Stiffed

I was used to people just pointing at their coffee cup when I asked them if they'd like coffee, so when the old man kinda waved his arm toward his side in front of him, I figured he was one of those kind that just didn't feel like answering me. Oh Christ, another weird one. The restaurant was packed - both dining rooms. It was a Sunday about 1:30; a pancake house on Colorado Boulevard, way too close to too many churches (and the lunch rush that followed services) for my sanity. I had the front station - just barely inside the door with a big round as the main table. I was working three 4-tops, two or three 3-tops and about 5 deuces along with the round where the old man was sitting with five other members of his family. I poured coffee for him, told the folks at the table I'd give them a moment to look at the menu and I'd be back to take their order. In the time it took me to turn around and get to the service entrance, the gentleman had flipped over the back of his chair and bitten off his tongue. I didn't see a thing (unless you count the arm spasm, which I found out later was actually a heart attack ... he may not have wanted coffee after all).

I was picking up an order and my manager came rushing up to me and said, "DID YOU SERVE ANY FOOD TO TABLE 20?!! DID YOU SERVE ANYTHING TO TABLE 20?!! ANYTHING?!! It kinda freaked me out that she was being so crazy but we were really slammed and it just wasn't registering with me that table 20 was my new 6 top. I went back around the corner with a ham and cheese omelet, hash browns and toast for table 3, saw the old man lying on the floor on his back with blood all over his face and someone starting to give him mouth to mouth, but there was nobody at table 3! The first thing I wondered was how that man had gotten so bloody, but almost immediately I panicked because I thought he was my customer from table 3 (hardly anyone is recognizable after they've bitten off their tongue) and I was sure the cooks were gonna kill me if I wasted that order. I went back to the kitchen with the plates, put the omelet in the window and said, This man is dead, but I think you can save the hash browns." I was right. They were pissed.

Just about that time, (maybe 30 seconds or a minute after it had happened) I just forgot everything that I was about to ring up, which orders were about to come down ... just all of it. I went back out to my station, and my customers who saw the whole bloody mess were walking out, whether they'd eaten, paid, still had to order or had already placed their orders. They were totally grossed out. I had one table that was around the corner though, table 18, that couldn't see what was going on. They screamed from across the dining room, "Where the hell is our food!" I had to step over the man's legs to get to them, but when I reached their table, I said, "I'm sorry" (in my nicest voice) but one of my customers has died and I wasn't expecting it. Let me check with the kitchen." It was so surreal. They weren't even shocked. Just hungry and mad and indignant.

I walked back through my station, stepped back over the man's legs and around the corner to check on table 18's order. I don't remember if it was ready, if I served them, or they walked. By this time - maybe 2 minutes into it - I was coming unraveled. People were moving into my station from the other tables to watch the resuscitation efforts, but since the customers that were supposed to be at those tables were gone I couldn't make hide nor hair of any of it. About this time I remember the son (or son-in-law) from the round table saying, "I can't believe this. This is just so embarrassing. I can't believe this is happening." There were three kids with them, all under the age of ten, and (I guess) his wife ... the kids' mom, anyway. I was trying to comfort her 'cos she started getting a little hysterical, and just about then the EMTs arrived. They injected the man with a huge needle - I mean HUGE - and zapped him with those paddles as they were getting him on the stretcher.

I know during some of this, people were asking for more coffee and wanting me to tell their waitress that they had changed tables. I kept stepping over the man's feet (and eventually, the man's feet and a bunch of equipment) to get through my station and my boss was still asking me if the guy had eaten anything. It was only then that I realized she was worried that those people were gonna sue the restaurant, like she thought he might have cut himself on the food. In the meantime, the man was dead and I was so wigged I couldn't have told you my name. I asked if I could have a minute to calm down and smoke a cigarette, but my boss said I needed to clean the blood off the floor because we still had people waiting to be seated. It was a spot about as big as two dinner plates. Who knows why I didn't walk. It was just a really crazy moment.

I did work through the rest of the afternoon and we found out the next day that the EMTs were able to bring the old man back to life. I never did thank my customer at table 3 (who was probably most responsible for saving him). I didn't even ask him if he'd like another omelet. It was all so sudden and, I think because it happened in the middle of such a huge rush, everything kind of exploded in my head. I guess you can tell by the choppy way I remember everything - kinda like 30 snapshots or really short pieces of film strung together with gaps in between - that I was in shock. For a while after that, I was really freaked out if anyone even coughed or moved suddenly. I wanted to take their pulse before I took their order. "How are you today?" had a ring of sincerity to it that had never before been a part of my delivery. Unfortunately, this wasn't the only one of my customers to die in my station, but I'll save the other one for another blog post. Just remember: If a customer doesn't answer you when you ask them for a beverage order, it doesn't necessarily mean they are ignoring you.

Born A Waiter

And if you're born a waiter
you're born to be hurt
You're born to be stepped on,
lied to, cheated on and treated like dirt

-Sung to the tune of "Born a Woman"

Occasionally, I hear someone talking about an "easy" job like bartending or waiting tables, or maybe I'll read about "all those tips" waiters make, and I know that anyone who hasn't done the job just couldn't possibly understand the tremendous pressure, risk and vulnerability a waiter experiences. Granted, some never have to put in any time at a rough cocktail lounge, diner or 24-hour restaurant, so they might be spared some of the more vulgar incidents, but it's never "easy."

