It wasn't as much like a war as I thought it would be. I wrote a little bit each night.

Friday, the Opening Salvo

Valentine's day weekend begins today, as far as I am concerned. This morning I went to a couple of preschools before running some Valentine's day errands. My wife's chief critique so far has been that I have been somewhat last minute in my plans and gifts and lacking in imagination. She is probably right. This year I vowed to at least put some thought into my gifts. So last week I bought a few plain brown papier-mache boxes and I painted them pink and red and purple. Today I went to the local chocolate shop to put a few of my wife and kids' favorite chocolates in them. I guess a lot of people had the same idea because the parking lot was packed. I took one step in the door and was confronted with long, disneyland-esque lines. The only reason I stayed was because my wife liked a particular type of chocolate they made, otherwise I would have walked right back out the door. I opted to stay, counting 24 people ahead of me in my line. How long could it take? After 10 minutes and not a lot of movement, a lady who was paying at the counter looked at her cell phone and announced to the room that it had taken her one hour and twenty three minutes to make her purchase. I decided to stick it out for my wife and kids. Someone came around with samples. I waited. Someone had a violent sneezing attack. I waited. We were urged to move forward to make room for people who couldn't quite get in the door. I waited. 30 minutes in a large, sweaty man complained loudly and to no one in particular how his girlfriend always was on his case about how much time he spent at the gym, and he would be sure to let her know how much time he spent standing in line for her chocolate. (Nothing says "I love you," like a little bit of guilt with your heart shaped box of chocolate, I guess). Eventually he started talking with a bus driver next to him. We were all standing so close, no one had a choice but to listen to them. The bus driver used to be a truck driver, and so did the sweaty man, so they had a lot to talk about. I noticed the bus driver wore a black corduroy baseball hat (the kind with a little peak in the center you used to see in the early seventies and late eighties) and it said "Jack Daniels Old No.7 Field Tester" on it. It did not instill a lot of confidence in me as far as public transportation goes. One interesting fact I learned was that California was pretty high strung when it comes to requiring chains for cars and trucks, seemingly requiring them at the first threat of snow. The ex-driver said he never put them on himself because it was too hard (and he was a good 100 pounds overweight, too). Instead, he would hire a "chain monkey" to do it for him.

I spent the next 15 minutes imagining just what someone who worked as a chain monkey looked like. Probably a fairly swarthy guy with stooped posture and big forearms covered in coarse black hair. I imagined him draped in chains, like Marley's ghost in "A Christmas Carol," and smudged with truck grease. He would wear a baseball cap with a Marlboro logo on it, the cheap kind with vinyl backing, the kind the company gives away when you send in empty cigarette boxes to prove your loyalty to them. 3 days growth of whiskers on his face and maybe missing a tooth when he gave you his big, primate-like, smile.

I reached the front of the line. I bought a few more pieces than I had intended to just because I had waited so long (holiday spew, obviously). One of the flourescent lights was flickering above the counter, and it was seriously annoying, but must have been absolutely maddening for the employees, who were mostly older women. I overheard one say to another that a specialist from the local hospital had been in yesterday and said that it could have serious health consequences and asked her if she got headaches. I did not envy these women. The company was taking money in hand over fist today and all week, but they couldn't even replace a flourescent bulb. This is how companies just chew up and spit out their workforce, I guess. And these ladies don't get paid more when they are busy, they are all probably just sticking it out for minimum wage because they don't have enough money to retire yet. All the same, I recognized a little bit of myself in them and their working conditions, because I would be behind a counter facing untold masses of people for the rest of the weekend.

As it turned out, Friday night was not very bad at all. The management had added a bunch of small tables the night before to handle all of the extra business we will get from tables for two, and we are well staffed for the weekend, 20 servers and 4 bartenders, which helped relieve the glut of people milling around waiting for their table to be ready. I volunteered to handle the cocktail tables in the lounge and let my fellow bartenders handle the bar top and the service well. Cocktailing is usually the toughest job in the bar, and I wanted to set the tone for the weekend by jumping on the first grenade, so to speak. It was relatively easy though as there were fewer people having full dinners and more people just having a few appetizers. That also means less money, though, but I am sure the money will come tomorrow and the next day. The restaurant ends up serving a little over 400 entrees. Saturday we have 800+ people coming in, and Sunday we have reservations for 1200.

