I'm sure most of you have already noticed this, but people who work in the service industry are always hired, in part, for how they look. But in Manhattan, things take on a typical Manhattan extremeness from just having a nice appearance, with clean hands and nicely groomed hair. So many of the times the only reason why someone is hired to serve food or drinks is based ONLY on how they look.

It's not like you have to be a model, but it sure doesn't hurt.

So I was not surprised that I finally ran across one waiter who has basically been locked out of the service industry in Manhattan merely because of looks. Last week I interviewed Alan. I think he has the best resume for waiting tables that I have ever seen. Not one, but two four star restaurants, one in Chicago and one in Miami. I mean top places that have been featured in national magazines. Now that I think about it, it is kinda' funny that the guy brought his resume with him to an interview.

The funny thing is, the guy can't keep a job in Manhattan, and if you saw him you might understand why. He's six foot three and close to three hundred pounds. Basically, a body like a chef not like a Manhattan waiter dressed in a Banana Republic shirt and slacks outfit.

The whole thing is really kinda' pathetic since people in Manhattan fancy themselves so intellectual, yet Alan is an example of how shallow it really is in New York City. I would argue that NYC is even worse than Los Angeles.

So skipping to today's interview, here's another section on my interview with Blummy. For those who might not have been following, he's a waiter at a three star restaurant in the Flatiron district and when the place opened it won a James Beard award for best new restaurant.

At this point in the interview, Blummy is having some flashbacks about a previous gig in upstate New York. Guess I spelled New Berg or Newburg wrong...Sorry for all you guys in upstate New York.

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In 95% of the times, waiters and waitresses are not focused on their careers as a waiter, waitress or server. They use coke 'cause it makes them feel good and it's selfish and personal. Maybe if they're hung over and they're tired, they might do a bump, if they're into that before service to like give them a pick me up. But it's not like the stock market, where you have to do coke 'cause you're on the phone eighteen hours a day pitching your guts out. So that is the mindset of a server.

In reference to Anthony Bourdain's "Kitchen Confidential", he used to do smoke weed and do coke in the walks-ins, or out by the dumpsters. Me? I never smoked weed at work, but there's been times when it's been done in the boiler room. People can do coke in the bathroom. People can do coke in the locker room. All you got to do is just be down-low about it and take a quick sniff and then put it away. It doesn't leave a scent, you know?

People don't really drug at work. They drug after work.

At my place the bar is not supposed to give you hard liquor. But since I'm cool with the bartender, they make me vodkas and cranberries, but only after service. Because sometimes... sometimes you don't realize that you had like a drink too many. And then I noticed for myself when I start getting a buzz on. I'll sip wine and count the moments to figure out what my next couple of steps are and keep working.

But if I sit there and drink like this last New Year's Eve when I had to work. I had a table full of these punk assholes that I just couldn't stand, and when the ball dropped everyone was all over the place. It was chaos. So I'm like, fuck it. I started drinking, the champagne, the vodka. I didn't care. And I noticed that once I caught a nice buzz, I wasn't focused and I didn't know what step was coming next. My captain was kinda' picking up my slack, and I wasn't fair to him.

'Cause I'm considerate like that. Ya know? It's a team effort.

I've worked restaurants where some of your managers are real schmucks, making like a little bit more than you need just to get by on a safe budget. And they were on salary, so they were so exploited, working around the clock, going bald at age thirty. It was fucking pathetic.

But it depends on what type of company, if it's private or corporate. There's different rules. Private restaurants will milk you, unless you're in by family or excellent friendships. Or if it's a collaboration of separate investors with each guy running the place, because then it's passion. Because sometimes it's just a guy there to do the work because the owner is just too lazy to come in.

The guy will be working seventy, eighty, ninety hours a week and getting his fifty or sixty thousand. Sometimes it's eighty thousand working a hundred hours a week. I've seen six figure managers working so much that when you do the math to find out what they're getting paid and hour, it's like $7.50. They're making six figures, but they're getting paid $7.50 an hour. You do the math.

The place I work now, the managers put in a good fifty, sixty hours but they get paid fair. It's a good place. I definitely work at a solid company.

For a guy who works in the restaurant business, I don't know if it's a three star, two star, or four star. I just know I work at one of the finest restaurants in Manhattan. Actors come in all the time, and all these famous people. The chief executive of Sony. Big dogs from NBC. You know? Famous cats. You never know who might walk in. I've seen Howard Sten, Al Pacino...

Simplicity makes a restaurant good. What makes my restaurant amazing is it's simplicity. No white table cloths. No towering plate presentations. Simple food, cooked right, according to the basic cooking techniques and principles. The service is regimented and it's outstanding, in comparison to other places because we pay attention to the little details.

It's the little details that really make the biggest differences, and we make it part of our routine so that to the customer it always seems that we're going the extra mile. But the fact is that we're already two or three miles ahead and just coasting. I hope this makes sense.

Where I work now I'm old and grown so I'm focused on my career. But a few years ago I worked at this catering hall in upstate New York while in college and I fucked off a lot. Basically, the guy who owned the place was this fat bastard who owned shit all over the town. He was just a jerk, and it was run by just a bunch of monkeys with badges.

This was in New Berg, and if you know anything about upstate New York, New Burg is a fucking dump. It's just...disgusting. Anyway the place I worked at was a catering hall. Basically glamour for those who have never seen glamour before. You know with their shiny, shiny chandeliers and beef Wellington. It was just fucking pathetic. That's the place where I fucked off all time.

I used to go out and smoke blunts with my coworkers. There was this one girl, Izeeriah. Izeeriah was a crack dealer who lived in the heart of Newburg. Most beautiful black woman I have ever met. The sweetest, most...incredible person. She was from Trinidad and her baby daddy was a king Rastafarian who was in jail.

She had a gun and a machete. It was crazy shit. I don't smoke crack, nor did I ever buy. I used to smoke blunts and go right back to work, cause it was a catering hall. You do weddings where the DJ is bumping music, everyone is getting wasted. Open bar.

We'd do proms where I'd be serving these hot ass 17, 18 year-old girls and the DJ is playing OutKast and Wu Tang Klan, and they're all grinding, I'm all high as hell, drinking from the bar...'Cause I was always down with the bartender.

This one time a chaperone, who was 19 at this prom, approached me and I took my apron off and just blended in with the rest of the kids 'cause I was only 19 at the time. So we started grinding together on the floor, and then we hooked up in the bathroom. It was fat.

I went out with her a few times after that, but I don't' know. I wasn't in the mood for a girlfriend at that moment in time, and she didn't put out enough. So I lost interest.

It's fun to fuck around in a restaurant where nobody really cares. Isn't it funny that I got fired from that place for smoking a fucking cigarette?
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