So one night I went down to the office to get the bartender ones and quarters. When I came up there was a guy at the bar massaging a skin colored shirt. Then I realized that there was a big boobed woman in the shirt. Then I realized that the entire bar was looking. Then I realized that George the bartender was yelling at them. (It was loud and the lights were dim.) As I got closer I saw that she had her shirt off and the guy was playing with her ample bosom. So, I went up to George, gave him the change and asked him for the reader’s digest summary of what the hell is going on. He explained that she got new boobs, was on a date, was showing them off, and he asked them to go. I told her to put them away, finish her drink and go. She asked if I like them. I said I did. She asked if I wanted a feel. I told her I was fine, but thanks for asking, please put your shirt on. She did, they paid, the guys at the bar ( and a few girls) were upset with me, but that stuff happens. Some nights I had to coax boobs back to their hiding place, some nights I got spit on.

Biff was gray-haired at 33, Irish, quick-witted, 5′ 10′ and a little husky. He liked to drink. We worked together at a trendy $50 an entree restaurant called “The Highlander” in the downtown area. Back 2000 the place was slammed. The wine flowed and expense accounts were sacked and the servers made a good amount of money. It was a fancy enough place that there was one employee whose job it was to make espresso and pots of tea for the guests. The coffee room was behind a red satin curtain opposite the deep red bar. Also stored in the coffee room were the decanters I would use upon request and for wines over $300. One night I was pouring wine for a table and saw Biff hurry into the coffee room with a tray full of cocktails. Two glasses of wine and two neat scotches. One minute later Biff sprinted out with three coffees, two scotches, and one glass of wine on the tray. I smiled, finished pouring wine, and went into the coffee station. There was an empty wine glass by the decanters and, being a natural enabler, I took it and brought it down with some other dirty glasses.

A few minutes later, when the rush quieted down, I talked to Biff in the coffee room about the glass I moved. I asked if he basically just chugged a glass of wine. “Dude,” he said, “I have been doing that since the place opened. You never noticed that before? Two glasses go in, one comes out. It’s a beautiful thing.  Try it some time. It makes the night go by so much faster.” Well, it does, until you get caught and you get fired. Biff came and went a few times. Left and then was rehired. He was technically and verbally a very skilled server. Just a loose cannon.

One night soon after the “two go in” talk,  I went into the coffee room to get a decanter and Biff was standing in the back corner, leaning against a wall, with a 16 oz glass of white wine in his hand and a bright red face. “What did you do?!” I asked. He replied that he thought he just got himself fired. There was a table of 6 people in the corner. Five men and one woman. They were pretty wound up and had had a few 10 oz martinis at the bar already. After they were settled in, looking at the menus and chatting, Biff approached them, welcomed them again and started to go through the verbal specials of the night. The woman in the group interrupted four words into the description and asked this astute question, “HEY! Are you gonna be a fucking waiter all your life?” I could see what happened next as inevitable. Biff said the first thing that popped into his head, “I don’t know. Are you going to be an asshole the rest of the night?” There was a pause. Silence. Then the men at the table completely lost it laughing and Biff slipped away. Right after that is when I found him drinking in the coffee room. I told him he has to go back to that table. He said he would, in just one minute. I left and went back on the floor. Biff kept his job. The woman was mortified and quiet the rest of the night. No one complained to a manager.

Biff was a fun person to work with. Yesterday was September 11, 2009. I thought a lot about how I felt eight years ago. The almost blinding rage. The depressing feeling of powerlessness. I was powerless to do anything about the attacks on September 11, 2001. I can only live my life the best way possible, and learn from my mistakes. I am completely powerless over booze once I take a drink. Once the mental obsession  for a drink has been satisfied with a glass of hootch then the physical compulsion takes over and I am gone. I know from experience, one glass leads to eight more. Yeah, “two go in, one comes out” is a funny mantra. The fact of the matter is, none of the people I drank with could have one drink and then walk away. Eventually, the hiding behavior and justification for a drink wore thin for me and I was left with just me. Eight years ago I didn’t like who I was. Now I do.

So, in general, experience has told me to trust my gut feeling. I don’t always do it. Most often on the highway, my gut tells me to get off the gridlock and take a two lane road home. Then the lane I am in clears up, I get excited, then I go 100 feet and sit in gridlock again, wistfully looking at the off ramp behind me. More to the service industry side, if the GM tells you to “only accept an IN STATE drivers license or passport and do not serve ANYONE without one” … use good judgment.  There was a rash of sting operations where bars were getting fined for serving people with fake ids.  My boss was nervous so he told us we would be fired for non-compliance. (In general, the threat of termination is rarely carried out, whereas REAL termination is the kind that happens suddenly.)

There were six people who came to the bar after the GM left for the night. The bartender didn’t serve them, and as manager I didn’t veto the bartender’s decision. These six people were from Maryland. They were lawyers. They were black. They left in anger, shock and disgust. And they called the next day threatening a lawsuit. They were in three days later enjoying an $800 meal on the GM. I should have let them drink at the bar when the opportunity was there.