Saturday, the first wave

This morning I wake up to the sound of my kids pleading to my wife for candy. Yesterday my daughter came home with a bag full of Valentines and candy and they ate quite a bit. It is not even 9am and my wife is steadfast in her refusal. I am glad I went reasonably light at the candy store yesterday, but remember that I bought more than I should have all the same. I have breakfast with my wife, do the dishes, and get out to finish running my Valentines day errands. First I go to the drugstore to fill a prescription. While I am waiting I look for a few Valentine's day cards. They are outrageously expensive, and I need three. I opt for a 10 pack of blank cards with hearts on them in the Thank You card section a few aisles over for $4.95. When I pick up my perscription, the pharmacist asks me if I have heard about the game of life? It is an odd question to open with, but I answer, honestly, "no." She then launches into this 60 second spiel about a promotion they are running involving game pieces and scratchers and how I can win prizes and save money. I think it is kind of like McDonald's does a whole "Monopoly" themed contest to encourage us to eat more empty calories. "Would you like to start playing today?" she chirps. I say no thank you, pay, and leave, wondering if she thought she would be doing that sort of thing while she was in school studying to be a pharmacist.

Next I go to a Dim-sum restaurant called Imperial Seafood Restaurant. We tried it as a family a few weeks ago, and it was better than what we thought we would find out here in the suburbs. It has all the hallmarks of a good ethnic restaurant. Lots of Chinese people eating there, a Chinese language newspaper sold out front, and most of the ladies who push the carts around full of dumplings speak very little English. I get some of my wife's favorite pastries to go. I have to do it today so that tonight when I get home at 2am I can put it all out on the table--chinese pastries, chocolate, valentines--so it is ready for my family when they wake up. I am hoping they let me sleep in, but I want them to know that I am thinking of them on the special day. While I am waiting for the pastries, three high school aged kids walk in and ask for a table for 18 people. They have thick accents, but speak with the hostess in English, so I know they are not Chinese. When they start to speak amongst themselves in their native tongues, I believe them to be Malaysian, because they sound a lot like some exchange students that stayed with my family when I was in high school. They file in the door in groups of two and three. I see that they arrive in Lexuses and Land Rovers. It gets me thinking about America, how you have little pockets of different cultures rubbing elbows. Growing up, my family was very "American" in that we did all of the "Leave it To Beaver" type of things like playing baseball, eating Hamburgers, sitting down together as a family for dinner. We had students from Japan and sometimes Malaysia and once Belgium come and stay with us on a fairly regular basis, and I always thought they were so exotic and interesting. I want to do the same thing now that I have a family, but what will these students think? We go out to Dim-Sum, Thai food, Vietnamese food, cook a lot of Mexican food at home, and live in a fairly multi-cultural area. We seek out international cultures, to be honest. Would we seem less American than my family when I was growing up, I wonder? I was confronted with this all the time while living overseas, particularly in Europe. Everyone has an idea of what America is like, even if they have never been there. People told us all the time that we didn't seem like Americans. All the same, everything I witnessed today is undeniably American. I don't know, maybe it is just California and other parts of the country like the South and the Mid-West are different, but I doubt it. Or if it is different, it is changing. As I leave, I wonder if the Imperial Seafood Restaurant is expecting a Valentine's Day rush. Valentine's Day, or at least how we celebrate it, is very American.

We open a couple of hours earlier than normal to handle the crowd. The bar always starts a little slow on Valentine's day because it isn't people's first choice. When I get to work the bar is slowish but the restaurant is cranking. There are so many people prepping in the kitchen, people I have never seen before or rarely see, I can't believe it. There is food everywhere waiting to be cleaned, cut, cooked and served. Our Chef, a big barrel-chested guy, is in the zone on the line barking out numbers and calling for appetizers, and I decide I will spend the least amount of time in the kitchen as possible because I don't want to be in the way.

At 6pm we get hit in the bar. The bar top fills up and the tables in the lounge are full. The booths are by reservation only but there are 3 small high top tables that are first come first serve that people struggle to sit at the whole night. I am a little bit taken aback that so many people think they can just show up without a reservation and get a table in the main dining room on what is the busiest weekend of the year for restaurants, but then I remember about the holiday demographic. Many, if not most, of our guests on major holidays (valentine's day, Mother's day, Christmas Eve) don't actually go out to restaurants very often, and just don't have a sense of what to expect. Moreover there is a certain level of discomfort with going out to a fancy restaurant that I feel coming from them. And on Valentine's day, if there is any kind of question mark about their date, than it can make for a very awkward experience. Mainly I dealt with people at the bar top on Saturday, and I don't see many of our regs who know to stay away on crazy nights like these. The kitchen starts to strain around 7pm, but they hold together. I am super happy with how well all of the bartenders work together. We have worked together long enough where I sometimes feel like we are like one person, helping each other out and knowing instinctively when to cover for each other and pick up the slack when one of us is in the weeds. I am feeling done at 9pm, but we still have a long ways to go. I resist the urge to drink coffee and manage to struggle through until it dies down for good at 11pm. I finish cleaning and counting all of the cash, and our drawer is spot on, to the penny (we handle all of the cash transactions).

