 102);"> or their party </span><span style="font-style: italic; color: rgb(102, 51, 102);">"on"</span><span style="color: rgb(102, 51, 102);"> or their game </span><span style="font-style: italic; color: rgb(102, 51, 102);">"on."</span><br /><br /><span style="color: rgb(102, 51, 102);">Also - and this is even more crazy-sounding - it might be just the sound of the word </span><span style="font-style: italic; color: rgb(102, 51, 102);">"dipping."</span><span style="color: rgb(102, 51, 102);">; </span><span style="color: rgb(102, 51, 102);">it's got kind of a chirpy, pretentious </span><span style="font-style: italic; color: rgb(102, 51, 102);">"ihh"</span><span style="color: rgb(102, 51, 102);"> to it that makes me think of tea and crumpets and pince-nez. I imagine the request for </span><span style="font-style: italic; color: rgb(102, 51, 102);">"More dipping sauce!"</span><span style="color: rgb(102, 51, 102);"> sniveled through the self-righteous nostrils of an unctuous, irksome ornithologist with yellow gravy in his beard. I always hear it in the </span><span style="font-style: italic; color: rgb(102, 51, 102);">"Knights Who Say 'Ni'"</span><span style="color: rgb(102, 51, 102);"> voice.</span><br /><br /><object height="385" width="480"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/QTQfGd3G6dg?fs=1&hl=en_US"><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"><param name="allowscriptaccess" value="always"><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/QTQfGd3G6dg?fs=1&hl=en_US" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowscriptaccess="always" allowfullscreen="true" height="385" width="480"></embed></object><br /><br /><span style="font-style: italic; color: rgb(102, 51, 102);">"More dipping sauce! More dipping sauce!"<br /></span><span style="color: rgb(102, 51, 102);"><br /></span><span style="color: rgb(102, 51, 102);">Stop saying that.</span><span style="font-style: italic; color: rgb(102, 51, 102);"><br /></span>Guyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18302453432032549612noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7317272236497722066.post-71127236630109650322011-01-01T02:08:00.007-06:002011-01-01T03:29:07.096-06:00Happy New Year<span style="color: rgb(102, 102, 0);">I worked a New Years' Eve reception at a convention hall years ago where we had pre-poured way more champagne than was necessary for the toast. If memory serves (and frankly, I'm surprised I have any memory of the event at all) they were not a real drinking crowd ... or they had to leave ... or the crowd just didn't know about all those extra plastic glasses of champagne. Anyway, <span style="font-style: italic;">somebody</span> had to clean up all that mess. I was working with the director of the convention hall, dumping two or three glasses of champagne in a bucket - drinking one - dumping one - drinking two etc. Within a half hour we were bumping into each other, laughing and weaving between the tables, and probably spilling more of the wine on the floor than we cleaned up or drank. I was in bad shape, so I walked a few blocks down to the hotel where I had a steady job (the convention thing was just on-call for my days off) and drank coffee for about three hours till I could walk home.</span><br /><br /><span style="color: rgb(102, 102, 0);">It was years until I could face another glass of champagne, but fortunately I have managed to overcome my phobia of spinning rooms and I am here tonight in Texas toasting in one more new year. At least I don't have to walk anywhere.</span>Guyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18302453432032549612noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7317272236497722066.post-55160726733781189662010-12-27T10:57:00.002-06:002010-12-27T11:02:55.561-06:00Groundhog Day<p><em><span style="color:#663366;">"These hash browns are terrible! Every time I come here I get terrible hash browns!"</span></em></p><p><em><span style="color:#663366;">"Why do you order them if you don't like them?"</span></em></p><p><em><span style="color:#663366;">"Because I like hash browns!"</span></em></p><p><em><span style="color:#663366;">"But you don't like our hash browns."</span></em></p><p><em><span style="color:#663366;">"No, I don't! Take them back! I want new ones!"</span></em></p><p><em><span style="color:#663366;">"They'll be the same as the others."</span></em></p><p><em><span style="color:#663366;">"I know that! This restaurant has always had terrible hash browns!"</span></em></p>Guyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18302453432032549612noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7317272236497722066.post-4621358844157040292010-12-27T09:15:00.004-06:002010-12-27T09:40:53.511-06:00Old Friends<p><span style="color:#666600;">In the last week, I got back in touch with a couple of old friends from my waiter days. I wrote about one of them here last night, Jo, and then deleted the post this morning, deciding it was a little too personal (not about me - about her) but I still want to acknowledge our friendship. We worked together during a time when so many of our friends were getting sick and dying with the AIDS virus - she as a cook and I as a waiter. There are so few people left from that time to remember it. At least two of the guys we went out the first night we met for drinks after work are gone now, and probably more, but I didn't stay in touch with all of them. It's so reassuring to have Jo to talk with today, like a found a missing piece of myself.</span></p><p><span style="color:#666600;">We've stayed in touch off and on, sometimes going two or three years between phone calls, and through living in a combined seven different states, and over 23 years. Neither one of us is in the food and beverage business any more, and our friendship never did need that as an anchor. It's fun to have the memories of working together, but that was really just the way we met, and today it encompasses such a brief part of our history. I used to work with a gal that would say when she got off break, </span><em><span style="color:#666600;">"Back to the battlefield!"</span></em><span style="color:#666600;"> and there's some truth to that. It's good to have friends who've been through that experience with you, but even better to know you would have been friends no matter where or when you met.