I never said I was the Dalai f*cking Lama...

When an ordinary waiter attains knowledge, he is a sage. When a sage attains understanding, he is an ordinary waiter. Both have to tip out the bar.

-Zen and the Art of Waitering

I asked my friend Peter a couple of weeks ago what he thought of my recent blog post, and he replied by saying that he liked it (at least, that's how I'm choosing to remember it), but that it was similar to some of my other posts in the past in that a) it was fairly negative, and b) I sounded really, really bitter. My response: "I never said I was the Dalai f*cking Lama." My attempt with this blog has always been to relate the challenges this somewhat bizarre profession throws up against me, and my attempts to navigate those challenges - hopefully growing and/or learning something along the way. To that end (or, more truthfully, calling me on my bullsh*t), Peter challenged me to write a positive blog entry next time - so that's what this (hopefully) will be.

One of the most crucial aspects with any practice, be it spiritual, sports, music, whatever, is to make notes of your improvements along the way. We're going to fall short of our ideals - that's why it's a practice. But occasionally though, there are some markers along the way. Some recent ones for me...

A little while ago, one of my co-workers asked me how my night was going: if I was making decent money, how my tips were, etc. I paused to respond, and realized I had absolutely no idea. I had no idea what my sales were, I had no idea what my tips had been like, I hadn't been paying attention to any of those things at all. I was just going through my night, providing service, navigating the waters, and taking in whatever I got. This is not the norm; usually, if you were to ask me that question, my response would have been something like, "Pretty good, I'm at about $850/ $875 in sales right now, gotten some pretty decent tips - couple of $15 on $70s, mostly 18-20%, but this one table, uch, they left me $15 on $125; and I ran my ass off for them - how hard is it to leave 15%?!" But that night, and really, almost every night since then, I just haven't cared. It doesn't matter. Keeping track of those things in no way, shape, or form helps me to do my job any better - if anything, it lessens my effectiveness because I'm steaming about a 10% tip or how crappy my sales are or whatnot.

Another example: just this past Sunday I was working a dinner shift and had an extremely slow start. The server I was relieving was keeping all of her tables, which then proceeded to camp out, so it was about an hour before I got my first table. After that, some of the tables from my section were removed to give to another server for a party he was working (this actually happened on two sides of me simultaneously, basically halving my section to just two tables). In the past my normal reaction would have been to immediately start bitching ("G-damnit, it's hard enough to make money here without losing half my section..." etc, etc). But I didn't. I didn't care. I was able to look past the immediacy of the moment and just accept and allow what the restaurant was giving me, trusting that it would probably even out in the end. Sure enough, because of the way the parties had played out my neighbors on both ends ending up giving me a 5 and a 6 top respectively, so for the next turn I was running three 6-tops and a 5 (translation for non-waiters: Good money). The point being, I was able to look past the immediacy of the moment (I'm getting screwed) and just trust the universe to deliver on its own timetable.

The last thing I'll mention is a bit of satori I experienced a while back, and have gratefully been able to call upon regularly since then ("satori" is a Buddhist term meaning "a sudden flash of insight or awakening"). Have you ever had a dream where you became lucid in the middle of it? As in, you woke up in the dream, were able to look around and realize, "Oh, hey, I'm dreaming. None of this is real"? The same thing happened to me at work. The kitchen was running long on ticket times, I was running around looking for serving spoons or something and, just as I was starting to get all worked up about it, it suddenly occurred to me that absolutely none of this really mattered. None of this was actually "real" in the sense of being the least bit important; certainly not in the Big Picture, but also not in any Picture beyond that brief turn of tables. Aside from just saying "It's only food," I actually believed it. I'm not sure how or why that finally sunk in, I'm just grateful it did.

Okay, glad that's done. Back to being bitter.

Being weeded is a choice...

When you are rushed you must slow down. When you are pressed you must pause. Weeded is a state of mind.

-Zen Master Ichi

♦

Table 31 is being sat, food is arriving at 25. Dessert will be coming out shortly for table 32 and the leftovers from their main course have yet to be boxed and their table reset (let alone have been offered coffee). Most egregious of all, it has been almost 10 minutes and still no sign of drinks for 24.