Working for a husband and wife team. Yeesh. In general, if you like a soap opera and yelling and a less than corporate setting, then go for it, work for a husband and wife team. In general, I have found it immensely challenging.

Drinking before 5PM. Look, if you are going to a wine tasting, or you are the first stop of the day for a sales rep ,that’s one thing. When I needed to put Baileys in my coffee at ten AM I had no idea I was pouring gas on a big  fire. The tough thing about my mental obsessions that feed my behavioral compulsions is that my mind tells me everything is okay. Maybe it’s my ego. Look, when I started drinking in the morning I really fucked myself over. Learn from my mistake.

Tolerating getting screamed at. Things change in the service industry. People change. New people (Chefs, Managers, Servers) are brought on board and the work dynamic changes overnight. I was tasting wine at work once and a bottle was off, way high in tart acidity that lingered on and on. I went into the kitchen and picked a crouton out of the mis en place for the salad station, right next to the door to the dining room. Chef saw me. I got screamed at for 10 minutes. Basically variations on “Don’t eat one of my fucking croutons! Did you just eat one of my fucking croutons? Why the fuck would it be okay to eat one of my fucking croutons? Will you ever come in here again and eat another one of my fucking croutons? (My answer- no.) Do you fucking understand me?” I continued to work with this guy for about another six months before I found  another job. It took a while. A few suggestions: NEVER eat ANYTHING without asking the Chef first. I was buzzed and tired and not thinking right. I didn’t deserve that level of a reprimand, but that is what I got. Another suggestion: Try to have a sense of humor. On my last day on the job I left a bag of Pepperidge Farm croutons in Chef’s mail box.

There are so many mistakes I made over the past twenty years, there is not enough space for them here. None were really big, no one got hurt (but me) and no one’s job was lost (but mine) in the end. In hindsight, I wish I knew how to forgive myself faster and just move on.

- Joey.

So, I worked with a chef who was literally a  stuttering prick. In casual conversation his mouth misfired. When he got upset he stuttered worse. If he was even a remotely likable person this would be overlooked and even couched under the “yeah, we all got stuff to deal with, but he’s a good guy” file. Not Mark Santos. He would fly off the handle if a server misrang a soup. Soup. Like something that could be put BACK into the metal pot that it came from. “Joey! JOEY! You motherfucker! What the f-f-f-fuck am I p-p-p-paying you for? We ha-have servers fucking up th-their orders! This is unaccept-t-table.” What do you want me to do, Mark?  “I want you to m-m-m-manage the FUCKING restaurant!” Sure. I’ll write up Darcy, tell her to pay more attention and not to make mistakes. Got it.

Yeah. That went well. If a shrink had a job in a high volume bistro he or she could write a book on Chefs in general and on Mark Santos in particular. For over a year I worked with him. As a matter of fact, way back in 2003 I worked with him in a corporate setting where I never heard him yell. Not like Bistro Yambag. Mark came up with the idea of Bistro Yambag and was really proud of it. I guess he thought if he wanted the world to think he had a big unit, he should yell, and stomp and cuss and come up with a funky name. I left a good-paying job at a big corporate restaurant where I had worked for seven years. Maybe I just wanted a change of scenery. Maybe I was too hopeful that everything would be fine. Maybe I jumped in without really looking at the operation to see how it worked. The first few days I worked there, Tuesday through Thursday were fine. Then the weekend came and the volume and the cussing and the bottled up frustration. He once told me he always slept on the couch,  and that he and his wife argued all the time. I honestly didn’t understand the relationship that Mark and Molly Santos had. She yelled at Mark in the restaurant, in the kitchen, in the manager’s office. What the hell was life like in their tiny apartment in the boondocks?

It was a tough workplace. One Saturday night I went into the kitchen because they were slammed and could not keep up. I stopped seating the dining room and stopped seating in the lounge. I only turned away four parties of two, but I hated doing it. They would have had an awful time. Here was the deal: I was the only manager, and bus boy, and host, and server, and food runner, and bar back, and eyes and ears of the kitchen. From 10AM to 12AM. (If you WERE thinking about a career in the Service Industry, learn Accounting instead. Save yourself.) So, I went into the kitchen to ask Mark about the dessert for the couple at  table B4. He didn’t even look up, but said they will get it when they get it and they have not been waiting long. I told Mark they looked unhappy and they WERE waiting a long time. “Get the fuck out of my k-k-kitchen and do your fucking JOB!” So, I went back into the fray.

They waved me down when I walked back into the lounge area. I apologized for the delay and said the kitchen was working on the dessert. “Nothing came out on time tonight. Nothing came out for us or the others here in even a REMOTELY timely manner. You and the bartender are nice, but we are never coming back here again.” I am really sorry. The kitchen is really backed up and this IS unacceptable. That is what I said. “Well, take the desserts off our bill and give it to me. We want to go.” Yes sir. Three minutes later they were paid and out the door. On their way out Mark came out with their dessert. The gentleman looked at Mark and shook his head. Inwardly, in an utter juvenile  and self-righteous manner, I beamed and shouted “YES.” Outwardly, I agreed with Mark when he said they really didn’t wait that long.