</span></p>Guyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18302453432032549612noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7317272236497722066.post-43922525119241699062010-12-25T21:04:00.005-06:002010-12-25T23:01:06.820-06:00A Room at the Inn<p><span style="color:#663300;">When I tended bar in a hotel, I always had to work on Christmas. Hotels, of course, do not close on the holidays. They become large boxes of lonely people with no place to go except the hotel bar, hotel restaurant, or their own room. Every place else is closed on Christmas; sooner or later, they usually all wind up in the bar. </span></p><p><span style="color:#663300;">There is something sadistic about filling a hotel bar with Christmas decorations - reminding the customers of their isolation - by fate or design - from their families. It's like showing pictures of food to hungry children. Then you add alcohol to their misery and everything gets </span><em><span style="color:#663300;">so</span></em><span style="color:#663300;"> much better. I think the decorations are nice enough in the two or three weeks preceding, but they might just as well be toned down a little out of respect on the Big Day. </span></p><p><span style="color:#663300;">One hotel I worked at tried to make me wear an elf hat on Christmas. I said, "I did not spend this much time doing my hair just to have it flattened out with a children's costume. No thank-you."</span></p>Guyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18302453432032549612noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7317272236497722066.post-61747527060595972082010-12-24T22:48:00.004-06:002010-12-25T23:02:24.298-06:00Elves Have Feelings, Too<p><em><span style="color:#ff0000;">"Nobody's perfect. The only one that ever was was crucified."</span></em></p><p><em> <span style="color:#006600;"> - Loretta Lynn</span><br /></em></p><p><br /></p><p><span style="color:#663366;">I'm still here. I'm not dead. I'm just not <em>here</em> here. </span></p><p><span style="color:#663366;">My computer was dying, so I had to send it in to the manufacturer for repairs (it was under warranty) and in a stroke of genius I managed to lose all of the notes I made for my blog by either not copying them onto a disc, leaving the disc in the PC when I sent it in, or just losing the disc after I made it. Anyway, that leaves me wondering what stories I have left to tell, and which ones I've told already - knowing I'm gonna have to make notes from what I've already posted unless I wanna be like someone's granny, telling the same story over and over. Also, I just found the part of blogger that shows comments "waiting to be approved" so I was late getting a couple of them up. I was touched to hear from Fuck My Table - it's nice to be missed. There was a comment I didn't post, and it actually got me to go back and edit an entry so someone couldn't be identified. I don't want this blog to hurt anyone, so I'll work harder at disguising the guilty parties!</span></p><p><span style="color:#663366;">It's Christmas eve, and I just got back from candlelight service. I'm back to singing with the choir - hoping I'm not singing badly. Sometimes I do still miss waiting tables, but I know there were many years when I couldn't go to candlelight services because I was working, and I sure wouldn't have been able to commit to singing with any group regularly. One year, not only did I have to work parties on Christmas eve, but at the last moment - just when I thought I was going home - the hotel I worked for told me that one of the regulars from Saturday Night Live was in town for a show and NBC would like to throw a party for him and his guests in a suite upstairs, so I would need to stay. Midnight on Christmas eve, and about 3 hours' notice.</span></p><p><span style="color:#663366;">I stayed (it was either that or lose my job) and set up the hors-d'oeuvre and host bar, and the "star" showed up for less than a minute - treated me like a bad smell coming from the neighbor's house - and virtually ignored all of the people who had shown up to meet him. Good news is the party died early, but it sucked to be regarded as so inconsequential. Maybe NBC hadn't checked with their "star" and he was feeling just as manipulated as I was, but at least I stayed and </span><em><span style="color:#663366;">did </span></em><span style="color:#663366;">my job. I didn't need anyone to be nice to me; just don't be rude, waste my time, and dump your guests on me.</span></p><p><span style="color:#663366;">Most of my Christmas memories of waiting tables are from banquets when I worked 105-115 hour weeks with only snatches of time between shifts. There were always a lot of splits crammed into about eighteen days of pure bedlam. My legs would cramp, my knee would give out and I'd have to wrap it, and I'd eat the same holiday buffet food for several days running. I still gag just thinking of leftover well done prime rib. Once it has sat under the carving lamp for two hours and another two hours in the warmer, it's not so appealing, but it was better than the chopped weenies and hair in the employee cafeteria.</span></p><p><span style="color:#663366;">We had several groups that came back year after year for their Christmas parties. Some of those folks were as dear as family to me, and I miss them. I kept in touch for a while after I left Colorado and I have remembrances like a crocheted book mark, a coffee cup with my name on it, and a statue about 18 inches tall of a waiter with a tray that one of my groups carved the words, 'To Guy. Best Waiter in Denver" in the base of. They'd have extra cash for me for waiting on them all year and it was fun to see them having a meeting that was more of a party than business. </span></p><p><span style="color:#663366;">On the other side of it, there were some groups, both familiar and not, where the parties were sponsored by employers who intimidated their subordinates into attending. Nobody would drink until the boss drank, everybody drank exactly the same thing that the boss drank, and everyone was afraid to leave until the boss left. One older couple with several restaurants would "spontaneously" entertain their "guests" (prisoner employees) with a hokey song and comedy routine till after Midnight. Every year someone would be assigned to talk them into singing, and then they wouldn't stop. If they did stop, it was someone else's "job" to talk them into singing more. On and on it would go. It was painful. We'd see people arriving for the party with all the enthusiasm of children waiting to be inoculated for German measles. </span></p><p><span style="color:#663366;">Not that the hotel's own Holiday Party was much better, but at least there were always a few people in food and beverage who didn't care if they got fired for drinking too much and since the chef was making food for people he was gonna see every day - including his boss - it was pretty good. I still had to help set up the party, but usually they got management to wait on us. Sometimes, we'd work it and they paid us extra. One year we hired temps. We never did that again.