It is easy to become overwhelmed; to feel as helpless in the onslaught of these tasks as if staring into the face of an approaching tsunami. If you allow yourself, you will be destroyed. But the choice to succeed or fail is yours to make.

The apprentice cries, “Master, it is not my fault; there is too much for me to do at once!” And indeed, you are correct: there is too much to be accomplished at once. Even the great waiter Sanyo, who would run three six-tops and a party of twelve Russians without batting an eye, would be unable to accomplish all such tasks at one time. The solution lies solely in a shift in perception – whereas the apprentice will feel as if drowning in a sea of demands, the master sees not one overwhelming force but a series of individual tasks which, when taken one at a time, can be surmounted. The most important thing to remember when faced with such an onslaught is to maintain your calm. Slow down, even though the natural inclination is to hurry. Do not tally, but do not rush. The guest will sense your distress and will become worried that their meal is in jeopardy. This is the Sixth Noble Truth: If you appear in control, the guest will assume that you are in control, and will be more inclined to wait without griping. Understand that the guest dines in a constant, subconscious state of near-panic - if anything is the least bit askew, they assume the worst. Show no weakness in front of the guest. As long as you maintain the appearance of calm, the guest will take waiting in stride.

♦

Do not be afraid to ask one of your fellow waiters (or, may the heavens forbid, a manager) for help. It is the wise man who knows he cannot run a restaurant by himself and enlists others for aid - do not allow pride to take over and so detract from the guest’s experience. There is always a point where you are free to help and your co-worker is being slaughtered as the spring lamb, and vice-versa. It is said that during the time of the Xang dynasty, waiters were so wise and learned that they freely and actively gave aid to one another, often pointedly seeking to do so. Seers declare that when all waiters return to this discipline, a new golden age will begin.

♦

Sometimes people just have to wait. Do what you can: ask for help, consolidate your steps, but in the end there is only so much even the gods can do. Accepting limitations is an important part of growth. Often we become stressed or agitated; as the chattering mind thinks that somehow this means you are “doing” something about it, something productive. It cannot abide relaxing, because it is convinced this means you are giving up. Indeed you are giving up - you are giving up the illusion of control. Being upset or stressed does not make the kitchen move faster nor does it make you any more able to do your job; if anything, it lessens your effectiveness. So relax. Be the calm in the eye of the storm. This understanding applies to all things. It is a sad truth that the busier one is, the less money one receives. The secret: do not be busy. As Lao Tzu wrote, “Nature does not hurry, yet everything is accomplished.” When facing an onslaught of tasks, become as nature.

♦

Slow down, maintain calm

Being weeded is a choice

So do not choose it

-Zen and the Art of Waitering

When it rains, it pours

There is something to be learned from a rainstorm. When meeting with a sudden shower, you try not to get wet and run quickly along the road. But doing such things as passing under the eaves of houses, you still get wet. When you are resolved from the beginning, you will not be perplexed, though you will still get the same soaking. This understanding extends to everything.

--Hagakure: The Book of the Samurai

*

When you can do nothing, what can you do?

--Zen Koan

For the past few months or so work has been, to put it bluntly, an absolute sh*t show. Labor cuts, lack of supplies, problems in the kitchen, new staff, and just general all-around mismanagement have combined to create a work environment where just getting through an average shift – I don't even want to talk about Friday through Sunday – requires a Herculean effort for what is an increasingly Sisyphean task. I can pretty much count on something going wrong – a late ticket, a missing entree, something made wrong, getting weeded because I'm stuck waiting on the bakery – at least once a turn, and it's often left me feeling like I'm keeping my station from collapsing into pure chaos on the strength of will alone.

I try to hold fast to a general rule, which is that unless I'm doing anything about a situation – in this case, looking desperately for a new job so I can get the hell off of this sinking ship before it fully capsizes – I have absolutely no right to complain. I've written before about the allure of complaining; how addictive it can be and how inescapable it seems on any given shift (like moths to a flame, so are servers to bitching). The truth is, there's definitely a small rush that comes from letting loose in a full-on bitch session. Not just the energy of the anger but also a temporary (and completely illusory) feeling of power; some scrap of control over a situation where you are, in reality, totally powerless. But it's an inherently negative energy; as good as it may feel at the time, engaging in it always seems to leave me feeling drained, exasperated and, ultimately, defeated.

