Said biz is most definitely crazy, but if you eat in restaurants that have servers, know that your server could be an honest, upstanding college kid who's sober as a judge and is putting themselves through medical school and could conceivably one day operate on your brain. You might not want to piss him or her (or LBGTQ, etc. or whatever it's PC to say these days) off too much.
Having said that, your server is quite a bit more likely to be a freewheelin', free-thinkin' and free-imbibin' person who marches to the beat of his or her (or LGBTQ, etc.) own drum. I don't know of any restaurants (at least not the corporate ones) that drug-test, and I'm cracking up right now at the thought. There'd be very few people to hire. Artists, musicians, aspiring whatevers, freaks, Generation Whichevers, nightowls, flexible-schedulers and the like, yes; God bless 'em, but lots of potential employees that can ace a drug test...maybe not so much. I can say that most of them are really good people though. Interesting too, to say the least.
I know some people who work in a 4* restaurant we'll call "Eats" for the purpose of this post. Once again as in most restaurants not everyone partakes of alcohol and/or substances, but the majority favors one or more "mother's little helpers" from time to time, if not all the time. These guys don't really go for the "stupid drugs" like meth or heroin, but every other category of substance, even a little toot, is well-represented. During office hours though they mostly stick to a drink or a happy pill here or there. A few of the servers smoke but that's mainly the kitchen staff's territory. As far as availability goes, let's just say that if you're looking to score dope, a restaurant is a very good place to start.
Unless the owner is staunchly anti-drug or something like that, the cooler becomes the defacto smoking parlor of choice. It's a great place to get away from the madness and chill for a minute, and since the air is constantly being drawn from the room the rest of the place generally doesn't fill up with wacky smoke. True to form the good folks at Eats used the cooler for more than chilling things. So much so in fact that the occasional waft of smoke made it to a few of the more discerning customers' noses. Another issue is that the kitchen area along with the cooler is clearly visible from the bar and about a third of the tables. Some of the customers began to notice that some of the employees would drift in and out of the cooler, and seem to stay long enough to catch cold, and would often walk back out with nothing in their hands but a smile on their faces; not to mention the aroma of burning rope mixing with the heavenly scents of Chilean Sea Bass and the like.
After a number of comments from customers; mostly friendly but possibly a few not so much, the mgm't decided to designate the cooler as a no-smoking zone. The new policy was passed down orally at first but no one took it seriously and they continued to spark-up in the cooler. One night a jovial, loaded gentleman sitting at the bar noticed the monkey business in the cooler and made a clearly-audible comment about it. I wish I could remember what he said because it was hilarious but it was enough to make mgm't put its foot down. They installed a new policy where the first offense was a week's vacation and the second offence was termination. That seemed to get everyone's attention.
I figured they'd need a sign to mark the new policy so I made the one you see here. It made the policy changes clear and I thought the skull-and-crossbones was a nice touch. My sign didn't get used. I don't know if it's because it never made it to them or if they took issue with my extrapolating and taking the liberty of saying that it was still okay to smoke, as long as they did it in the parking lot. Anyway I thought it was sorta funny but then I'm easy like that. I thought it would especially benefit any newbies or anyone who might have gotten so high before they got to work that they forgot about the changes, and believe me it happens.
As an aside...speaking of getting high before work, I have to tell on myself, and in my defense this was waaaay back in the day when I was in my early 20s. I'd do as many bongs as I could possibly do before I left for work at the crazy, wonderful restaurant I worked at forever. For even most hardcore smokers, about 7-8 rippers is plenty. I'd try for fifteen. The ride to work was every bit of two miles; mostly along one road and with only three or four turns between my apt and it; depending on whether I parked in front or back. Halfway there I'd quite literally forget what part of town I was in or what road I was on or where I was going or why I was going there. Many days I'd be too high to talk to anyone for at least half an hour, and generally that was respected. Almost without fail I'd get to work at least half an hour early anyway; mostly because I knew at least one or two other people would be late from being hungover or sleeping late or whatever, and I wanted to make sure everything was set up. It also made up for the half-hour I was unable to speak. It wasn't that I was too stoned to work. I was too stoned to talk.