</span></p><p><span style="color:#663366;">I always worked especially hard at Christmas, and under particularly trying circumstances. When I was a banquet captain, the sales staff would book more parties than we had silverware and china to accommodate, and when I was a bartender, there were a greater number of emotional basket cases dousing the flames of their own personal Hell with booze to keep watch over and know just when to help them to the broken crackers and sweating cheese on the buffet table. Among the staff, we didn't hold anything back and there were plenty of awful words exchanged under pressure, but out on the floor we made "Christmas" happen for the strangers paying for the experience. Those memories are bittersweet.</span></p><p><span style="color:#663366;">I'm reading a book right now called </span><em><a href="http://www.powells.com/biblio/0520239334?&PID=32322"><span style="color:#663366;">"The Managed Heart"</span></a><span style="color:#663366;"> </span></em><span style="color:#663366;">that discusses the disconnect that happens/has to happen when people are paid to exhibit feelings they don't actually feel. Waiters have to look like they enjoy their jobs, are happy, eager, thankful, excited, concerned, remorseful .... anything but genuine in most cases. The customers sometimes even know that the face on the outside doesn't match the person inside, and may even challenge how well you've performed this ruse. They don't care that you </span><em><span style="color:#663366;">are </span></em><span style="color:#663366;">irritated with them, but they certainly care whether it shows. </span><em><span style="color:#663366;">"Never let 'em see you sweat"</span></em><span style="color:#663366;"> is what is expected of you as a waiter, but it's probably the worst thing you can do in personal relationships. I don't miss being all the people I needed to be in order to be a waiter. I'm still working at discovering the person I really am underneath all those years of pretending.</span></p><p><span style="color:#663366;">I hope I start writing again, and that there's someone left reading. Thanks to all of you who have been so encouraging. Now that I've figured out where the comments are going, I'll be better about getting them posted. Merry Christmas!</span></p>Guyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18302453432032549612noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7317272236497722066.post-30727144228294826172010-10-24T02:17:00.004-05:002010-10-24T02:34:34.159-05:00On/Off<span style="color: rgb(102, 51, 102);">When I was a banquet captain, most of the on-call people I hired were waiters and waitresses I knew from working in other hotels and restaurants. Monica was one of these. We met in our early 20s working in a pancake house. I waited on her and her mother when she came in to fill out an application, and we are still friends almost 30 years later. By the time Monica was filling in for me on the banquet staff, she had a full-time office job, so we didn't work together much. She was a great waitress, though she's actually a little shy. That quiet nature made what was likely one of the most embarrassing moments of her waitress years even more hilarious the night we were clearing tables during a wedding reception at the point of transition from </span><span style="font-style: italic; color: rgb(102, 51, 102);">"Dinner"</span><span style="color: rgb(102, 51, 102);"> to </span><span style="font-style: italic; color: rgb(102, 51, 102);">"Dance"</span><span style="color: rgb(102, 51, 102);"> and Monica unplugged the DJ. She thought she was unplugging the hot plates that we used for coffee service. There were people on the dance floor, music, and flashing colored lights when suddenly everything went dark and quiet. We heard, </span><span style="font-style: italic; color: rgb(102, 51, 102);">"Oh my gosh!" </span><span style="color: rgb(102, 51, 102);">and in about 10 seconds the lights came back on again, with Monica, beet red, and huddled next to the electrical outlet. We loved to tease her afterwards about "that time you unplugged those people's wedding."</span>Guyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18302453432032549612noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7317272236497722066.post-77951383458965241822010-10-14T19:56:00.003-05:002010-10-14T20:14:05.715-05:00Wedding Gaiety<span style="color: rgb(102, 0, 0);">I've cut some pretty fantastic cakes in my years of working banquets. The quinceaneras were probably the most elaborate ones, with fountains and trellises, and often 15 separate layers. Wedding cakes were usually four tiers with a groom's cake on the side. I never worked for a hotel that offered formal cakes, so they were always set up by third parties, with varying results. Sometimes, it would strike terror in your heart just to walk past the cake table, when it was visibly tilting or rocking with the slightest movement. There were other issues to contend with as well, like under-baked cakes that began to slide or sink as they thawed, or cakes delivered by people who didn't know how to set them up.</span><br /><br /><span style="color: rgb(102, 0, 0);">Until I started cutting cakes, I never realized how many different ways there are to construct one. I've seen forms made from plywood and bolts and huge ceramic bases, to Styrofoam and plastic. Very large cakes also usually have several wooden dowels in them that (hopefully) the guests never know about. As unnerving as it could be to even approach some of the towers of cake at these events - let alone take them apart and cut them - it was one of my favorite parts of the job. The cutting of the cake is one of the most important ceremonies and I liked having that responsibility. I wish now I'd taken pictures of some of them.</span><br /><br /><span style="color: rgb(102, 0, 0);">The worst cake story I know of isn't (thank God) my own. I knew a waiter who knocked the top of a wedding cake onto the bride's lap. I never worked an event where the cake was set up at the head table, but I know that, depending on the bride, the bride's mother and the caterer, a cake is liable to be set up just about anyplace if the banquet manager or banquet captain aren't around to guide things. I did work for another captain at an event where the cake fell, and the hotel ended up paying for it (which meant we gave up part of our gratuity with it). When I became captain, I didn't take any chances. I stuffed wedges of cardboard under layers, and propped up sagging frosting with floral arrangements ... whatever I could do to make that cake live till the cutting.