When it comes down to it, I can't make sure we have enough trays or steak knives or whatever it is in stock – all I can do is let a manager know when we don't have what we need (and continue to let them know, over and over). I can't make the kitchen not have 30-minute ticket times, I can just send my food as fast as possible and course a lot tighter than I normally would (translation for non-waiters: send the dinner order five minutes after I send the appetizer order). And I can't do anything about having to work with a glut of green servers with little to no experience, all I can do there is to offer my help and to make a (strongly) concerted effort to not be as condescending and bitter as possible.

Like so much in life, it just comes down to acceptance, time and time again. The above quote from the Hagakure is one of my all-time favorites, because it really does extend “to everything.” Right now when I go into work most nights, odds are it's going to be a rainstorm. I can attempt to run and duck under the eaves of houses all I want, but I'm still going to get soaked. Or, I can walk calmly and peacefully through the storm: still drenched, but at least with some small measure of serenity.

"It's only food, it's only food, it's only food..."

Above all, remember the Seventh Noble Truth: It is only food. When you feel rage beginning to surface or exasperation threatening to submerge you, repeat this again and again. Let it be your mantra. It is only food. It is only food. It is only food. This applies to all areas.

--Zen and the Art of Waitering

*

Remembering that I’ll be dead soon is the most important tool I’ve ever encountered to help me make the big choices in life. Because almost everything — all external expectations, all pride, all fear of embarrassment or failure – these things just fall away in the face of death, leaving only what is truly important. Remembering that you are going to die is the best way I know to avoid the trap of thinking you have something to lose. You are already naked. There is no reason not to follow your heart.

--Steve Jobs

The above quote is from a commencement speech address Steve Jobs gave to the Stanford graduating class of 2005 (like me, Steve Jobs is a college dropout. Unlike me, Steve Jobs is worth $6.1 billion). In it, Jobs reflects on his decision to follow the path less chosen, the blessing in disguise of being fired by the company he co-founded (in the interim, he founded Pixar studios and created the technology that would be at the heart of Apple's late 00's renaissance), and his brush with cancer, an event that would forever change his perspective on what matters in life. Far from being depressing or nihilistic, being ever mindful of one's own mortality is an amazingly positive and transformative tool. There's a thousands-years-old practice of Buddhist corpse meditation where you literally meditate on yourself become a corpse: the body bloating with gas, maggots eating your flesh, decomposing into the earth, the bones eventually turning to dust, etc. Practiced regularly, it greatly helps to establish a clarity about priorities in life and keep things in their true perspective.

Navigating life effectively for me really is all about perspective, and it's certainly not something that comes easily or naturally. My natural instinct is to be constantly caught up in the crisis of the moment, usually freaking out to varying degrees about 30-minute ticket times or misrun food or whatever particular nonsense is going on during that turn of tables. Stepping back from that immediate "worm's -eye view" not only helps to facilitate peace in an otherwise frustrating and stressful situation, it also has the added benefit of increasing my effectiveness. Trying to keep in mind that “is is only food” helps you to detach from the situation, and detaching from the situation leads to less wasted energy and a much more efficient use of your time and resources. It's a vastly better way of doing things than running around like a maniac swearing under your breath (or swearing loudly and pointedly, as I have also been guilty of).

From my friends in the white-collar world, or with parenting, or just life goals in general, I know that perspective can be a sticky issue for all of us. We get so used to putting out those fires that are right in front of us that those big things, the really important things, those never get done. If you spend all your time responding to the emails and the phone calls of whatever crisis is going on right now you'll never have the time or energy to work on the larger, more important projects, let alone the even larger (and much more important) life goals. I don't know if it's a function of our evolutionary design, or the pressures of the modern world, but with each new problem that comes along that's all we can see. For that period of time, that specific problem becomes our entire world. And, of course, there's always another problem right behind that. When you are driven only by the crisis of the moment, you have no power to move and shape your life, your life moves and shapes you – and then you tend to end up wherever momentum has carried you.