A friend of mine, Chris, applied for a job at Bistro Yambag. Chris and I had worked together and he was looking to make a few extra bucks. When he asked what the work conditions were like, I lied. They’re great! the staff is cool, they help each other out, and the volume is good. I like Chris and really wanted to work with him again. I thought it wouldn’t be bad for him because he is a professional. I was wrong. On the first night he trained, Chris was in the kitchen, placing some cleared dishes for the dishwasher. Mark yelled “PICK UP!” which means food is ready to be run to the dining room. Chris finished setting the dishes down, then walked the thirty feet over to where Mark was still working on desserts for a table. Mark was looking down at the desserts, which he was still assembling, and said “Look. I know you are Joey’s friend and all, but when I  say pick up, you stop what you are doing and you fucking run over here. Do you understand me, or is that too complicated?” Chris said he understood, waited two minutes for Mark to finish making the desserts, then ran then to table 11.

To his credit, Chris finished working out the night without complaint and then called me the next morning. “Hey. Joey. Yeah, I am not going to work at Bistro Yambag. Your staff is great, it’s good working with you, but Mark is a jerk.”  And Chris stayed where he was already working and actually got promoted to Banquet Captain.  He was lucky. And smart. Bistro Yambag is closed now, but if you are ever dining out, and you hear yelling, swearing and stuttering coming from the kitchen you can smile because you know who is back there, and why the service staff looks so stressed out.

Dorian had a way with words the way Gerald Ford had a way of falling down. He fell down, verbally, often. Case in point, one day before the big grand opening party, where there were Versace models in the window, a DJ, Veuve Clicquot bubbles freely flowing, and copious silver platters of food, ONE day before this gala birthday announcement Dorian decides to give the wait staff (that I just hired and trained) a pep talk. Here are some high points:

“Okay. Guys. You gotta be fucking on time for work. If you are not, I’m gonna fucking fire you. Hey, you know what? I like to smoke, you will see me smoke a lot. You? You guys can’t smoke. If you want, stand next to me and when I breath out … you suck in. So. Tomorrow is the big fucking night, big party. You gotta step up and do a good job or I will fucking fire you. If you don’t like it, you can leave.” I imagined that Dorian’s wife was either the most patient woman on earth or she was deaf.

Guess what? One, two, three, four … eight servers walked out the door. Right there. Right as Dorian was doing his Al Pacino tough guy talk. I spent the next four hours making phone calls to the servers explaining that I was their boss, not Dorian and that everything would be okay. Of course, back then I drank every hour, not limited to being on the hour, and I talked out of my ass myself. What restaurant job is perfectly stable?

So what happened? There was a line out the door for Bistro Dis on the Grand Opening Party night. There were fierce and sexy Versace models. There was a guy named George who was a painter, ‘cept now he goes by Giorgio. There were the wine, beer, and spirits sales reps and manager that donated the product being poured. There were some fellow restaurant managers and investors, and there was a sea of matronly-looking squat restaurant owner wives on hand looking … odd next to the Versace models. The Bistro was packed. Jammed. The staff did a great job. No one fell down, spilled a tray of drinks, had a fit, nothing. They hustled, smiled, slung martinis and glasses of wine with a grin and a “thank you” when a generous tip went their way. It was a good night.

Then no one came back. It should not have surprised me, but it did. In the next few weeks no one from the opening party returned except Giorgio, to get some of his paintings back, and some of the spirits sales reps to have lunch and drink their product. On some weeks the waiters had their paychecks bounce. One week I didn’t get paid because the owner didn’t have any money left in the bank. One day the bar manager asked me, “Hey Joey. If wine freezes, we can still sell it, right?” I stopped counting the day bank, looked up from my Baileys and coffee and stared at Bobby. Blinking. No, I said. When it reconstitutes the wine will be thin, lacking in fruit and be all bitter acidity. Why do you ask? “Oh. No reason.” So I got up and went to the wine cooler. There were exploded bottles of Cristal, and Dom, and PJ Fleur, and wine everywhere. The beer was nice and frosty, though. Someone had cranked the temp down over the weekend.

One day I showed up for work and found out there was no money in the payroll for me and I was let go. I got a letter of reference and a hand shake. In one week I had another job, at another restaurant. Years later, I found out, Dorian was General Manager of a posh restaurant in an opulent hotel. One week before the restaurant’s grand re-opening, two old ladies made a shocking discovery. They discovered that people who work in the service industry are fucked in the head and don’t always think right. At eight o’clock  on a Saturday night the two sweet little old ladies from Des Moines were walking back to the hotel when they decided to take a peek in the window to see what the new restaurant looked like. They cupped their hands like blinders and peeked in. They saw an attractive blond server sitting on a service station with her skirt up, having her nipples furiously licked. Furiously licking away, as he banged away, was Dorian.

The old ladies were not amused. They went to the front desk to complain. The front desk manager went into the dining room. Dorian was encouraged to seek employment elsewhere. That was one place where I worked. There were a few others. Some even more challenging and demented. Stay tuned.