</span><br /><br /><span style="color: rgb(102, 0, 0);">I enjoyed the responsibility, but it's ironic that I spent so much of my life making everything just right for straight couples at their wedding receptions, considering it's not even legal for me to get married. I wonder if any of the couples think about that double standard when they're meeting with their dress designer, florist, hair stylist, wedding planner, baker, photographer, caterer or waiters, when likely several of those professionals are gay? A while back, I wrote a little piece about "The Gays" and their </span><span style="font-style: italic; color: rgb(102, 0, 0);">usefulness</span><span style="color: rgb(102, 0, 0);">. I posted it to Facebook a few months later, and I'm reviving it again, here. I hope you like it.</span><br /><span style="color: rgb(102, 0, 0);">----</span><br /><br /><span style="font-style: italic; color: rgb(102, 0, 0);">There are so many ways that having a gay friend can validate your straight life-style, not to mention support it. How many times in my day do I perform simple little gay things that nobody is even aware of? There must be millions of them . . .</span><br /> <br /><span style="font-style: italic; color: rgb(102, 0, 0);"> The Gays contribute so much more than just that lively piece of window dressing that you can take to the bathroom with you because he's "just one of the girls." And If The Gays didn't get to do all of the things that they are so good at, it would be the end of weddings for straight people (At least weddings that anyone wanted to go to.) Think about it: wedding planner, cake, flowers, dress, hair and makeup, decorations, catered food, wait staff, and best man (who is just a little too close to the groom for the bride's comfort) would all go out the window. A justice of the peace and a quick pass by a Wendy's drive-thru would be about all you'd get.</span><br /> <br /><span style="font-style: italic; color: rgb(102, 0, 0);"> And it's not just weddings. The Gays practically invented Bette Midler and she is the Number One Choice for recorded music at funerals. Think about it: "The Rose?" Nope. "Wind Beneath My Wings?" Probably not. The original Gary Morris version doesn't have any of those "fly, fly fly" things at the end. Funerals would be over in 10 minutes leaving the bereaved alone in a room full of tuna noodle casserole and bundt cake wondering why the Irish Tenor didn't show up for the wake.</span><br /> <br /><span style="font-style: italic; color: rgb(102, 0, 0);"> So what if you have a gay friend? What do you do now? Is he going to make you all gay-like and expect you to talk gay-talk? Will he make fun of your shoes? Will he go shopping with you and help you decide if that episode of Law and Order that has a gay person in it is just as The Gays see it, live it and breathe it every day? Is he gay enough? Too gay? Can you take him anywhere and "no one would ever know?"</span><br /> <br /><span style="font-style: italic; color: rgb(102, 0, 0);"> Well, there isn't just one brand, girlfriend. You've got to pick The Gay that is right for you. And make sure he's not planning on running off to Massachusetts or anything political. Remember that this is about what The Gays contribute to mainstream society... not the other way around. They are the minority. One of the beautiful things about a democracy is that 90% of the population can vote to dictate the rights, social mores, intimate expressions and living arrangements of the other 10% of the population and there's not a damned thing they can do about it.</span><br /> <br /><span style="font-style: italic; color: rgb(102, 0, 0);"> Or is there? </span>Guyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18302453432032549612noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7317272236497722066.post-47377338005780528892010-10-03T09:33:00.003-05:002010-10-03T10:04:51.615-05:00Satan, Party of 30<span style="color: rgb(102, 0, 0);">This morning, as I was getting ready for church, I remembered when one of those huge stadium churches started up in Denver and the effect it had on both the clientele and the staff. The church was pretty close to the pancake house I was working in at the time, so we started getting a lot of waitresses who worshiped there. It was one of those Charismatic churches with radio and TV ministries, and the new girls were full of </span><span style="font-style: italic; color: rgb(102, 0, 0);">"Praise Jesus!"</span><span style="color: rgb(102, 0, 0);"> for everything, from their sales incentive points for selling desserts and side orders, to any tips they received. They were a close-knit group, and mostly they were nice, if a little self-righteous. The tough part was when the church members would come in for supper after evening service. There would be about 30 of them - sometimes more - and I don't remember them calling ahead. Usually we only had one person to wait on them with separate checks and the tips were horrible. Some of the customers left tracts in place of tips that said things like, </span><span style="font-style: italic; color: rgb(102, 0, 0);">"I gave to the Lord today in your name"</span><span style="color: rgb(102, 0, 0);"> or </span><span style="font-style: italic; color: rgb(102, 0, 0);">"Thank-you for your service - I'll share your tip with the Lord."</span><span style="color: rgb(102, 0, 0);"> It was really frustrating.</span><br /><br /><span style="color: rgb(102, 0, 0);">I've been glad to notice that, when I've gone out to brunch with members of my own church, they are very healthy tippers. A dream to wait on. I just don't think I could be a member of any organization that treated waiters like the folks did from that place back in Denver. (I was gonna say the name of it, but there's no point in hurting anyone's feelings.)