Food Service Speak

           Overhearing a server speak to a guest is sometimes like listening to a thirteen year old boy speaking to his first real crush. What the hell, I think, listening in. Why is that server telling that old man about his invention of the boiled egg? 

            Example 1: The Plague of the Word ‘We’.

            In any other job, hobby, relationship, and even most mental illnesses save Skitsophrenia and possibly Jehovah’s Witnesses, people refer to themselves as "me" "myself" and even "I".

            Not in food service. In food service, you refer to yourself as ‘We’, ensuring that you are responsible for every decision, mistake, idea, and Free-Fondu-if-your-server-forgets-to-recommend-it-policy.

            “Why don’t you sell spicy bean dip anymore?” the guest asks one day.

            “Well, We’ve decided that it’s just not profitable,” you say, puffing out your chest and letting the guest imagine your bent over a stack of numbers comparing food cost to food sales when you should have said, “Because I ate it all,” which is the truth, or “My boss got the shits from it, and decided to take it off the menu”, which is also pretty close to the truth.

            “Why did you start putting your margaritas in a giant slurpee machine?” the guest asks one day.

            “Because We make so many of them!” you say. “We decided to premake them so you wouldn’t be kept waiting!”, letting your guest imagine you slapping your hand down on a table and screaming, ‘Eureka! A Margarita Machine!’ when you should have said, “Because my boss thinks it makes the term ‘Handcrafted Beverages’ kind of ironic”, which is not true at all, since your boss’s idea of irony is firing you when he finds out you’re quitting, or just simply, “Someone in corporate likes to make at least one asinine business decision every month” which is absolutely the truth.

            Now, this ‘We’ doesn’t really become tricky until you’ve racked up at least five former food service jobs, two of which are rivals of your current company.  

            Now, when a guest makes one of their little Gateway into Conversation jokes such as “Looks like you’ve been doing this a while,” and you begin to talk about your former jobs at Ruby Tuesday, the bodega, Aramark Dining Services and a few other stints you’d rather not really name, you begin your own little skitsophrenic Abbot and Costello routine.

            “I quit that last job when We decided that as bar tenders We couldn’t take tables, which is just stupid, why would We do that? I mean here, We would never make such a stupid decision because We care about We, and We want We-yeah, well—right—We want We to make money, not like We did there where We didn’t give a shit about We—right? Wait? Oh God! We all—we all live in yellow submarine! A yellow submarine! A YELLOW SUBMARINE! No, I do ! I live a yellow submarine, not we! Oh God!” At this point, your head pops off, rolls out the door and grows into a meatball tree.

            Example 2: Giving Guests Pet Names

            There are some strange and arbitrary rules of thumb for this particular category. All male bartenders address male guests as “boss”. This name will not work if females are any part of the equation as it is demeaning for females to call someone boss which implies the possibility of being ‘bossed’, and obviously sarcasm to be addressed as one. There are very extreme subtleties involved when Third Wave Feminism meets the art of Food Service.

            As far as ‘hun’, ‘babe’, ‘baby’, and ‘sugar’, which you might think, one should dole out as liberally as a politician does handshakes, be careful. Male servers, you are not allowed to say these words at all. There is a hollow chamber right behind a woman’s eyes which exists for the sole purpose of storing these words when they are directed at her by a stranger. For the next twenty minutes or so after hearing them, they bounce around back there until they’ve conjured up images of the two of you holding hands on the beach, but the instant you forget to bring her that sugar caddy she asked for, that image twists into you hitting her over the head with a conch shell and feeding her children to sharks. Of course, if you are addressing another male as ‘sugar’ and you are not gay, perhaps you should also see a previous blog entitled Trash Pickup can Be Fun and Rewarding for the Mentally Challenged.

            Ladies, you’re allowed a bit of ‘hun’, but only when directed at other females who you seem to be in danger of pissing off. The key is to slip the word in as though you couldn’t possibly think of calling her anything else, as though her face practically beams Hun. Say it quickly, do NOT croon, and make sure the sentence which ends with that word is immediately followed by another sentence which does not end with that word. In other words, just be natural.

