Eating Elephants

Back in September, on the 29th of a Tuesday evening, I swiveled into a chair of a restaurant that captivated me when I was but a mere teenager. I was two hours away from clocking out of what had been a very long 4 days and I wanted to jot down a few thoughts about the establishment that allowed me make a living, meager though it was.

Toast N’ Jams drew me in with its warmth, the vintage utensils that would hang up as displays throughout the building, the loud clanging of metal spatulas as they sprang to life against the flat top grills, and the cooks screaming out the waitresses names as loud as they possibly could. “Mirrrrrrranda!!! Your foods up honey!” Yes, that was Miranda with a long drawn out roll of rrr’s.

I never thought I would come to work at this breakfast restaurant. It was always one of my favorite breakfast places in town, occasionally stopping in with my mom or even by myself for a bite to eat or a cup of joe to fuel me up for the day ahead.

Back in June, when I was applying to jobs after getting fired from the J.W. Marriott, TnJ was one of only two, out of at least twenty places I applied to, that reached out to me about a position. When I first stopped in to inquire about a job, the restaurant manager told me that they weren’t exactly hiring at the moment but that they had my resume and would keep me in mind in the future. You know, the typical “Naw, get out of here stranger.” type of response when a hippy comes walking through the front doors asking about employment.

About 30 minutes later I received a call from a guy named Ryan, who is a cook at the restaurant, and he left me a voicemail asking me if I could come in for an interview. As soon as I heard the voicemail, I called him back and told him I could be there in 5 minutes. Yes, 5 minutes… I do after all live right across the street from the Jam of the Toast. It was crunch time baby! I was going on about a month and a half without a job and I was starting to contemplate what sort of bodily fluids I could donate just to make rent! I was getting desperate.

When I went in for the interview, I’m about 99.89 % sure the reason I got the call and eventually got the job, was because of my previous experience as a line cook at G&L Chili Dogs.

That, however, was when I was 18 years old and simply required an amount of currency that allowed me to purchase a cheap bottle of 5 O’Clock Vodka for the weekends with my friends. If you’ve not tried such a beverage, save your liver the trouble, it’s a terrible waist of $6.99.

At any rate, Ryan and I conversed about my experience as a line cook and he told me that they had a few cooks from G&L that worked at Toast, so I would fit right in. Oh what a comfort.. I was asked when I could start and my immediate response was that I could be there tomorrow if they needed me.

So with that, I was slapping around in the dark at 7:00 a.m. the next day, searching for the snooze button on my phone that so rudely notified me it was time to wake up and clock in to my new job.

My first few shifts at the restaurant were pretty casual. Learning the ropes, the menu, and essentially just trying to reach back into the recesses of my mind on what it is to be a line cook once more. Truthfully, it wasn’t something I thought I would be doing again; cooking. It can be incredibly stuffy in the confines of a kitchen, not to mention, hot and greasy. Like I said before, desperate.

After a couple weeks of working there, I had really begun to question how in the hell did my life bring me to this moment in time? It was as if I couldn’t find my footing and my confidence might as well have been the hundreds of eggs that are cracked and slid into the grease trap because they were cooked for about 5 seconds too long

The cooks work in pairs: one usually operating the meat side of the grill while the other operates the egg side. In my third week on a job of self deprecating thoughts and a rapidly deflating ego, the very individual who called me in for an interview and essentially got me the job in the first place, had had it with me, and I with him.

At the start of the shift, I could feel that his energy seemed to be placed in a spot of annoyance and it felt particularly directed at me. Naturally, I felt a bit unnerved, making mistakes left and right, trying to keep some distance between the two of us which is damn near impossible to do when cooking with someone.

Eventually, Ryan and I got after one another; he telling me that I had no sense of urgency and that I wasn’t reading the tickets correctly. Me trying to defend myself by telling him that I would get the hang of it but it wasn’t going to be in the first three weeks.

Obviously, we both needed some air before one of us strangled the other. Ryan went outside to smoke a cig and I went outside in search of a hint of the natural world so that I could possibly self soothe a bit and decide whether or not this was worth it.

The way I saw it, there were two paths directly in front of me:

1.) I could say fuck all this bother and I could quit right then and there.

2.) I could take a moment to calm down and then walk back inside and get back to work.

I chose the latter of the two and the first thing I said when I walked back inside was “How can I help?”. I cooked for the rest of the day and at the end of it, I went and helped our dish washer finish out his shift.

Side note: In my opinion, the dishwasher of a busy restaurant has one of the most unglamorous jobs in the industry, but that position acts as the beating heart of the establishment, allowing everyone else to carry about their tasks.

From that day forward, I began to really earn my stripes in the restaurant. My manager stopped scheduling me shifts as a cook and allowed me to expand on some traits that didn’t exactly need any fine tuning.

I’ve provided assistance to the dishwashers, I’ve helped the prep cooks in the back of the house, I’ve bussed tables and ensured that the servers had what they needed to seat customers and get food to them in a timely manner. I have and still do, float for the cooks on busy shifts. I have even done a few slower shifts cooking again and actually enjoyed the process of making food for people. All these jobs that I was being set upon, gifted me with the knowledge of the organization that is Toast N’ Jams. It allowed me to see how everything unfolded and more importantly, it got me interacting with everyone that worked there.

There’s something that an old work mate of mine and I talked about years ago that sticks with me, especially as it pertains to the workplace. It is a quote from Russell Crowe’s ‘The Gladiator’ and it goes a little something like this; “win the crowd, win your freedom.” The philosophical debate about that quote ensued for about an hour as we shuffled parts along in a luxury furniture shop.

There is no value that can be placed upon gaining the favor as well as the trust of your peers and workmates alike.

I also forgot to mention one more environmental characteristic that comes with working in the restaurant industry. It might just be the differentiator between making it or crashing and burning as the plates come clattering to the ground around you. EVERYONE IS OUT TO BUST EACH OTHERS BALLS!! The phrase “if you can’t take the heat then stay out of the kitchen” has countless meanings, more so than the physical heat of working in a kitchen

What began as visceral animosity between two individuals slowly progressed into two grown ass, straight, idiot men calling each other “honey” or “pumpkin”, with a wink and a smile, merely as a means of jesting with one another.

I can comfortably say that I’ve earned the trust and respect of everyone in the restaurant, which has in a sense, allowed me to kind of call my own shots.

I requested from my manager that I only work 3 or 4 days in the week but on the days that I do work, it’s long hours so that I can still come close to 40 hours every week. She granted me the request and entrusts me the responsibility of being alone in the restaurant, often in the late hours of the evening.

This allows me more time to spend outside wandering through the woods, going out on bike rides, writing, and practicing my guitar; all of which are incredibly vital to the well being of who I am as an individual.

The truth is, I’m not entirely sure why this is where my path has taken me for the time being. Yet, the cluelessness of foresight into a future which we cannot fathom is exactly what makes being alive SO, DAMN, BEAUTIFUL!

I’m grateful that I have a job and although the margins of income are tight which apply pressure on me to be frugal with my finances, I never required a lot to make it in the first place. I’m grateful that my boss allows me the schedule that I have. I’m grateful that it’s enough to pay the rent and put food on my table.

It’s not how I imagined my life would look at 31, but things rarely ever go according to plan in this great ‘roll of the dice’ that we call living.

So, here’s to not giving up. Here’s to walking back through those doors and asking the question “How can I help?”