I never worked a sloppy shift in the eight years that I waited tables. No matter what personal angst I had raging inside me, I always somehow smiled and worked my ass of for every table that ever sat in my section. It was the one thing in my life I could actually control.
Despite this, when I began at the new location, too many of the senior employees simply decided that I was a newbie, and got on my ass about my actions. I’ve worked all over the world in more different roles and jobs than I possibly could list. I’ve learned that the ones who make the most noise in a workplace are often the worst employees.
My new Chili’s was no exception. I didn’t appreciate young girls, college drop-outs and likely cokeheads, who could never fathom or understand where I had just returned from, calling me out in front of everyone about meaningless stuff like how I carried my trays.
“Dario, don’t carry that tray (with the sizzling fajita skillet) over your head with one hand! You’re going to drop it on a customer.”
Wrong, dumbass, that’s not going to happen. I used to command a vehicle on the Syrian Border of Iraq. I got this.
“Dario, don’t put the pilsner glasses on the drink tray. They’re going to fall!”
F*** you. Idiot. I used to plan combat missions for up to thirty men. Don’t get on me about this stupid s***.
“Why don’t you grab ice, Dario? The bin is getting low.”
Because I already grabbed ice for the fifteenth time this shift you lazy whore. I don’t even want to be here and I’m working harder than everyone else.
Sometimes I couldn’t keep my filter. I’m embarrassed that I had these thoughts but I did. Sometimes they emerged from my mouth as vitriolic arguments I couldn’t control or temper. I would wing up in the office, being counseled with managers acting as arbitrators, often.
One particular young woman, Lisa*, incurred a special rage in me. When she showed up at my store in Timonium, Maryland, a transfer from Virginia Beach, we’d have screaming sessions on the backline within earshot of a filled restaurant of customers. She was as stubborn and wild as me.
Lisa loved to abuse the small authority she earned as a “shift closer” to order me into re-buffing my already shiny tabletops. She’d force me to sweep again over some mark on the cement floor that wouldn’t ever come up with a broom – I’d scrape the gunk up with a knife. She’d make me empty the dishroom – returning hundreds of pounds of large plates, iron fajita skillets, silverware, green baskets, ramekins, side plates, and tortilla servers – over and over again, delaying my exit from the restaurant after a ten hour day.
Technically, even though I left for two deployments since I began at Chili’s in 2002, I had worked longer than her in the corporation, and her pettiness elicited an uncontrollable anger within me. How dare she treat me in the manner she did! I saw her as my enemy; and she saw me the same.
Things continued like this for a month. On most nights after work, our tight community of crazy young college-aged kids who made a lot of discretionary income would go out after the second shift ended, to a local dive bar called The Treehouse.
Usually, I’d just stay separated from the group, talking to the girls who reminded me of or looked like my ex-lover. On most nights, I loved lowering my back against the bar stool, clutching my cocktail, and leaning towards the bartender at Chili’s and chatting with her because she was Polish and beautiful, too. Lisa overheard one of our conversations as she came up to order a shot.
We had been talking about the military I guess. I had been lamenting about Iraq and coming home. Lisa stared at me, her wide brown eyes becoming soft.
“What the hell are you looking at?” I asked.
“I didn’t know you were in the military,” Lisa replied. “My ex was in the military. He went through a lot of s*** when he came home, too.”
“Well that sucks,” I said returning my attention to the bartender.
Like most bars in America, at 2 am we were all kicked out. Lisa came up to me as I stumbled out the door.
“I’m sorry I’ve been treating you so poorly, Dario. I had no idea where you were coming from.”
And just like that we were an item – just like that I couldn’t be mad at her anymore. We hugged for a while, a teary eye leaking into her shoulder, before I left for home alone.
She observed in me, the same characteristics of a man she once loved; and she saw a second chance to create that passion. I saw in her an understanding and care I hadn’t felt from a mostly disinterested society. Finally, I had found someone who could relate and care.
To be continued.
Connect with Dario online:
Personal Website (Free Writing, Podcast, Dario in the Media, Biography, Books, Blogs)
20 Something Magazine (Editor-in-Chief, Creator)
JMWW Literary Journal (Senior Nonfiction Editor)
The Veterans Writing Project (Instructor, Nonfiction Editor)
LinkedIn (Professional Stuff)
Facebook (Be my friend?)
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