Circa 1986 - An Early Lesson in Work Ethic

Image from this young busboy's blog

You've noticed that I call my current General Manager (aka "GM") "Mike" in these blogs. That's not his real name of course. I'm just protecting myself (and perhaps others, haha) by not *usually* using real names of *current* co-workers here.

(This policy of mine does not apply to past co-workers however. YOU are all fair game ;)

But I try to write from the assumption that sooner or later, this blog will get out to my co-workers, and my arse needs to be covered. We don't have a "No Social Media" policy here - yet - and I don't want to become "the incident" that inspires such either - and/or get fired to boot!

Anyways, I call "Mike" Mike after Mike Cochran - the GM of the restaurant where I first waited tables (Ruby Tuesday, Knoxville TN). Being my first GM, he probably left more of a lasting impression on me in some ways than most managers I've worked for since.

You've also noticed that I sometimes mention my "work ethic" and my tendency to keep busy when relating certain stories, and it comes to mind that I likely have Mike to thank for instilling this into me at such an early age. My parents' influence aside, I remember something he said to me that has probably impacted the way I work more so than any other person or event, before or since. I guess that's why I still remember it as well as I do.

And it goes a little something like this.

After graduating high school in 1986 but having no real vision or goals for my life then, I kind of just followed the majority of my friends and wound up moving from Nashville to Knoxville. I can't really claim that I so much "went to school at UT" like my friends, but I did loiter on school property with the best of them.

They all got dorms and meal plans; I got an apartment and a job. The job was much needed, as the $500 my Dad gave me to get started had run out. (In fact, I lost about 15 pounds my freshman year, rather than gaining the "freshman fifteen!")

So there I was 18 years old, living on my own, and supporting myself as a busboy. It was hard work actually, and not glorious or fun by any means. You watch for people to leave, then clean up their plates, wipe off the table and reset the silverware. This has to be done as quickly as possible when the restaurant is busy, because some waiter, hostess or manager is no doubt breathing down your neck to "get 'er done" asap, so that the next group of people can be seated.

The position also comes rife with strife amongst you and the wait-staff. Mainly it revolves around how many dishes a server left on the table. There's only so much room in that bus-tub or on that tray, and the more dirty dishes a server leaves on the table, the more trips you have to make to the dish-washer in the kitchen, and the slower you accomplish your job's primary function - which is cleaning and re-setting the tables. Arguments easily arise when a server - whether lazy, inattentive, or just overwhelmed, leaves every meal plate on a table, and you as the busser have to remove them all to get the table cleaned and ready for the next people that are waiting to sit there.

As you may recall from a previous blog entry, bussers are tipped out by the wait-staff for doing this, but this was back in the day before this process was automated. So I was constantly battling the line between wanting to do a good job for the waiters so they would give me money, and feeling shafted because I was often pulling more than my fair share of the load to clean their tables, when really, the responsibility for removing dinner plates guests are done with falls primarily on the server. You can't both fight a guy or girl for making you do all this work for them, and then turn around and expect them to pay you out some nice cash at the end of the shift. Nowdays in fact, I'm pretty appalled at how little most bussers do for us waiters, because they're going to get tipped out the same amount from us whether they work hard to earn it, or not.

But I digress...

About a month into the job, I remember Mike getting on to me for something. I think all of us in "The Ruby's Gang" from back then probably remember Mike as being, well... something of a jerk. Looking back, that probably had a lot to do with the fact that we were young, wild college-aged kids and he was just our boss, saddled with the responsibility of fighting through the sexual tension and constant making of after-work drinking plans that were the primary focus of all of our lives, and getting some actual work out of us, in-between our after-work partying.

Well I thought I knew my job pretty well after a few weeks, but now Mike comes to me and gets on to me for some sort of trash being on the floor. At first I didn't take it so well. After all, my job title was "bussing tables" not "cleaning floors" right? He explains to me that cleaning the floors around the table is also my responsibility. A no-brainer, in retrospect, but at that time, I was doing well just to get the tables cleaned quickly enough to not get yelled at by everybody.

I then made the perhaps providential mistake of (somewhat flippantly) asking him "Well then just exactly what else is my responsibility, that I've never been told?"

Bad move, Guy. Bad, bad move.

He glares at me, then turns his head looking for the nearest empty table. Pointing at a chair, Mike tells me to

"Sit down..."


Uh-oh. Am I in trouble?


To Be Concluded.

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