Pride and nemesis
A cook, a Slut, and an egomaniac walk into a bar…..
Do you ever wonder why Yelpers are so angry all the time? Why a bad dining experience can ruin your day worse than waiting in line at the DMV, or having a root canal? Have you ever seen (or been) that guy standing in the middle of a bar, berating the motherless whore who overcooked your steak? It’s just food right?
Wrong. You may think you’re exchanging legal tender for wholesome nourishment, but the truth is that a restaurant exists solely to provide its’ guests with a pleasurable experience through food, drink, and service. Going out to eat is an act of micro-hedonism. And so a bar becomes a petri dish of deadly sins: pride, envy, wrath, gluttony, lust, sloth, and greed festering together like bacteria on an old sweaty jock strap. Taken in small doses, such a toxic environment can be downright fun – I find a few dollars, a couple extra pounds and a mild hangover a small price to pay for the kind of emotional release a night out can provide. But too much of a good thing will probably kill you, and since they don’t make haz-mat suits to protect against fun, it’s restaurant workers who are left chronically infected with the disease of pointless overindulgence.
Gluttony comes first, especially evident in newbie bartenders tempted to drink almost as much as they pour. Envy happens when one begins to resent the direct correlation between how much your patron is enjoying himself and how hard you have to work. Greed is when you lose sight of what your job description is, and begin to feel entitled to good tips simply for the act of existing, like that time a (slothful) bus boy went crazy and barricaded himself in a bathroom with a night’s worth of my cash, prompting a very dramatic visit from the police and twelve hours of my life represented in lost personal revenue. Lust gets a bad rap. Wrath is a by-product of the energy needed to sustain the intense patience required to excel in customer service.
Then there’s pride. A restaurant is an unlikely place to find such an abundance of pride, simply because there is no meaningful work being done there. The servile nature of the job fosters a sense of superiority in a bar’s patrons, and the pity they feel (subconscious or otherwise) is difficult to sustain in the face of a server’s self-pride. My work ethic, and subsequent pride, is viewed by many people as pointless, laughable, and sort of embarrassing. It is precisely these reasons that pride exists in restaurants: as an antidote to the banal, menial work that would otherwise drive a person to lose her mind. It is a motivating factor in completing the same redundant, demeaning, Sisyphean labor day-in and day-out. I may be a dishwasher, thinks the dishwasher, but I am king of the fucking dishwashers. I am kicking dishwashing ass. Good things, like clean dishes, are the end product. When pride and boredom had a baby, they named it mixology.
A good restaurant manager knows the importance of this pride, and is effective in gently nurturing it. A food runner who is praised for being efficient and is made to feel part of a team will work harder and steal less than one who is treated like a dog with no brains. Being recognized for a job well done, and feeling – not indispensable – but valued, increases personal productivity, and at no extra cost! A small kindness from a boss, or a peer, can go a long way in staving off the inherent feeling of hopelessness that comes with dedicating yourself to a job that has absolutely no purpose.
Having sang pride’s praises, let us not forget to address the secondary facet of this emotion: hubris. It is the blinding narcissism associated with this type of pride that makes it so destructive, and everyone who has ever worked in a restaurant has been on the receiving end of the rage that comes from hubris: bosses, coworkers, and customers are equally adept at doling it out. To which I say to you, humble plebs: maintain your dignity, pour yourself a drink, keep your head down and work hard: you may not have wealth, but you have worth.
