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Last updated on March 26th, 2017 at 05:35 am

“It’s not just about making tips,” Frank said. He’s always said it. “Don’t look at your job like that. Otherwise, you start thinking, ‘I’ll treat these people sitting over here better than those people over there because I think they’ll tip me better.’ You might know they won’t leave you a good tip. You might remember the last time they came in, how nice you were to them and how the man thanked you and shook your hand on the way out, but when you counted the cash on the table, you found they only tipped you 13%. Some people will think, ‘I’m not going to be nice to them now,’ but that’s no way to serve.”

Serving was how he passed the time in high school and college. He did well because his memory was sharp, he was quick with figures and quick with his hands. But his belief in delivering quality work with quality service kept him in this industry that turns naïve idealists into cold, calculating machines. Which was easy enough in good times, but during the bad times, you see how quickly those ideals get compromised.

“You don’t know how lucky you are. You can go out to dinner, spend $100 before tip, and it’s not a big deal. You can’t appreciate it.” There was truth to his words. Looking back, by the time the server cleared the dessert plate, the whole event was another memory. It was a miniscule detail the moment it was over, like brushing your teeth or putting on a clean t-shirt in the morning. “But for some people it’s a very big deal, and you have to treat it that way.”

“What if this is a family who can only afford to eat out once a month?” he asked. A family of six; the father works six days a week while the mother stays home to take care of the kids. After the parents look at their budget, after deducting the costs of rent, utilities, groceries, putting money into the college savings and the account that looks more like a bad joke than a retirement fund, they figure, okay, we can afford to take everyone out to dinner once a month.

Their meal won’t be special to you. The parents won’t order wine or cocktails. The whole table will order water with lemons because it’s free. They’ll ignore your carefully crafted specials pitch, and opt for four of the more inexpensive entrees, and they’ll ask for a few sharing plates. They skip the appetizer, and the dessert.

Their check won’t be special, and the accompanying tip even less-so. Other than the 35 seconds spent grumbling over their meager contribution to your bottom-line, you won’t remember these guests in any way.

“To them, though, that meal is special, so you have to treat their experience the way they might see it. That’s how you look at your job.”

“What if you ruined this meal for them?” Frank continued. “All month, they look forward to the one night they get to go out, and do something special for the family. And you ruin it with your attitude, because they tipped you 4% percent less than you think you deserved.”

This responsibility isn’t a burden many servers carry on their shoulders. More often than not, they care little about the quality of food and even less about the quality of service. Their primary concern, at the end of their shift, is escaping with more money in their pocket than they came in with.

“That’s why you have to be different,” he said. “You have to care more. You have to know serving is not about you.”

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Last updated on March 26th, 2017 at 05:35 am

The giant textbook took up two tables – half of his, and half of the table to his right. He made enough room for his lunch after pushing aside the drinks menu and the soy sauce container: a beef teriyaki bento box, with shumai instead of harumaki, and sides of wasabi mayo and mustard. The cast iron teapot steeped the genmaicha. The warm bottle of sake rested by his left hand.

Joseph signaled for a second sake, and it was only as I poured his cup did a downwards glance catch the book’s color-illustrations: warriors in full-metal jackets resembling skirts, steep triangular helmets, halberds and katana.

I glimpsed the single-word title in the margin: Samurai.

With that, the entire scenario of this balding man, sipping his green tea over his bento box lunch coagulated like a specimen in a Petri dish, like déjà-vu after a handshake, or a certain smile. Joseph’s childhood was engrained by two events: the first, always the last man standing on the gymnasium hardwood, even after the girls. The second was the afternoons afterwards, which he spent absorbing kung fu movies and Samurai epics.

These afternoons spawned his interest in karate and Bushido, honor and seppuku, qi or chi or ki or whichever two letters are currently vogue. It turned him on to The Dao, The Way, The I-Ching, and its physical counterparts like gung fu or wing chun and jeet kun do.

He ate Pocky Sticks and top-shelf ramen.

He owned his own pair of chopsticks.

He even had a sushi making kit lying around somewhere in his apartment.

All thoughts and practices and products pulled from ideologies as different as Naruto and Ni-hao Kai Lan! but falling under the umbrella in his mind of “Asian;” this alluring culture and aesthetic where he discovered acceptance. Despite never having so much as an Asian pen pal, and the closest he’s been to the continent was Lee’s Market on Central Avenue. That made the feelings even more real, not less, however. Call it faith – to believe in something without having seen it. How else did he explain his draw to the culture and the people and their way of life? Or those feelings he harbored, in the darkest crevices of his heart, that he’d be so much happier if he were born Asian?

Of course, Joseph turned a blind eye to the discrimination Asians faced, the social stigmas and the rejection outside of watered-down, trendy ideologies of feng shui and chakra balancing and Chinese take-out boxes. He didn’t notice those lofty notions of pride, honor, and perpetual motion towards becoming a Zen creature being replaced by designer products: Mercedes-Benz and Rolexes and iPhones. He only saw what the tourist books and large textbooks about Samurai life wanted him to see: the mystery, the history, the high drama.

He even started falling in love with Asian women, every single one he passed by: wandering the stacks in the library, brushing close as he left the coffee shop, standing outside of the movie theater. They whisked away his heart with a single glance, like ninjas in the Tokugawa era. He felt she (and she and her and she) would understand him better than any woman ever would. He imagined he could tell her anything, and she’d cradle his face in her soft hands and tell him it’d be alright. He loved them for the thought of them; the thought of their long black hair, demure glances and soft voices, and the way he’d hold her close during cold nights. Don’t call it a fetish, either, because he was one of them – maybe not in his eyes, his skin color or the texture of his hair, but where it really mattered. In his heart, he was a Japanese warrior.

He raised the sake glass to his lips, and to his dismay, it was empty. He sighed, closed the textbook, and all those thoughts took flight again. He was back, sitting alone in the restaurant, plain old Joseph.

He struggled with his large, white hoodie, and shimmied it over his squat frame. He donned a white ski mask to cover his face, then pulled the hood tight over his head, shielding himself from the cold outside. The large book went into his bag, a green-nylon one, the kind female soccer players toted around during fall practice, and with an awkward swing, he secured it to his back.

Have a good day, I wished him as he left.

He pulled down the mask, revealing his puffy face. He thanked me. Then he said something in Japanese, and I could only smile back. In this area, few employees in a Japanese restaurant are actually Japanese. I considered telling him, to save him the trouble or embarrassment next time. But I held my tongue, afraid to break his heart.

Photo Credit: Eric Flexyourhead