</span>Guyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18302453432032549612noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7317272236497722066.post-64637811627715993102010-09-27T01:25:00.009-05:002010-09-27T01:55:28.193-05:00The Right (way) To Marry<span style="color: rgb(102, 51, 102);">It's more appealing to be presented with a full bottle of any restaurant condiment than it is to get one that looks used. Of course, restaurants don't throw away the condiments if the bottle isn't empty. They do what is called "marrying," pouring from the emptiest bottle into the fullest bottle so nothing but a full bottle ever goes out to the table. Granted, sometimes this is done with a huge bag of ketchup mounted on the wall in the service area and not from bottle to bottle, but the point is, it's likely some of the ketchup or other condiment has been around for a pretty long time, just getting topped off over and over again until it starts to bubble and then, one fateful day, a customer lifts the cap and rotten ketchup erupts like projectile vomit. (Sometimes, it's a waiter that gets hit, but in most cases I've observed it's the customer.) That's when you know it's time to throw that bottle away.</span><br /><br /><span style="color: rgb(102, 51, 102);">The worst condiment to marry is mustard. It's thick and especially difficult to get to drain, (though I actually did work in one restaurant where the manager made us marry those tiny bottles of Tabasco. We had to use toothpicks just to make it drain and we usually ended up hiding the half full bottles in the bottom of the trash instead of marrying them. It's not like we had four hours to do our sidework.) With ketchups, you can set them upside down in the service area and most of the sauce will eventually drain to the head of the bottle, but mustard usually requires a little more force. The way I learned to pack the mustard to the end of the bottle was to do a kind of wind up, using centrifugal force with the cap end pointed forward, swinging my arm in full rotation four or five times. </span><br /><br /><span style="color: rgb(102, 51, 102);">I was working in a small cafe one night, finishing up my sidework, when I attempted this wind up move on one of the tall skinny Heinz mustard bottles with the metal cap. The kind of metal cap that doesn't secure very well. I spent two hours trying to scrub the perfectly straight yellow line I created running up one painted white wall, across the ceiling and down the wall behind me and never did get the stain out of the paint. After that, I made sure I held my finger over the cap. Or sometimes, I just threw the bottle away.<br /></span>Guyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18302453432032549612noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7317272236497722066.post-79286826317469017242010-09-25T04:05:00.007-05:002010-09-25T07:00:29.796-05:00Bass-ackwards<span style="color: rgb(102, 0, 0); font-style: italic;">I was reading an old news article online and saw that a philanthropist and his husband were buying one of the Denver's historic mansions. It had been owned by Denver University for the last few years and had been used in various capacities, one of which was for catered parties. I worked one of those parties - just one - and here's how that came to be:</span><br /><br /><span style="color: rgb(102, 0, 0);">I was out to brunch with my boyfriend and another couple at a popular gay restaurant in the Cheesman Park neighborhood. Our waitress was very chatty and she mentioned that she was also in charge of the catering staff at _____ Mansion. I told her I was a banquet captain and she asked if I'd like to work with her because she was short staffed. I gave her my number and she called and booked me for a wedding the next week. When I arrived, she was in a tizzy because she hadn't managed to completely staff the event and asked if I knew anyone who might be willing to work. I called my friend Monica whom I had waited tables with off and on for about ten years, and she arrived within a half hour. I think it was the meanest thing I ever did to her.</span><br /><br /><span style="color: rgb(102, 0, 0);">It didn't take long to realize what a disorganized mess this </span><span style="font-style: italic; color: rgb(102, 0, 0);">"banquet"</span><span style="color: rgb(102, 0, 0);"> was going to be. Aside from staff who were only half in uniform, I remember a bartender who was using a champagne ice bucket stand to keep a two litre bottle of 7-up chilled (no bucket ... just the stand), and setting up the buffet on top of antique billiard tables that had been covered with sheets. Monica and I had been working about an hour on the setup, which included moving tables and chairs (not waiter work in my book ... I always used housemen for that kind of heavy lifting) and we had time for a break before guests were to arrive. We went outside to smoke and the first thing she said to me was, </span><span style="font-style: italic; color: rgb(102, 0, 0);">"Let's just leave now."</span><span style="color: rgb(102, 0, 0);"> Believe me, I was tempted. The woman running the thing was nuttier than a pecan log at Stuckey's.</span><br /><br /><span style="color: rgb(102, 0, 0);">When the wedding part of the event was over, we needed to flip the room from theater style seating into rounds (for the plated reception dinner) while the guests were enjoying the hors-d'ouevres around the sheet-covered billiard tables. Rather than placing the rounds first and then putting the chairs around them, the staff was setting up one round at a time with chairs, running out of room in various areas and shifting all of the tables and chairs - one table at a time - till the whole thing looked like a Keystone cops movie. Finally, I just took charge. I told the staff, </span><span style="font-style: italic; color: rgb(102, 0, 0);">"We're going to place the rounds first for the whole room, and when we know where we want the tables, we'll put the chairs around them." </span><span style="color: rgb(102, 0, 0);">When they said they'd never done it like that before I told them they'd been working too hard. </span><br /><br /><span style="color: rgb(102, 0, 0);">At the end of the night, the manager was very impressed with our work and wanted Monica and me to come back. I told her I was a waiter and I didn't move furniture so,</span><span style="font-style: italic; color: rgb(102, 0, 0);"> "Thanks, but no thanks."</span><span style="color: rgb(102, 0, 0);"> She said, </span><span style="font-style: italic; color: rgb(102, 0, 0);">"I move furniture and I broke my back last year!"</span><span style="color: rgb(102, 0, 0);"> Like I'm supposed to think that's smart? Of course Monica was just polite. She said, </span><span style="font-style: italic; color: rgb(102, 0, 0);">"That's really nice of you. I'll have to see if I can since I'm so busy." </span><span style="color: rgb(102, 0, 0);">I don't know if the gal called her - I can't remember - but I know she never went back there. I was apologizing for years for getting her into that one.