Key Issues

The Sunflower Festival

Gratefully inspired by your comments on the "Exceeding Tip Parameters" post and linkage:

A few years ago, my mom owned her own restaurant in her own town. (This little crossroads is much smaller even than my own little town, which I've pet-named Mayberry.)

The good country folk gathered from miles around to enjoy a genuine southern cooked meat and three by day, juicy burgers, fried catfish, or home smoked BBQ by night.

Children gathered on bar stools for hand-dipped ice cream or malts, and I myself, being between jobs at the time, was a Wednesday regular, as that was chicken 'n dumplin day.

These were good times.

Wednesdays became a family reunion of sorts, as I managed to actually pull my social butterfly of a mother away from her loving customers long enough to sit for a meal. We were often joined by my step-father, and perhaps my aunt would stop by, and my step-sister had a tendency to wander in...and my brother was night manager, but occasionally communed with us by day.

And thus... We would gossip and laugh and bitch and moan, like a bunch of country people who had nothing better to do in the middle of the work day.

The town mayor visited almost daily, and he often stopped by to speak to us about the local goings on. On this particular occasion, the event was the town Sunflower festival, which would be happening the very next Saturday, in the lot between the restaurant and the tracks. (In other words...directly in front of the restaurant.)

So mom buckled down for a crowd, and I psyched Miss Priss for the festival...cotton candy! old-timey cars! pony rides! caramel apples!

But of course, I don't do anything early on a Saturday morning unless I have to, so we pulled in to the party around 11 am.

The first imperative stop was to check in, and let the family know we were there. Soooo...I took the back door to the restaurant, where the Priss hooked up with her cousin, and together they chased down Papa for ice cream.

I continued into the kitchen, greeted my mother, and wasn't surprised to see her in panic mode, given the crowd outside. What did surprise me, was that she wasn't telling me to get the hell out of her kitchen, didn't I see that crowd out there?! No, she was HAPPY to see me, so much and so eerily so that I started backing toward the door, even as she screamed, "Thank GAWD you're here!"

Too late. She was throwing an apron over my head, spinning me around, and tying it in the back. "I've had one quit this morning, and one just NOT show. I neeeed you!"

And with that, and even as I sputtered something about having zero experience, I was given a healthy shove into the direction of the dining area. Having not come in that way, I was seeing and hearing the overflowing dining room, people waiting for tables, one flustered waitress, a frantic cashier, and a take out line to the door, for the first time.

Now, I had worked since age 17, but always at a desk. I had NO waitressing experience before this day. None.

Of course, I'd seen it done, so I understood the concept, but this was a helluva way to train. I filled my apron with pencils, order pad, and straws, and quickly learned the count for the tables...and then I dove in.

New blood!

My gawd, they must have seen me coming. I was chewed out, chewed up, spat out and stepped on. "Where's my this? I didn't order that! No one has taken our order! It's hot in here! Is somebody going to bus this table?"

And that was all on my first pass through, within moments of accepting the apron.

I spent the next hour working frantically trying to restore order and placate the crowd, and then the next two trying to maintain it. After three hours of mad, stress-filled panic, the crowd slowed to manageable capacity, and I took a turn on the cash register, ringing folks out, and dipping ice cream for the little people, the happy people.

During the course of the day, there had been only a few assholes that were so irate that there was no hope for them, and to those few, I explained that I was donating my time, and making no more than they chose to leave me. This seemed to humble them, but only slightly.

And I had already figured out why my mother paid her servers minimum wage plus tips, rather than the standard $3 or so and tips....these bumkins tipped for shit!

I think I made less than ten dollars the entire day.

Nonetheless, I continued to volunteer my time for the following weeks, as long as mom needed me, and until Shrek fired the insubordinate ruffian who had been assisting him at the office while I worked elsewhere.

All this to say: Hell yes, I have a HEALTHY respect for anyone who does this for a living, and who does it well...and particularly if they do so with a smile.