I have worked in some rough places, and in my time, I've had my clothes ripped, been cussed at and called names, made fun of, threatened with death, pushed, tripped, grabbed, flashed, groped, accused of ejaculating in someone's eggs Benedict, and even hit in the face with a plate of two over-easy ("Is there something wrong with your eggs, ma'am?" was my response). I've had to clean up blood, vomit, pick up used condoms, dirty disposable diapers, hypodermic needles, cups of tobacco spittle, snotty tissues, and even someone's partial plate (as in, dentures) - all in the course of waiting tables. And that's not counting the tantrums thrown by the cooks - many of them on jail release from halfway houses or suffering from PTSD which isn't exactly conducive to a high stress environment.


One hotel bar I worked at was down the street from a tavern where the bartender had been shot and killed by someone who came in for a drink after last call. Two other restaurants I worked at were held up. The first one, the assistant manager was the only one at work, but the second one happened while the restaurant was packed with people lined up out the door (I was one of the customers in line - I'd come in on my day off). At another restaurant (one which deserves its own blog entry) the cops refused to come "unless a weapon had been used." It wasn't enough for someone to just produce one - that's how common of an occurrence it was.

I'm proud of surviving all of that. I never went to college, and I've never been wealthy, but I can measure my success in my endurance - my resilience. There are plenty of people who couldn't handle such an "easy" job.

Take a chance, Columbus did

When I was 20 years old, I rode a Greyhound bus to Denver with two suitcases, a sleeping bag and 300 bucks. I wasn't going on vacation; I was moving. I chose Denver because my car had broken down there the year before and it turned out to be a pretty easy place to find a job, my Mom had a friend that lived there (so I knew I could stay at least 2 or 3 nights with her), and there wasn't any work back home in Oregon. I found out right away that I didn't have enough money for an apartment. Even 30 years ago, 300 bucks wouldn't cover rent and deposit, and I didn't have any more money coming in. Luckily, I'd given the number of my Mom's friend to a gal that said she "might" be moving to Denver, and the day after I arrived she gave me a call and we found a place we could rent together. But I still needed a job.

I wasn't particular about what I would do to make money, but I didn't have much in the way of experience to offer anyone. I had done some office work, telephone soliciting, and fast food. I'd even been a hasher in a sorority. A hasher is the "boy" who serves "the girls" their meals, and listens for them to ring the little bell next to their place setting when they want anything - even more water from the pitcher that is sitting right in front of them. A hasher job basically paid in a free meal each night I worked and (I think) 15 dollars a week for five 2-hour shifts.

Anyway, back to my job hunt. The day we got our keys to the apartment, I walked up the street and started filling out applications: McDonald's first, then a movie theater, and then I walked into a family style restaurant and applied for: Waiter, Busboy, Host, or Dishwasher (I was pretty sure I couldn't be a cook). Years later, the woman who hired me said she could tell I didn't have any experience, but she'd never seen anyone so desperate for a job in her life. She hired me as a waiter. That was how I identified myself for most of my adult life.

I must have had just enough money to buy the uniform - all brown polyester - and I remember practicing how to walk. I'd always had a wiggle when I walked, and I was sure that I'd be ridiculed for it. Funny how that comes back now, but I know the walking part was a big source of stress for me. At that time, I didn't even know I was gay, but I'd been called gay enough (and a lot of that had to do with the way I walked) that I didn't wanna risk getting in trouble. Even after I came out, there was a long time before I stopped worrying about being called "faggot" or being mistreated because I was gay.

Besides butching up my walk, I also had to learn how to carry shoulder trays. The hardest part was picking them up correctly. I practiced expediting the other waiters' (actually they were all waitresses except one other guy) food until I felt pretty safe, though I still had a couple of accidents. I followed waitresses, learned how to write and hang orders (no computers yet), and bussed tables for five days. Finally, one of the waitresses I'd made friends with said, "They're not gonna keep you unless you start picking up some of your own tables." I was terrified. I didn't know how I was ever going to get up the courage to speak to people. So far, I felt lucky just not to be called names or be laughed at.

It turned out to be a real baptism by fire when my second customer ordered a chopped beef steak that (I would later find out) was just about a sure-fire guarantee to piss people off. I think it was mule meat. I delivered the steak to my customer - table four, I remember - and came back to check on him a couple of minutes later. Boy howdy. Red in the face and half standing in his booth, he had stabbed the meat with his fork and was waving it at me screaming, "Taste this! Taste this!" I'd never seen a middle-aged man have a tantrum in public before, and I wasn't all that comfortable even speaking to him, let alone handling that kind of outburst. Somehow, I got through it and days turned to weeks, to months and to years of learning to console, respond to, or avoid similar circumstances. In that time, I eventually became pretty outgoing, or at least I learned to fake it pretty well.

********************
This is my first post on my first blog. I haven't waited tables in a number of years, but I wanna use this as a place to look back on those years in food and beverage - over 20 of them - and perhaps also share a little of my life after waiting. I decided to write this after reading some of the blogs of others who are still waiting, and hopefully I'll have links to those later on. It's interesting to read the passion in their posts and to recall how overwhelming some shifts could be. I responded to a few of them, but I realized, we're coming at this from different angles. Those folks are still in there doing battle every day, and my stories are all old, and the wounds have mostly healed. I am from their tribe but - for now - I am off the floor.