</span>Guyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18302453432032549612noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7317272236497722066.post-30431558678940370912010-09-19T19:22:00.003-05:002010-09-19T19:39:55.296-05:00State of Mind<span style="color: rgb(102, 51, 102);">Three or four evenings a month, I used to wait on a group of four elderly women at the pancake house for dinner. They dressed to the nines in jewels and furs, were always a little tipsy, and they'd tell me they had just come from a <span style="font-style: italic;">"cocktail party."</span> I'd been waiting on them for months before I realized they were just getting drunk at each other's houses and then going out to eat. It made me like them even more.</span>Guyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18302453432032549612noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7317272236497722066.post-45328443294193101732010-09-15T23:21:00.005-05:002010-09-15T23:56:11.308-05:00A Perk<span style="color: rgb(102, 51, 0); font-style: italic;">I'm sick, so I don't know if I'm gonna get much in here for the next few days. Once I got out of the habit, it was hard to find my voice again, and now I just feel like crap. I hope the people who have been reading will stick around. At least I don't have a shift to cover.</span><br /><br /><span style="color: rgb(102, 51, 0);"></span><br /><span style="color: rgb(102, 51, 0);">When I moved back to Denver from St. Petersburg, Florida, I didn't want to lose my tan, so I got a job working in a tanning salon. I used to lie in those beds after hours for an hour at a time, and I look at pictures of me now and wonder why nobody told me I looked radioactive. The tanning salon was next door to a little restaurant that was looking for a waiter, so I applied and got the job. I'd been hired on the spot at places before, but this was the first time I was told to come back that evening to work, given the keys to the building, and told where to drop the cash in the vault because I would be the last person to leave. They didn't even know me! They had a strange setup, in that we carried our own banks, seated and bussed our own tables and made our own drinks. There were no stations, so the waiters were always bumping into each other 'cos we had to work tables like patchwork all over the restaurant. The bar thing was just silly, since I was the only one who actually knew how to mix drinks. I wondered how they could possibly have come up with such a disorganized way of operating, and then I met the owner.</span><br /><br /><span style="color: rgb(102, 51, 0);">I was hired by the chef, and I'd been working for a couple of weeks before the owner showed up. She was a middle-aged Asian woman with a very strong accent, difficult to understand and prone to emotional outbursts. She followed all of the waiters around, asking if we'd taken care of such and such table, where was so and so's food and stuff like that. It made it even worse since she had no idea who was waiting on which customer. She kept up a shrill banter through most of the lunch shift until I finally had enough. She'd been trying to get me to wait on some people who had already had cocktails, eaten, ordered dessert, had their dishes cleared and paid their bill. She thought they'd just walked in and was frantic about my getting them menus. I told her,</span><span style="font-style: italic; color: rgb(102, 51, 0);"> "I don't think this is going to work out."</span><span style="color: rgb(102, 51, 0);"> I could tell this must have happened plenty of times before, 'cos she started backpedaling. She asked me to reconsider and said, </span><span style="font-style: italic; color: rgb(102, 51, 0);">"I'm not here very often"</span><span style="color: rgb(102, 51, 0);"> but I told her I thought once would be enough.</span><br /><br /><span style="color: rgb(102, 51, 0);">There are plenty of things that suck about waiting tables: Having to work when you're sick, putting up with sexual harassment, shifts that never end because someone didn't show up, being made to do cleaning and janitorial work for two bucks an hour, no 401k, no insurance, and knowing that your job security depends on whatever some jerk says about you, not whether it's true. The really nice thing about the job is that it can be really easy to leave. As simple as cashing out your tickets and walking out the door.</span>Guyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18302453432032549612noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7317272236497722066.post-59599881961919369222010-09-10T21:02:00.004-05:002010-09-10T21:35:51.305-05:00Drunken, Dangerous Liasons<span style="font-style: italic; color: rgb(102, 0, 0);">I've been busy with the LGBTQ film festival in Austin, aGLIFF23, so I haven't had much time for blogging. So far, everything we've shown has been well received. It's important to me because I was part of the programming team this year. The theater we've been showing them at is called Alamo Drafthouse. They started here in Austin and have a handful of other locations but they have completely spoiled me for seeing movies anywhere else. They have chefs and very good food, with beer, wine, soda, coffee service (and even hard liquor at the one downtown) and very comfortable seats. Imagine waiting tables in a movie theater? Wow.</span><br /><br /><span style="color: rgb(102, 0, 0);">So, my mind's been on movies and I remembered when my friend Jill and I used to work the breakfast shift together at a downtown hotel, grab a cab, stop by the liquor store and go to the movies with a bottle of Southern Comfort hidden in Jill's backpack. Jill was usually supposed to work in the cocktail lounge at night (she pulled a lot of splits) but she'd inevitably call in sick. We'd get huge cokes at the movie and split a bottle between us, so we were smashed by the time the movie was over, and she was in no condition to be working.</span><br /><br /><span style="color: rgb(102, 0, 0);">Two times stand out for me in particular from our drunken matinees. One was the time we set an empty bottle on the floor and it rolled all the way down the theater under the seats on the sloping cement ... faster and faster ... man, that was loud! The other time was at the same theater (our favorite). The Cooper was built in 1962 for Cinerama and had smoking lounges on the sides so you could have a cigarette and watch the movie at the same time.