            Also, never combine pet names for guests. ‘Baby’ is fine, ‘boo’ is fine, but the marriage of ‘baby’ and ‘boo’ into ‘baby boo’ is a horrible idea. The same goes for “dear” and “hun” which just sounds like “dear hunt”. That would be strange.

Food Service Diplomacy

            What you didn’t learn about the State of Nature in high school from studying Thomas Hobbes and reading Lord of the Flies, you will begin to understand after a brief stint in the restaurant industry.

There exists but one reaction to a small girl holding four steaming plates over a guest’s head while simultaneously trying to rearrange the napkin holder and the salt and pepper shakers to make room for the incoming meal: the guest loses all control of motor skills. He sits silently, hands folded, sometimes choosing this moment to discover the spear of olives floating in his martini, and inexplicably snatch it from the glass.

The guest, you think, has suddenly imagined that he is involved in a game of scrabble or chess, and it’s Small Girl with Steaming Plates’ turn to make the next move. This is the Guest’s State of Nature.

But this inexplicable paralysis manifests itself in other ways too.

Example 1: Fighting over the Check.

“Is this going to be together, or should I separate it?” you ask.

“Together,” one says.

“Together,” says another.

Both look at each other, then at you.

“Just bring it to me,” says one.

“No, I’ll take it,” says another.

            “Okay,” you say, and begin backing away from the table.

You notice that the guests invariably resume their prior conversation, as if the matter is now completely out of their hands.

            After seven years in food service, you have learned that there are several ways you should, under no circumstances, react to this situation.

            Do not walk back to the table with a plate of chopped tomatoes and politely invite the guests to resume their former argument.

Do not sneak back to the table in your state-mandated no-slip silent-killer shoes, toss the check in the center of the table, and scream “GO, GO GO!”

            Do NOT give the check to the baby at the table and wait for the men you are now referring to as Ralph and Jack Meridew to tackle the high chair. (Especially if the baby has appeared to be hitting on you earlier.)

            And finally, under absolutely NO circumstances, should you pull up a chair and offer to make this into a game of Duck, Duck, Goose.

            Instead, you develop the art of the Slow Stretch. When you return with the check, slowly extend your arm across the table in Hile Hitler fashion and, in the best case scenario, someone will snatch it and both men will think you were handing it to him. In the worst case scenario, everyone will suddenly reach for their olives.

            Example 2:  Putting Fat People in Booths which are Obviously too Small for them

            This is, in fact, a frequent occurrence in corporate restaurants at which there is a readily available salad bar full of only mayonnaise-based items.

As you walk up to the booth to take drink orders, both guests, who are spilling over onto the table in the greatest example of muffin top you have ever seen, greet you with dark looks which say, “Very funny, smart ass.” Through the entire conversation, neither guest mentions the too-small table, while silently daring you to say something about it.

Of course, you have waited on Goldilocks Guests enough times to appreciate the guest who does not search for the table that is ‘just right’. However, you did not seat them, the tiny hostess did, nor did you invent trans fat. You are also not a line ride operator at King’s Dominion, wherein the decision not to tell someone that they are too fat could result in serious consequences. Sure, the impression that your table is constantly giving you the Heimlich Maneuver must be uncomfortable, but that could potentially come in handy. There are usually cherry tomatoes on the salad bar.

 The key here is that you know deep down, in the way that you know never to bring them more butter than they asked for or make a joke involving the possibility of super sizing their table, to ask if ‘this booth is okay’ for them. As innocuous as this might sound, what they will hear, and more importantly, what you will hear is: “Are you too fat for this booth?” (Sometimes, this sound will be accompanied in their minds by the imaginary sound of a stampede headed toward the salad bar to eat all the potato salad.) 

            Do not poke the bear.

Food Service Awkward Sauce

Any server will tell you that the most coveted art of food service is knowing, unlike the psychopathic small people eating fruit loops at your table, when to speak and when to shut up.

            Here are some examples of both.