It wasn't that I was unfriendly or antisocial or anything. I was just so fucking stoned I might as well have been on the Moon, so everybody left me alone until I came down enough to be just ordinarily stoned as shit but I could speak again. Ha ha...don't speak until spoken to. The truth is, as cool as the place was and as nice as the vast majority of customers were and as much as it was really like a family, and one that actually liked each other and even hung out outside of work, it was still hectic as hell most of the time, and I credit reefer for at least half the reason I could do it for over fifteen years. The irony is that most servers whether they imbibe or not can handle a cocktail or two before a shift, which I absolutely couldn't do, but most servers wouldn't consider smoking before work. There's so much to remember all at once, and lots of people were afraid to even think about doing it.
I totally get that but I'd been trying to do little exercises here and there to improve memory and observational skills and such, and a childhood tradition came into play. There was a barbecue restaurant called Ollie's that was in business for many years. Most all of the servers in the early days were sweet black women. When they took the orders they didn't write a single thing down. They didn't even have a pad and pencil in their hand. As a kid I was impressed by that and I told myself that if I ever worked in a restaurant myself one day that's what I'd do too. And I did. Any tables up to six people I never wrote anything down, and there were a lot more options to remember that "Pork or beef...chopped or sliced...regular or jumbo...fries?' There'd be drink orders, salads, entrees, desserts, after-dinner drinks and whatnot; not to mention any and all special requests, because after all, special orders didn't upset us, and I didn't write a thing down until I went back to the bar and wrote everything down fast as fuck while I could still remember it. It impressed quite a few people like it did me as a kid. And remember...I was stoned as a house 99.9% of the time.
Anyway I digress, but anyone who may have waited tables might find that interesting. I bet most of them never smoked pot before a shift. Eats didn't use my sign. I'm glad to have it in a bittersweet way. It's a reminder of a perplexing relationship that recently ended after a very long time. "Funny" wins big time, and if I can get a cheap frame for it I'll probably hang it up. I think most people would think it's hilarious. My bedroom is decorated nicely but my bathroom is decorated as if it could be anyone from a juvenile to a collector of quirky photos and drawings to, well...a juvenile, but there are a few things there that might be nice to a woman's eyes; should I ever be granted the pleasure of hanging out with another one. I do have some really nice photos and artwork but some of it is kid stuff. Who cares? Might as well lean toward young as old.
One more side thing before I go. If I were king I'd make everyone of legal age wait tables for three months, and I'm not kidding. You learn to deal with people with at least some respect (whether you want to or not) and that applies to assholes too, and if you get good at it you can show total respect while letting them know at the same time that they indeed are being assholes, without stooping to their level and doing nothing except perpetuating a fight. I came up with many "restaurantisms" as it were but the best as far as dealing with rude people and being able to get just under the threshold of no longer completely showing respect to the asshole, was a saying I came up with when dealing with people asking "Is our food ready?" which is probably the single most common question in the biz. I wanted to say: "Does it LOOK like your food is ready? Do you see me holding it? Good food takes a bit. When your food is good and fucking ready I'll have it out to you with the fucking quickness and before you can say 'I was an asshole.'" But no, I held in that urge, and I'm kidding of course; I didn't get that annoyed by it.
Instead of being obviously rude but still pushing it as far as I could, I'd reply: "Ma'am (or Sir, or LGBTQ, etc), the Health Department insists that we fully cook your meal before we serve it to you." I can't remember a single time when that didn't silence even the loudest asshole, and usually everyone else at the table would look at them like, "Asshole!" It was great. Luckily our policy was "The customer is usually right," and the management would go to bat for us if a customer got too out of hand. Again it was rare there but it did happen, and I'm totally serious that everyone should experience waiting tables. If you should happen to decide to wait tables for a fortnight or so just as a lark or God forbid, to learn how better to deal with people in just about every frame of mind (and that includes you too), I definitely wouldn't recommend getting high on weed, unless you have memory of steel or you're an idiot-savant or whatever like me. In fact my attorney advises me to say at this time: (NOTICE) I do not endorse the use of ANY substance at ANY time for ANY reason by ANYONE. Clear? Have a nice day.
This has been another rambling blog post, although it's actually a public-service announcement for the 1,000th of 1% of people who would actually see the validity in learning how to wait tables for a month or two. The sign is funny to me anyway and I'd like to get a frame for it. Friends don't let friends wait tables stoned. Also, if you must try to score drugs, a restaurant is safer than the streets. I've met people who basically bus tables or whatever just to support their habits. For the record though, you really can make very good money waiting tables if you're at least decent at it, but it definitely takes a certain mindset and skill set. Both are worth learning. Don't forget to tip your server. Have a nice day.
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