Seeing things from that whole-life perspective not only clarifies personal priorities, it severely alters how we interact with each other. When you know that not only you are going to die, but the people around you are too, resentments and petty disputes, and even long standing bitterness, tend to just fall away. As a society we are unfortunately locked in a perpetually short-sighted perspective, and it's looking more and more to me like it's going to lead us to disaster. Industry only cares about the next fiscal quarter and government only cares about the next election cycle, so anything that could be remotely detrimental to profit in the short term or temporarily unpopular never gets done. The Native Americans used to adhere to a seven-generation philosophy for their tribal government – namely any action had to be judged on how it would effect the lives of the tribe seven generations into the future. If we started applying that kind of wide-ranging perspective to our society, I wonder what kind of world we would create?

A Parable

Nan-in, a Japanese master server during the Meiji era (1868-1912), received a university professor who came to inquire about Zen.

Nan-in served iced tea. He poured his visitor's cup full, and then kept on pouring.

The professor watched the overflow until he no longer could restrain himself. "It is overfull. No more will go in!"

"Like this cup," Nan-in said, "you are full of your own opinions and speculations. How can I show you Zen unless you first empty your cup?"

“You idiot!” cried the professor. “You got iced tea all over me! You’re going to pay for my dry cleaning.”

Moral: It does not matter how enlightened you are; as a server you are still subject to those who are not.

To avoid killing your guests, envision them as already dead.

If you wish to enter the mindset of the guest, it is crucial that you understand that the guest does not see you as an actual human being. This is the Second Noble Truth of Service. If you were to press the guest on the question of whether or not the person in front of them was a living, breathing individual - one with his own life and cares, tragedies and triumphs - they would of course concur but, truthfully, only after some consideration. The default attitude of the guest is simply to see you as a means of conveyance - a conduit of their food and drink from the ether to the table. Do not take this personally. It is simply the nature of things. Would you take it personally if a scorpion were to sting you? It is the nature of the scorpion to do so - just as it is the nature of the guest to have the self-centeredness and self-importance of a two-year-old.

*

To avoid killing your guests, envision them as already dead.

*

When we look at the world around us, very rarely do see things as they truly are. What we usually see is a conglomeration of images, assumptions and categorizations made by the mind. In other words, we don't usually see reality but rather our ideas about reality. For prehistoric man this was no doubt a helpful adaptive trait; it's much more useful to see lion = danger/run & hide, then to see the complex interplay of past and present, environment, ecosystem and co-dependent arising that is the actual "lion" (and I have to put "lion" in quotes because we're still just talking about an agreed-upon concept. In Reality, this thing called "lion" is actually its mother and its father, and the antelope it eats, and the water it drinks, and the earth, and the sun and the air and the entire universe itself. Again, not really useful when you're running for your life).

We do this every day, especially in the myriad of social interactions that make up life in the Industrialized World of the 21st century. When you check out at the grocery store, or get on the bus, or order a drink at the bar, your mind is constantly sorting and categorizing, putting everything and everyone you see into neat little organizable boxes. You might see Black Guy, or Gay Guy, or Hot Chick, or Zitface, or Bum, or even Slightly Surly Indie Coffeehouse Barista and Thinks He's So Cool Hipster DBag etc, etc. It's immensely rare that we look past our first impressions to the actual flesh and blood human being beneath (mainly because it'd be pretty hard to get anything done). So it should come as no surprise that guests do this all the time with their servers, and we do it all the time with them.

All this may make our social interactions slightly more efficient, but it has the added cost of fostering and supporting misunderstandings and prejudice. It's the dirty little secret of the service industry that a lot of us have some not so nice assumptions about our clientele based on things like race, and nationality, and class, and many servers do allow this to affect their service and their attitude. Of course, when a server approaches a table with a preconditioned hostility the guest is usually going to pick up on it - at least subconsciously - no matter how well the server thinks they are hiding it. Then the guest has some hostility in response - again, maybe just subconsciously - which the server picks up on, which only serves to "confirm" the original bias. I can't tell you how many times I've heard a server say "I can't believe I have to deal with these [fill in the blank]; they want all these refills and extra sauces and all this stuff - I know they're not going to tip me anything, so I'm sure not going to hurry at all. They can wait." And then, after the bill is paid, "See, they stiffed me! What'd I tell you?!" The worst example of this was when I overheard a server say that a table had accidentally left a fifty dollar bill with the check where they clearly meant to leave a twenty (and he still had a chance to correct the mistake before they left). The thing is, the twenty would have made it a clear 20% tip and when I asked him if he didn't feel guilty taking advantage of someone who was nice enough to leave him a good tip in the first place, he responded, "Oh, those people screw me over all the time. It's about time I got something back." And by "those people" he didn't mean the four-top he had just waited on.

