the letter, if not the spirit, of the law

I’ve reached the point in my unemployment where I’ve started to consider that I may not find a job within these next four months…the time frame I’ve been given to find a job before the unemployment office cuts me off. Which has me thinking that I may end up waiting tables again. Which is really unfortunate because my table waiting career has been less than exemplary.

By the time I had started waiting tables at T.G.I.Fridays, I had already worked at a few smaller restaurants…but Fridays seemed to be the brass ring in the table waiting world, or at least a ring that was more brassy than the place that I had been working at. So, as a senior in college, when offered the job I jumped, visions of tips galore dancing through my head.

Chrissy, who would later drop out of college and become a corporate trainer for Fridays, started the same time as I, which made us classmates in the whole ‘training and orientation to the Fridays’ system’ that we were required to take. It was mid-morning and we were being instructed on how to use the register the ‘Fridays’ way’. The whole class, about nine of us, were huddled around this tiny little register, trying to see the even tinier little buttons that we were being told about.

I felt someone lean into me and, thinking that they were trying to position themselves to get a better view of the register, I backed up. I’m very considerate this way. And as I backed up, Chrissy, who had been the one leaning into me, fell flat on her back, unconscious and sprawled out on the floor.

Chrissy came to after a minute and the paramedics came a few minutes after this. As it turns out, Chrissy had spent a good portion of the night and early morning hours partying hard, which included massive amounts of alcohol. Being hung-over and not having eaten any breakfast, for fear that it would make an appearance during class, she passed out.

And I felt somewhat guilty that I had been the one to back up and let her fall. Had I known she was drunk, I would have been much more attentive to the fact that she was unconscious and would had saved her from her headache falling fate in a very ‘You’re my hero!’ type of fashion.

Of course, if I had known that a few years later she would be a corporate trainer for Fridays’ East Coast operations, I would have backed up and gleefully watched her fall. But I never would have guessed that a first day at work which entailed being hung over and passing out would ever lead to advancement. Had I known this was Fridays’ standard for excellence, I would have drank a lot more.

My start there, while much less grand entrancey, apparently was much worse in terms of not following Fridays’ philosophy. The Fridays’ uniform at the time were those barbershop pole striped red and white shirts and suspenders. And upon the suspenders, each person was instructed to have buttons…the management wanted suspenders that were just bursting in their buttonness.

I was never a huge button fan, and did not readily possess the required number of buttons that Fridays wanted on my suspenders…and yes, there was a ‘minimal number’ of buttons you were allowed to have. Come in to work with nine, instead of the required ten buttons, and you would be written up and this would be placed in your file. All of which would naturally keep you from ever getting that lucrative job at Microsoft, because when Bill Gates reviewed your past employment file at Fridays and saw that you were lacking buttons on that Tuesday in mid-July, well you could just forget about being offered the job.

So while some employees were walking around with buttons declaring their political views, ‘Buckwheat for President!’, and others waited tables with their funny, philosophical buttons that read, ‘The answer is no, now what was the question?’, I was severely lacking in buttonage. Which, as told to me by a manager, would ‘come back to bite me in the ass on my evaluation’. This said, I needed buttons.

As a server, your circle of friends is often other servers. And I enlisted their help in meeting the button requirements. Because, while the Fridays rule specifically stated that you needed ten buttons, beyond certain four letter words, there were no specifications as to what could or could not be said on these buttons. So soon, I was working at Fridays and proudly displaying my collection of buttons. My ‘Try our famous Damon’s ribs!’ button. And my, ‘Ask about Denny’s gift certificates’ button. I was especially proud of my, ‘You’re always welcome at Applebees!’ button. The management was not, however, fond of the buttons I chose to wear.

And this is how I ended up working the bathroom section. Those three little tables, situated right next to the restrooms, became my own, personal, domain. The same three tables that no customer wanted to sit at. The same section that customers would rather wait 15 minutes for a different table, than to sit at. Because apparently bathroom odors don’t do much in terms of whetting the appetite.

It got to the point where I left Fridays because I simply couldn’t afford to work there.

But had I known, at the time, that buttons were more important than coming to work with a hang over, I might just be President of Fridays today.