Turns out, you CAN pick your friend's nose!

Perhaps you've heard the ironic phrase before:

"You can pick your friends, and you can pick your nose, but you can't pick your friend's nose!"

Of course, there's also the phrase "For every rule, there's an exception." Well I'm here to tell you, the restaurant business is one where "Exceptions are always the rule." It's a business like no other, where one day you might actually decide to pick your friend's nose.

Let me explain. Fast-paced decisions have to made regularly by servers and bartenders that might not be what "the rules" always dictate. Say you're a waiter, and you know you've been out of your section (the group of tables you're assigned to wait on today) for three minutes making two deserts. You're walking back in, deserts in hand, and here's what you see as you survey your section:

Table 109 has two empty tea glasses, and dang you didn't think to bring a tea pitcher. That's going to adversely affect your income if not handled immediately.
Table 108 has been seated with two new guests. The "rule" is that new guests must be greeted within two minutes (for example - 60 seconds some places). For all you know they've been there the whole three minutes you were gone. That's going to affect your income if you don't get there fast, and potentially get you in serious trouble with management.
Table 105 - not in your section - is flagging you down, trying to get your attention. What's going on there? Needs more sauce? Wants to pay but hasn't seen their server for five minutes? Hair in the food? And is it really my problem? What rule applies here?

So you walk to drop off the deserts and in the 0.3 seconds it takes you to know what you're going to do when you walk away from that table - and you also just spotted the nearest tea pitcher (silently praying there's something in it) - some kid knocks their coke all over the floor... your section or not, doesn't matter. You gonna walk right by that? That said, for many of us, fast-paced decisions like these are our every day life.

1988, Ruby Tuesday, Knoxville Tennessee. My friend and co-worker Shannon made a snap decision that you might argue goes against every rule in the books. I'm hurriedly walking out of the kitchen with a tray of food in one hand and other stuff in the other. He's hurriedly walking in, probably with a handful of dishes. He glances at me, and with great authority, stretches his hand out and quite literally commands me "STOP!"

So I did. And without a word of explanation, without wasting 8-15 precious seconds (of you wondering where your servers are) to look for a cocktail napkin or something, he reaches toward my face, puts his finger in my nostril, and pulls out a booger. Obviously, it would have been seen by the people whom I was about to serve their food. Showing it to me he said "I couldn't let you go out there like that man." True story.

Judge it all you want. He did the right thing.

That's a friendship you don't easily forget... and a noble deed worth memorializing and telling of for decades to come. Once again Dear Reader, welcome to the restaurant business. These are my peers, and this is my life.