            Example 1: Imagine this: you are standing behind a bar and tiny college girls holding empty white plates form a line in front of you. You are wearing a hair net and rubber gloves and holding a giant bunch of purple grapes which you have been de-stemming for the past hour. This job is called This is America, of Course there’s a Job for That! Or, alternately, Sisyphus Goes to America!

The girl directly in front of you holds your tongs, perhaps unconsciously clicking them at the bowl. As each grape plops into the bowl, Girl-with-Tongs snaps it up and tongs it onto her plate.

            You are thinking of the way baby birds snap their beaks at their mother while waiting for masticated worms to be dropped in their mouths, which ought to be your first clue that this is as close to a time-to-make-conversation moment as an instance of buying only tampons would be.

            Instead, you look at Girl-with-Tongs’ plate which holds a single boiled egg and a strawberry. 

“Have you been finding everything okay today?” you ask.

            Girl-with-Tongs shifts wide eyes to the right and then back at the grape bin. She is accessing the creative part of her mind which allows her to imagine herself as someone who would speak to Girl-with-Hairnet.

            “Yes,” she mumbles.

            “Good!” you say brightly.

            Ah, but the cheap thrill of feeling useful has got you going. You can’t stop now.

 “Here, I have an idea!”  you say. You start placing the grapes directly onto her plate, gently like topping a scoop of ice cream with a cherry. You are an innovator! You are the best fruit stand attendant Girl-with-Tongs has ever seen!

 Girl with Tongs is still holding the tongs, which have now become completely useless.

“Tell me wheeennnn,” you croon, smiling at her. Somehow, her plate has now become completely full of red grapes, and she drops the tongs into the empty bin. She is replaced by another Girl with Tongs.

It occurs to you that this could also be an episode of Twilight Zone or simply your afterlife.

Example 2: See above, wherein “I have an idea!” is followed by you throwing grapes into Girl with Tongs’ face.

Example 3: This example involves a time wherein silence backfires.

You are no longer employed by the cafeteria at which you made questionable decisions with fruit. Now, you work for a corporation.

It is one of those strange 4:30 in the afternoons in which you are the sole server, and suddenly there are nine parties in the restaurant, and none of them have even received drinks. You begin to notice that one particular woman (party of one) is determined to ignore the “Oh shit” look you have been giving everyone, and pointedly asks questions the way you might ask your accountant about your next twenty year investment plan.

“You really don’t have root beer?” she asks, again.

“Nope,” you say, before realizing that one of your creedoes here in the Corporate World is Life After “Nope”, “Ya’ll”, “Huh?” and “Yep”.

She leans forward and looks off into the distance for a full ten seconds. She appears to have retrieved something from her teeth.

“Well, I’ll just have tea then. Half sweet, half unsweet.”

You whirl away without speaking and return some time later with said tea.

“Oh, could I have an extra glass of ice?” she asks sweetly.

You return with the ice.

This freaking woman then takes a full five minutes to order a single crab cake, with dressing on the side, please be sure there’s no peanuts anywhere near the crab cake, if you can make sure all the cooks haven’t eaten peanuts lately, even a slight peanut-laced sneeze will set this woman’s allergies a-roaring….

Ten requests later, and this woman wants ketchup. You are baffled. In the kind of way you would be baffled by a request for peanut butter soup with no peanuts or a request for a taste of diet pepsi. You whirl away and suddenly you have no control over your movements. You are advancing towards the ketchup dispenser. You grab a plate and a handful of ramekins and proceed to fill fifteen shiny ramekins with ketchup.

If you had, say, only announced the ketchup’s presence at the woman’s table (“Here you are!” or “Here’s that ketchup!” or even a quick yet concerned “Can I get you anything else?”) as you set that two feet by two feet plate precariously at the edge of her table-for-one, perhaps her reaction would have been different.

But no. You sat and ran. Silently.

You sat that ridiculous plate of ketchup at her table, and that is when Crazy Lady became Crazy Ketchup Lady. That year and a half at George Mason studying psychology came in handy for her after all. She jumped up, holding that full plate of ketchup and managed to find your manager, sobbing about her passive aggressive waitress and her fear of peanuts and not wanting to be served food by someone who obviously hates her.

