Thursday, December 12, 2013

Blurred Lines ©2013 by Joe Sixtop all rights reserved

     I guess mostly 'cause manager Garry S likes to make the schedule on a Xerox® machine and through no fault of my own, I lucked into the night off on Thanksgiving Eve. I like to go visit friends and relatives in my hometown on the fourth Thursday in November and some years I do. I'd always be off on Black Friday at The American El Chico, where I worked for nine years until I got fired back on September 20th and was scheduled lunch on the day after Thanksgiving at the new AM gig. So I stayed here and enjoyed a rare off-all-day Thursday. So that Wednesday night I started composing this here episode of These American Servers™, even though it took over two weeks before you got to see it. Hey, I do what I can.

     I was working at a fairly upscale, independent restaurant, the best job I've had yet, come to think of it. Anyway, one night an acquaintance of mine, Applehell™ waitress Shannon, along with her husband and well-behaved little girl, came in for dinner. I don't remember if they asked for me or not but they wound up in my station. Right about the time they were fixing to leave, Shannon said something that's stuck with me: "You put a lot more into your job than I put into mine." Not that I was good at it necessarily or that she wasn't, just that I put a lot in. And I've got to admit, I try pretty hard to see that people who sit in my station have a good experience. Plus when things don't go well at work I tend to really suffer and since I hate to suffer, I strive to see that I don't have to do much suffering.
      I was reminded of Shannon's long-ago statement today. I'm pretty new at my current AM job but was assigned a trainee. Dude's name is Seamus and he's real eager to get out of training and onto the floor on his own. Today's the day he's supposed to wait on people while I silently stand nearby and observe and supervise. He had a good suggestion; that we'd say he was the trainer and I the newby watching to see how it's done. If any questions were asked that he couldn't handle, we'd act like my answering them was part of my learning experience, a contingency which never transpired.
     Seamus did a very good job. I thought his greet was just a little too enthusiastic and told him so but that's a minor point—it wasn't bad or anything—and I mostly was really impressed. I think Seamus is a great waiter and he's kind of inspired me to try and step up my game a little. He did something very accommodating for one of our guests—nothing too major, I guess, otherwise I'd remember what it was—and I conveyed my approval. "I know how to make money," Seamus replied.

     Well, it's a fortnight later and Seamus has been on his own in full stations for over a week now. There haven't been any problems as far as I know and I believe he's doing a good job. But from that one training day follow, I thought he was going to be, like, amazingly super-awesome and he hasn't been, he's merely been somewhat above average. For at least that one day he was a super-awesome trainee though.

     I'll be the first to admit it isn't the Victoria's Secret Fashion Show 2013. It's not the Denver Broncos or the Denver Broncos schedule. It's not even the Lakers. I can't take all of y'all to Krispy Kreme in Uruguay (and big ups to Uruguay for their new cannabis policies BTW!) or anything like that and even if I could I'm not sure if I could get Gisele Bundchen, Michelle Jenneke, Demi Lovato or Idina Menzel to accompany us like it was an American Hustle. But it might interest some of ya to know that even though I'm not currently fucking with Instagram Direct I've still got Twitter and it's @JoeSixtop. Hit me up if you want to follow or compliment me on my SEO or whatever. And I'm wishing a MMMerry Christmas to EVERYBODY!
                                  Cheers, __________-Joe