Flashback: Houlihan’s Restaurant, Bethel Park, PA. It’s the mid-90’s and my feet are achy and sore. Hair’s done up in a bun but flyaways flutter in all directions. Cheap makeup floods the pores of my face. A sea of sweat drifts into the collar of my long-sleeved Eddie Bauer dress shirt, buttoned to the neck.
I peer over the stainless steel shelf wondering if the next plate the cook throws up will be for my table. I accidentally singe my hair on the food warmer above my head and can smell it burning. Shit. I am a terrible waitress but it’s the only job for which I’m qualified that will pay my rent.
A small radio hangs over the pots and pans where Oasis and Green Day affirm the soundtrack to our lives. The local radio stations loop ‘Boulevard of Broken Dreams’ and ‘Champagne Supernova’ as if they are the only two songs in the world that will ever matter.
I hide sometimes when I get overwhelmed in the walk-in fridge until my hands get cold and I have to face the customers. Everybody takes smoke breaks out the back door behind the garbage cans. We have to either smoke or risk a nervous breakdown. Things happen fast. After all, people need to eat.
Have you ever been reminded of a time in your life you had nearly forgotten? Binge-watching the Emmy award-winning drama series ‘The Bear’, I was taken unexpectedly back to my yesteryears of working in restaurants. The single-camera close-up videography lends an intentional level of intimacy, allowing rawness to seep through. The closeness and proximity to the actors’ faces hurl viewers into the scene. Thus I started recalling my gritty greasy kitchen days.
Restaurant work is HARD. It’s fast-paced and emotionally charged. People can be real shitheads when they are hungry. They typically become much nicer as soon as they get their food. I know I am anyway.
People say everyone should be forced to work in a restaurant at least once for a taste of how difficult it is. Would sweating it out in cramped kitchens, dealing with broken freezers or dishwashers and out-of-stock food, all while trying to make everything right for customers, force on us a little more empathy for people serving us food? Would it make us more compassionate in general?
And that makes me wonder – does serving others make us more humane?
Most of us have jobs serving someone, whether they are our boss, managers, clients, customers, students, or patients. But do we look at our job as if we are serving other people or helping them in some way? Or do we view our jobs as something we have to do, a task that needs doing so we get paid? Or, if you are super lucky and have a job working in the arts – do you view your job as serving your audience, viewers, readers, listeners, etc.? Or do you simply do what you like/love and cross your fingers?
Maybe it is all about perspective. I don’t think working in restaurants made me a more empathetic person at the time because I was only doing it to make money and pay bills and I did not view it as a way to help others. At the time, I was trying hard to put one foot in front of the other, literally and figuratively. But time changed the tides and now I view my job (and other activities) as a service that helps people and adds value to their lives (or at least that is the goal).
I guess in my mind, sure I want to get paid, but viewing my job as doing something that helps others and serves others gives my life more meaning – in turn, I try my best to do my job well. And to that, my clients are appreciative and it is good business.
And I have a feeling, if I had that same attitude when I was a waitress, wouldn’t I have been a better one?
How do you view your job and its purpose and has it changed over time? I’d love to hear in the comments!
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