The first thing I did was go back to the Thai restaurant and ask for my job back. I hunted down the manager, who emerged from the staff room, cash drawer and last night’s receipts in hand, looking frustrated with her day already. I asked if she was looking for help.
“Yes,” she snapped. “Who’s asking? You?” she jabbed.
“Yes.”
“Oh.” She thought a moment. She started to ask a question, then stopped to ask a different one. “When can you start?”
I picked up my first shift back a week later. Three days after that, they cut me a paycheck – I was already back on the books. It took a total of ten days to take my first step towards rebuilding. I was ecstatic about the turn around, but there were mixed reactions as people found out I retreated back to waiting tables.
Some employees, like my manager, were genuinely happy to see me back. Others were pleasant, but they recognized this as a temporary move, the one-step-back to my next two-steps-forward. They understood the simple truth: sometimes, you just gotta make money.
The strangest reaction was from a young food runner named Rigo. Before I left, Rigo was my mentee of sorts: smart in his own way, a hard-worker for certain, but his own naiveties were often his own worst enemies. In the 9 months I’d been away, that naiveté had bloomed into a full blown sullenness, a FTW mentality, and I think he saw my return as a betrayal. Like, didn’t I tell him I was moving onto (bigger, better) things?
“What about everything you said?” he demanded. “About trying something once, then moving on? About always looking forward?”
“I tried,” I replied. “I tried something new. It didn’t work out. So now I have to rebuild before I try again.”
He shook his head, not understanding, and walked away.
The other noteworthy reaction I received happened last week, when I told another entertainment assistant that I moonlighted as a server. His eyes darted up from his Blackberry, as a flicker of recognition crossed his face. Then a hint of smugness with the words, “Oh yeah, we order from there all the time,” treating my statement as if it was an admission of humiliation. It wasn’t.
I’m not immune to what others think, though. There’s a reason why I still haven’t shared with my family that I returned to waiting tables, something I started when I was 14 years old. There’s a reason why my bosses don’t know why I cut out at six o’clock sharp on certain days of the week. Not humiliation per se; humility, however, is safely in the ball park. But there’s not a dumb egg amongst them, so it’s likely they already know – it’s just a matter of who’s going to bring it up first.
Then there’s my own pride I have to contend with, the idea that I am “too good” for this station in life. Last night, I approached a couple to get their order. The man looked me in the eye and said with a straight face, “I take it this is not your day job.” When I asked him if it was that obvious, he shrugged and returned his gaze to the menu. “You stand out. You don’t belong here.” Then he ordered a vegetable pad thai.
It reminded me of my friend Karen’s father, a man whom I met only once. He was a multiple-Master-degree-bearing man who found himself jobless in 2008. He remained jobless as he uncollected his unemployment checks. And he continued to remain unemployed through 2009, and into 2010. His ex-wife, Karen’s mother, busted her ass to provide for Karen while he shrugged off his various parental duties, like child support, or being-the-fuck-around. Not that he didn’t receive job offers – he received several – but he refused to take one that was lower than his level of “prestige.” The jobs weren’t good enough, and he let his family suffer for it.
When I let that inkling of superiority creep in from the edges, threatening to leave me feeling ungrateful or entitled, I compare Karen’s father to my own. He had his own fiery and tumultuous rise in the restaurant business, where he reached an enviable level of success for someone barely into his 30’s. And when it all crashed down around him, he found himself set back further than where he started out seven years previous. My father, too, had to rebuild, but with a family of six, he had far more at stake.
He took on a blur of jobs during those years, as he worked to right his course. He managed sewing factories in Queens, a failing Chinese restaurant in Albany, then he tried getting his foot in the door at the chain restaurants. So between sending out resumes and going on interviews, my father started waiting tables again, swallowing his pride, and providing for his family.
Which is how I know that no matter my humility, or the smugness of others, or what any customer may say, I’m right where I belong.
Photos Credit: gttexas