What's the solution? Our brains just so naturally default to putting people in boxes. For my part, I really try to be mindful when approaching a table, to be aware of how my mind is instantly sizing them up and try to replace that with at least an understanding of them as an actual person. It's especially hard when a guest is rude, to not immediately think "rich pr*ck" or "stuck-up _____" etc, instead of looking through that to see someone who themselves may be hurting, or unhappy, or had a really bad day or maybe even a bad childhood. Maybe they are being a jerk right now, or self-centered, or demanding, but they also were once an innocent, smiling one-year old. At some point in their life they too have suffered tragedy and loss - they've had or will have a loved one die, and they themselves will face sickness and death. They have known fear, and sadness, and disappointment, as well as joy and love. That is not to say we allow ourselves to be doormats, or continue to put up with unacceptable behavior, but that we look through that to the flawed and fragile human being that lies beneath.

In Memoriam...

Prepare yourself physically and mentally for the task ahead. If you have not slept or eaten properly (or are hung over) you will surely suffer. Draw your focus to your breath. Attune your senses into the now. A waiter must be quick but not frenzied; calm, yet alert. If you have any problems outside of work that is where you must leave them; in service, as in war, grief has no place on the battlefield.

*

One of my friends, and coworkers, passed away last month. It was completely out of the blue; he had been having some medical problems - serious, but not terminally serious - but was out of the hospital and planning on moving cross country with his wife at the end of the week. He actually met up with a bunch of us at a Cubs game just a couple of days beforehand - a little haggard but, by all accounts, in good spirits. Then overnight, at home, there was a complication and all of a sudden he was in the hospital in with “minimal brain activity” and in critical condition. When I came in to work the next day for the lunch shift the staff was walking around like zombies. The latest news was that the doctors were going to try a “hail-mary” surgery but the prognosis, obviously, wasn't very hopeful. But the world didn't stop just because our friend was all of a sudden probably about to die. The restaurant was still open, people were still coming in for lunch, the kitchen was still backed up, guests were still occasionally rude. And I still had to be friendly and give good service.

When word that he had passed made it around to me (and that's how it happened, the information wasn't announced so much as spread in whispers and asides from server to server) I was in the middle of getting an iced tea refill for table 106, had to go take an order for 107, check on the food (which was over twenty minutes) for table 108, and run a credit card at table 105. There simply wasn't time to process anything, much less grieve. Food still had to go out, orders still had to be taken, and iced teas still needed to be refilled.

The next 36 hours stood as a testament to the humanity and grace of our management and coworkers that, quite frankly, I would never have expected. Because of religious reasons Patrick's family was holding the funeral service just two days after his death - on a Saturday no less - making it nearly impossible for any of us to attend. Our GM and managers immediately started working with the floor plan: adjusting in-times, getting reliefs to come in early, running a couple of servers or food runners short, whatever they could do to free up those of us who were close to Patrick (and there were a lot of us, Pat was a career server and had been with the company 14 years) to attend the service. Newer employees who weren't as close to the man picked up doubles, came in early or stayed late without complaining, just so his friends could pay their respects and grieve in peace. Our former GM actually flew in from California the morning of the service so he could attend and I later heard through the grapevine that our current GM personally had helped out with Patrick's hospital costs

And it's that - that coming together of people working around the system, doing what needs to be done so that the business could keep running but that we, the actual human beings, could have our time - that makes me well up just sitting here writing about it, even over a month after it happened. Because the world doesn't stop for pain, or for tragedy, or for loss. We stop. The world itself is fairly indifferent. It's we who care, it's we who make the meaning. Tragedy takes us out of the world, makes us take stock and, hopefully, wakes us up to what's really important. And the days pass, and the earth keeps turning, and the tables do too. Before you know it you're right back to complaining about your shitty section, or the or the bad tip, or your managers or your coworkers or whatever whatever. But for a few days last month each of us knew what was really important, and each of us treated each other with genuine warmth and grace and care – like actual human beings.