</span><br /><div style="text-align: center;"><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj5g3TGfSe2u5LApk1q82JmM5Efxevk_CmWg8nP7SX83hBri9d11c-2Wn0N4G4TxDRGaTxRoxhDnrVRJ2BOa4vaCwugD2WZVMC0rhjco28A3Fl6SZnP62mWNVw9R0-_9n3gm9IqEiEK_NIw/s1600/cooper-theater.jpg"><img style="cursor: pointer; width: 400px; height: 257px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj5g3TGfSe2u5LApk1q82JmM5Efxevk_CmWg8nP7SX83hBri9d11c-2Wn0N4G4TxDRGaTxRoxhDnrVRJ2BOa4vaCwugD2WZVMC0rhjco28A3Fl6SZnP62mWNVw9R0-_9n3gm9IqEiEK_NIw/s400/cooper-theater.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5515474075483522498" border="0" /></a><br /></div><br /><span style="color: rgb(102, 0, 0);">(It has since been torn down to make way for a Border's or Barnes and Noble -I can't remember- such a shame.) Anyway, Jill and I both smoked. Especially when we drank. So we were sitting on the side bench watching "Dangerous Liasons" at 2 in the afternoon, guzzling Big Gulps of Southern Comfort and Coke and puffing away, when I got up to put the empty bottle in the trash can nearby. I'd been sitting in the middle of the bench and Jill was on the end so as soon as I stood the bench flipped and dumped her on the floor. I immediately joined her there, because my knees won't hold me when I'm laughing that hard. There were only about ten people in the movie at that hour, but apparently, "Dangerous Liasons" is not the kind of film most people find funny, so we never did have the nerve to go back to the main part of the theater. We set the bench back upright, finished our drinks, and left before anyone could kick us out.</span><br /><br /><div style="text-align: center;"><br /></div>Guyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18302453432032549612noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7317272236497722066.post-83637798760045486352010-09-06T04:07:00.006-05:002010-10-14T20:16:09.338-05:00When a Stranger Calls<span style="font-style: italic; color: rgb(102, 51, 102);">"Johnny's Pizza!"</span><br /><br /><span style="font-style: italic; color: rgb(102, 51, 102);">"Didn't I just talk to you on the room service phone at the hotel?"</span><br /><br /><span style="font-style: italic; color: rgb(102, 51, 102);">"Which hotel?"</span><br /><br /><span style="font-style: italic; color: rgb(102, 51, 102);">"Oh, never mind."</span><br /><br /><span style="color: rgb(102, 51, 102);">Whew! Almost busted again. </span><br /><br /><span style="color: rgb(102, 51, 102);">I worked for a hotel chain in Florida that had two separate phone lines that both connected to room service. One of them was advertised in the rooms as </span><span style="font-style: italic; color: rgb(102, 51, 102);">"Johnny's Pizza,"</span><span style="color: rgb(102, 51, 102);"> trying to pass itself off as a local pizza restaurant that offered a special service to the hotel, supposedly delivering the pizzas for the room service waiter to bring to their rooms <span style="font-style: italic;">"as a convenience". </span>They didn't exactly come out and say this much, but they put the fear of God in the waiters to never tell the truth about </span><span style="font-style: italic; color: rgb(102, 51, 102);">"Johnny"</span><span style="color: rgb(102, 51, 102);"> and used some pretty slick advertising. It wouldn't have been quite so bad if the pizza hadn't really sucked. It was just frozen institutional stuff that the waiters baked themselves and I wouldn't be surprised if the box cost the hotel more than the pizza did. </span><span style="color: rgb(102, 51, 102);">Taking a complaint from someone over the phone and pretending not to be the person they just saw five minutes ago is a challenge.</span><br /><br /><span style="color: rgb(102, 51, 102);">I worked as a room service waiter long before Caller ID or any kind of electronic ordering systems. In the mornings, we relied on something called door hangers that customers filled out some time during the night and hung outside their rooms with their breakfast orders. I remember the nightmare of arriving at the hotel at 5:30 in the morning and taking the elevator to the top floor to begin picking up the hangers to organize the breakfast deliveries. I think the hotel was 17 stories. If I was gonna be in trouble, I usually found out about the time I hit the 12th floor and already had 25 rooms that wanted breakfast delivered at 7:00 a.m. Conventions were notorious for this. Since I was the only waiter (and I still had 10 more floors of orders to pick up) I would start to run, snatching the cards off the doorknobs as I flew by. Like that was gonna save me. Two room service carts will hold breakfast for five or six rooms, tops, depending on how much hot food is in the box and how well you stack the tables, so there might be 12 rooms who aren't totally pissed about when they got their breakfast. Those mornings were like Dead Man Walking. It's one thing to get in the weeds when you're on the floor, but to see it all coming an hour before it even starts is to die a thousand times. </span><br /><br /><span style="color: rgb(102, 51, 102);">Also, one of the worst things anyone can do to a room service waiter during the morning rush is to return something. From time to time, at the hotel in Florida, salt water would back up into our water lines, and the phone would start ringing with customers who said the coffee tasted </span><span style="font-style: italic; color: rgb(102, 51, 102);">"horrible"</span><span style="color: rgb(102, 51, 102);"> (it did). We couldn't do anything about the lines - the coffee was just bad - but I'd have to bring up juice or milk to replace it and there'd be all kinds of yelling and complaining. Orders would have to be comped, and that meant no gratuity on top of making two trips to the room. I also had to call all the other rooms that were expecting coffee to find out what they'd like instead. And we all know, there is no substitute for coffee in the morning. Not a legal one, anyway. </span><br /><br /><span style="color: rgb(102, 51, 102);">The busiest time for room service (breakfast) also coincides with the busiest time for housekeeping. The two departments shared the same service elevator, except housekeeping didn't share. They had a key to lock the elevator on the floor that they were delivering towels or bedding to, so that, after five minutes of frantically waiting for the car to arrive, I'd have to wheel my trays through the restaurant, bar and lobby to the guest elevators, knowing that by this time the food would be so cold that the best I could hope for was that the guest was too angry to eat. For about a month, I did manage to get some use out of the service elevator, but only because the housekeeping staff was afraid to ride in it after getting trapped between floors a few too many times. I had reached the point in waiter hell where plummeting 15 floors in a runaway car couldn't be all that much worse than the wrath I was almost certain to face from my third attempt at delivery of </span><span style="font-style: italic; color: rgb(102, 51, 102);">"<span style="font-weight: bold;">HOT</span> tea!"