I leave at 1:30am, which is not bad. When I get home, everyone is fast asleep and the house is very quiet. I put all of the chocolates and chinese pastries out, scatter some rose petals and climb in bed, exhausted.

Sunday, Once More into the Breach

I wake up, literally, with a knee to the groin as my son jumps on top of me from the foot of the bed. He is only 2 years old, so it isn't as bad as it sounds. After a lot of laughing and wrestling in bed by the kids (I manage to sleep, somehow) my wife hustles them out of bed. When they discover the candy, I hear peals of laughter and "let's wake Daddy up!" We all eat chocolate for breakfast and it is really nice to be with my family. My wife likes what I did for her, the kids are ecstatic to be eating sweets so early in the day. I go back to bed at around 10:30 for a little more sleep. I wake up at noon to the smell of my wife cooking lunch, eat, and get ready for work. The whole time I am somewhat anxious. I don't have to be at work until 3pm, but I leave early because I just can't stay away. Maybe for minimum wage and a blinking flourescent light, I am not so motivated. It is the biggest day of the year, and I have to admit to myself that I like the rush of a busy restaurant. It is like crossing into an alternate universe going from the restaurant floor and into the kitchen, from calm to chaos. I listen to Mingus' "Hog Callin' Blues" on the way to work, which is currently my favorite piece of music. I force myself to read the paper at Starbucks to calm down a bit, and I nurse a double espresso. Things are mellow in the restaurant when I get there. Everyone is there, everyone, so we couldn't be better staffed. I jump out on the tables and right away develop some great rapport. The money comes at us in $30 and $40 dollar chunks, but all of the bartenders are relaxed. I don't know how I feel it, but at 6pm, I just know we are going to be spanked. It is like feeling the Earth vibrate ahead of the stampede's arrival. I pound another double espresso in preparation, and sure enough the bar fills up instantly. It is hard to walk through the crowd, but it is Valentine's day and everyone is in a good mood. Still the kitchen is straining to handle the flood of orders coming in, and the few times I head back there they are the busiest I have ever seen them. There is a palpable sense of panic that ebbs and flows throughout the night. Several times, I wonder if we will make it through the night without going down in flames. I am not affected by it so much at the lounge tables, and I make a very concerted effort to charm my guests and complement them on how nice they look in order to set the tone for their dinner, which will most likely come out a little on the slow side. It works and all my guests are in a good mood. Everyone wants me to take their picture at the table, and one couple looks so happy at one of the little high top tables, I can't believe it. They started eating their salads standing up and pounced on the table as soon as someone left. I think they must have sat there a good 5 minutes with their salads before I got a chance to wipe down the table and remove the beverage glasses from the previous occupants' meal. At the end of their meal I took their picture and you could tell by their smiles how in Love they were.

Which is the upside of my job, really. People come to celebrate important events in their lives--birthdays, anniversaries, holidays--and I get to be a part of it. The tables that came in after 10pm were a lot less happy, though, and I figure it is because they called too late to get a reservation at a decent hour. I receive 10% tips the rest of the night, which kind of blows, but like I said, they are mostly restaurant amateurs. One table thanked me profusely, said "God bless you," and said I made their night very special, and then left me $20 on a $220 check. They also took my pen. When we break the 1000 entree mark, the GM starts pouring everyone shots of Jack Daniels. He comes back for a bottle of Tequila for the guys in the kitchen. The two employees that don't drink requested I make them virgin strawberry daiquiris, which I do. My GM poured out shots last year, too, and it reminds me of sailors getting their ears pierced when they cross the equator. At midnight, I am done, physically. The other bartenders have restocked and gone, but the bar looks like a disaster. I clean the whole thing with some help from the bar back, and there are still tables in the restaurant up until 1am. I count several thousands of dollars worth of cash. We are $29 off, and I am disappointed in that. Still, my General Manager shakes my hand and tells me I did a great job, and this kind of compliment is fairly rare coming from him, so it means a lot. We serve 1008 entrees in total for the night, 7 more than last year. I think we have a shot at being number 1 in the company in that regard, but I won't know until later today.

I end up making more in the last two days than I ever had before, but I worked my ass off for sure. It is also hard for me to look at this as anything other than variance, because I know the summer will be slow. It is also hard for me not to look at the amount of tips I made as a decent winrate at 200nl over a 5k hand sample, which would be a preferable way to make that kind of money--less physically exhausting and more time with the family. I will start grinding the forums again on Wednesday and get back at it.

Play well. Do good work. Keep in touch.

PFJ