This is when you realize that in food service, silence can be interpreted as a message. 

Food Service Humor

Probably the most disturbing thing about food service, other than the nagging sensation that Pulp Fiction could happen to you, is the fact that there exists, whether you like it or not, something called Food Service Humor.

Example A: “I’ll just take that plate out of your way. Would you guys like any desserrrrttt?”

This last sentence is said as if you just asked if they’d like to rob a collection plate or punch their boss in the face. The great thing about that tricky whiny upturn of inflection at the end of that word is that it could mean: A) Oh yeah baby, I know you want some or B) This is a f****** stupid question and I’m sorry I have to ask if you’d like to slap me I will bend down so you can do it.

The guest, undoubtedly a vegan since they outnumber the fatties in this town, will respond: “Oh my goodness, I couldn’t. I’m stuffed!”

Your slightly parted lips will open into a naughty little o of laughter: “Ohhh….ah, well then, I’ll just bring the check over,” you respond, beaming.

Sometimes you will make it all the way back to the kitchen beaming like a friggin alien spaceship. Sometimes you will even make it over to the trash can to scrape their plate and accidentally make eye contact with the Guatemalan single mother dishwasher before you wipe that stupid grin off your face. Then, if you are the sort of person who likes yourself, even a little, well, you can give up on that at least for the next five minutes until you tell another one of your dessert zingers.

            Example B: “You guys should try the spicy bean dip….seriously, it’s fantastic.”

            You say this last bit in a whisper to emphasize that this isn’t something you share with just anybody, and follow it with a quick nod to affirm that you’re serious. There are mysterious unknown reasons why revealing that you eat food creates an instant bridge of intimacy between yourself and the guest. The decision to make this a revelation was made by the same sub-committee who decided we all must wear black like a troop of unpainted Russian Matryoshka dolls.     

The guest looks up at this point, laughs, and blinks encouragingly, as you undoubtedly would too if your manikin just came to life and started expressing himself.

“I eat it all the time,” you say, suddenly finding yourself in the spotlight. You are at this point wondering why you chose to recommend the spicy bean dip, and if people actually have, say, a spicy bean dip aura, and if so, what your appetizer aura is.  But you keep talking. “I actually can’t stop eating bean dip. Sometimes I just go at with a spoon, and don’t even worry about the chips. Sometimes…haha” (here you press a hand to your mouth and look around) “I tell people that’s why I work here.” You press your lips together before you can start screaming, “ON A PLAIN IN A TRAIN IN A CAR NOW I’M EATING IT NOW IN MY MIND MY BEAN DIP MY BEAN DIP!”

            The guest laughs again, and does NOT say the following: “Oh yeah? Because last week you said it was the peanut butter soup.” Because that would really suck for you.

            Instead, they buy the spicy bean dip and that’s pretty much the end of that story.

            Example C: A couple walks in the front door with a baby.

            “Will that be…haha…two and a half?” you ask.

            The guest thinks this is funny because well, as you have seen, they are guests. Guests have shitty senses of humor.

You think this is funny because waiting on a baby is exactly like waiting on a person that has just been cut in half. You run around trying to make it stop spouting shit out of the holes in its face. If you could just once, look a baby straight in the face and say, “Are you going to order anything? Or are you just gonna sit there and throw fruit loops on my floor?” the whole experience might not be that bad.

But the baby will not be ignored. The instant you look at it, instead of the dawning look of horror you should be wearing, your face screws up into this dandelion shower spout of curiosity—how old are youuuu, how much did you weighhhhh, do you like macaroni and cheeesse—it’s as though you’re trying to pick up the baby at a bar instead of just try to convince its parents that you’re not a complete monster, as all complete monsters ignore babies.

When the baby leaves you its number, then it’s time to get horrified. Then it’s time to find that baby, feed him a shit ton of dessert, and make some spicy bean dip out of him.