86 Sausage.

Back in my BC (before child) life, I was a restaurant manager. I think corporate, plus lower and mid management, so it tends to leech some of the personality out of you. I enjoy restaurants and the situations between the staff and the guests; the general soap opera of a big restaurant is a lot of fun. But when you’re the boss – the fun is something you look at and observe, but not really something you DO.

Now I have a child, and for right now and most of the foreseeable future ( I tend not to foresee more than 8 years down the road ) I can’t do what I did before. The hours were grueling and the schedule was crap – 7am to 7 pm on Monday, then 3pm to midnight for two days, then take Thursday off and come back for a lovely 10 am to 10 pm shift for Friday and Saturday. Sunday might be your day off, but we’re having inventory or the truck order or whatever, so we need you to come in anyway. The next week is totally different, and you can’t even begin to schedule child care or even on some days see your kid with a work schedule like this.

But I can’t just stay at home – I need the outside interaction, the soap opera. So I took a job last year waiting tables. I had spent too long on the other side of the spectrum to get into being a server at first. It’s fun, but I wasn’t really having the kind of fun I remember having back before I went into management in my early twenties. I’m also not drunk nearly as much and I go home every night, so many things are different from that time in my life.

But every once in a while I can catch a glimpse, feel the attitude change a bit.

I had a table tonight – four ladies who were obviously close friends and were quite fun. They had candid conversation over the menus and a few glasses of wine. It took them a while with the menu, and I came back a couple of times to check on them before they even got to the stage where they could formulate questions. The first lady asked me about a dish, it wasn’t really one of my favorites, plus it normally has salsa on it and we were out. . . so she was begging to be talked out of it.

“I don’t know, I was thinking about the Orange Chicken,” said Lady One.

“You should definitely get the Orange Chicken.” I told her.

“Why? I’m just curious,” asked Lady Two.

“The tortillas are really forgettable. Orange Chicken, that’s something you’ll dream about at night – if she went with the tortillas, she’d have forgotten what she ate for dinner by the time she goes to sleep tonight. Orange Chicken is definitely the way to go – it’s not too spicy, but the sauce is the perfect blend of sweet and spicy.” I don’t hide my love affair with some of our dishes – if someone asks about one of them I am happy to paint them a picture.

Lady One goes on to admit that the real reason she wanted the tortillas is because of the tamale cakes – and the whole table starts talking about how much they all love them, so I convince them the way to go is to order that as an appetizer and then people can get the main course they really want.

Now Lady Two wants me to help her decide between Orange Chicken and another of my favorites. I tell her to get the other so everyone has something different. It’s time for Lady Three to order.

“I don’t know – what am I going dream about tonight?” Lady Three asks wistfully.

“I am so sorry, ma’am. We are out of sausages.”

You could have heard a pin drop.

For one long, long second I fear I have seriously misjudged this tables comfort level with each other and me, since we have only just started their meal. It’s a bit early to develop the playful side, and I did deliver the line deadpan – which can take some getting used to. But it was so perfect and it just fell out of my mouth – one of those things that most of the time you think of hours later but this time it was right there. . . so I said it.

The ladies looked at me. I looked at them.

We all started laughing at once.

That’s why I can’t seem to get out of the business, even though I’ve changed my path now. That will cheer me up through quite a few bad tips and lousy sections. But it’s little things like that which show me that slowly my brain is moving out of manager mode and into a place which is much more relaxed.

I gave my blog address to some people – time to come out of the shadows and commit to letting my friends read it.  I’m still not going to tell my mom, though.  So leave me a comment if you want – that way I can be sure people are out there.

~ by floozy1976 on June 13, 2008.