"Just the other day, the bartender told me one of our regular gives her a hundred dollar bill to pee in a glass and let him drink it at the bar. [Laughs] I know, it's sick. He doesn't do it all the time.

I keep asking her, but she won't tell me who the guy is."

--Waitress at a restaurant by Tompkins Square

........

Okay, so what kind of drink do we call this? Any idea from creative bartenders out there?

Anyways, this is the second part of Mark's interview where he describes how he deals with rude customers. I've often wanted to just grab some bastard and shake the hell out of him. I actually even followed one guy out of the restaurant to scream at him.

That's when I knew I was getting a little nuts.

In case some of you are just stopping in for the first time. Mark attended art school in Manhattan and has been a professional waiter working at an Italian spot south of NYU for the past ten years. As you can see, he's fully accepted the job as a waiter and all the crap that it entails. This is the last of my interview with him and I wish him the best of luck.

Thanks for the interview.

************

A person like me--a career waiter--you accept it. I don't look at it like that anymore. In the beginning of my career, people would get me upset. I would think, "How could you do this? How could you act like this? What kind of person are you?"

But then you have to get past it. And then you don't look at it like that anymore. You really don't. You see it coming; you see it going. And then the next day, and the next day. You just have to accept it. And even learn how to avoid it.

Say things in certain ways, so it doesn't come at you. You learn how to keep it smooth. Little things you must do: your facial expression, little gestures, tone of voice, eye contact. There are so many things that are going on. So many things between the waiter and the customer, you know? You don't really think about it.

So I think a waiter, who has been doing it a long time, has his own way to neutralize, you know, situations with people. You just want it to be smooth. You don't want to have any altercations. And that's what a waiter learns--to survive to make it easy. Let the rough side drag, let the smooth side show.

That's a Jessie Winchester song.

1:45:51 PM     comment []