</span><span style="color: rgb(102, 51, 102);"> I was willing to take my chances if for no other reason than to be put out of my misery.</span><br /><br /><span style="color: rgb(102, 51, 102);">Even with whatever improvements have been made to room service by virtue of electronic orders (so everyone doesn't wind up ordering breakfast at the same time) there are still some pointers I can offer the potential breakfast room service customer. Don't order anything you're not willing to eat a little on the cool side, and stay away from things like waffles or sunny side up eggs that just don't lend themselves to sitting in a warmer for five or ten minutes. Scrambled eggs and omelets are best for eggs, muffins, biscuits or English muffins hold up better than toast, and you can hardly ever go wrong with yogurt, cereal or grapefruit. Coffee is served in a thermal pot, but often times hot water for tea is served in an identical pot (which makes it taste a little like coffee). It shouldn't be that way, but, </span><span style="font-style: italic; color: rgb(102, 51, 102);">"Wish in one hand ..."</span><span style="color: rgb(102, 51, 102);"> Although there is a service charge added to the room service bill, it doesn't all go to the waiter, so don't be thinking he's getting rich off traveling all over Hell and half of Georgia with your order of two scones and a pot of decaf. A little extra tip for the mileage on those puny orders doesn't hurt.</span> <span style="color: rgb(102, 51, 102);">Finally, if you are going to let your towel <span style="font-style: italic;">"slip"</span> when you answer your hotel room door, please be sure you don't have the kind of body that inspires a lifetime of nightmares. </span>Guyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18302453432032549612noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7317272236497722066.post-62545686042346700972010-08-31T04:48:00.007-05:002010-08-31T06:08:48.650-05:00Working With Professionals<span style="color: rgb(102, 51, 0);">A couple of weeks before the new </span><span style="font-style: italic; color: rgb(102, 51, 0);">"gentleman's club" </span><span style="color: rgb(102, 51, 0);">(in this instance, a strip club ... not the kind of gentleman's club I worked in that I've already written about) opened around the corner from our hotel, a meeting was called for all of the front-house food and beverage employees. It was explained to us that </span><span style="font-style: italic; color: rgb(102, 51, 0);">"the girls"</span><span style="color: rgb(102, 51, 0);"> who worked in the club, as well as the managers and bouncers, would be staying at the hotel and that we should make every effort to assure they felt comfortable and respected. This was apparently a huge chunk of revenue for the hotel they didn't want to lose, so they were taking no chances. As soon as </span><span style="font-style: italic; color: rgb(102, 51, 0);">"the girls" </span><span style="color: rgb(102, 51, 0);">began arriving, I could see the reason for the extra caution.</span><br /><br /><span style="color: rgb(102, 51, 0);">Most of the contact I had with the women who worked in the new club was to nod a brief, "Hello" to them as they left or arrived, except for the ones who were leaving and arriving several times within the late evening, and then I just pretended not to see them. They were always escorted by a beefy male member of the club (bouncers, I'm guessing) and they would usually be gone for 60 to 90 minutes, two or three times a night. Sometimes they sat with the cops - and there were suddenly a lot more of them than the two who usually worked our area. They'd talk for a while at a table, or every once in a while they'd come in with one or two of the boys in blue who had taken them for </span><span style="font-style: italic; color: rgb(102, 51, 0);">"a ride in the squad car"</span><span style="color: rgb(102, 51, 0);">. It wasn't uncommon to have a customer ask, </span><br /><br /><span style="font-style: italic; color: rgb(102, 51, 0);">"Are they arresting those prostitutes?"</span><br /><br /><span style="font-style: italic; color: rgb(102, 51, 0);">"No, sir. The ladies are guests of the hotel."</span><br /><br /><span style="font-style: italic; color: rgb(102, 51, 0);">"Wow. They sure look like prostitutes."</span><br /><br /><span style="color: rgb(102, 51, 0);">There was a definite shift in attitude on the part of hotel security, and of course, all of us working in the bar. Time was, we would keep a keen watch for anyone doing business in the lobby. Suddenly it became difficult to tell if the suspected entrepreneur was one of our neighbor's employees, or the freelance variety we used to discourage. </span><br /><br /><span style="color: rgb(102, 51, 0);">I don't remember the end of the hotel's association with the club. I think it was just a one or two month contract deal until the employees of the new business had time to re-locate. I never went inside the place, but I heard it was pretty swanky and even served decent steaks. The fact that it was next door did cut into some of the money I used to make for calling cabs to take guests to one of the other strip clubs, or making arrangements with another club's limousine service, and it's never great for bar business to have the cops popping in and out all night long. </span><br /><br /><span style="color: rgb(102, 51, 0);">What I recall most from that time was the feeling of subterfuge. Even though I'd been making arrangements for guys to head off to strip clubs for years (I had all of their phone numbers and addresses memorized), and I'd seen plenty of 'just-walk-on-by-wait-on-the-corner' assignations, this situation had money, power and methodology behind it. It seemed like my job had taken on the aspect of pretending to be a bartender in a hotel, while I was really operating a front for another kind of business entirely. Truth be told, that is probably what I'd been doing all along, but it's a different game when your eyes are open to it.</span>Guyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18302453432032549612noreply@blogger.com0