I used to work at a place in the Fenway neighborhood of Boston that was well known as the neighborhood hangout, located on what is referred to as Restaurant Row. About a year after I quit the whole complex burned down and it has since been rebuilt. The restaurant was and is still run by a very cool guy who told each and every one of us working there that we were to tell anyone asking for the manager that we were the manager or if that wouldn't be believable, to pass them on to whoever was tending bar.

My official title was busboy, but man, I did a whole hell of a lot more than that. Often, I'd walk out with as much money as the servers and sometimes as much as the bartender. On an especially good day when EVERYONE but everyone was in the weeds, it was my unspoken duty to make sure everyone was as comfortable as possible and to make sure that everything ran smoothly. That of course meant managing the dining room so that customer turnover was optimal, which meant that I needed to clear, clean and set the tables so the hostess could seat customers. It meant that I needed to run food so that servers could focus on selling drinks and making the customers feel good and so that the predominantly Salvadorean kitchen didn't get a backlog in the heat window. It meant slipping the cooks and back of the house beers or liquor to keep them loose and happy and giving them ice pops to keep them cool and water to keep them hydrated. It also meant that I had to make sure that the servers had enough cigarettes for breaks or lines to keep them spry. It meant that I needed to know how much booze was going and to who so I could re-stock before the bar ran out. It meant running frantically to the store to grab whatever we would inevitably be out of. And at the end of the shift it meant that I had to clean nearly everything. In return, I made loads of cash and had as much booze and drugs as I could cram down my throat, into my lungs or up my nose. There wasn't a local business around that didn't owe me a favor.

I remember one particularly hot summer day during a Red Sox game when we ran out of cheese for nachos and I had to call around and run 10 blocks to call in a favor for 50lbs of cheese. I remember arranging free lunches and to go beers for the ice guys when our machines broke. I remember getting sprayed with raw sewage in the basement during a torrential downpour as I steadied a mop handle against a wad of rags and hoping against hope that my boss, swinging a sledge hammer wouldn't miss and break my wrists and demanding a whole weekend off as well as money for new shoes and work clothes.

I met some of my best friends at that job and partied harder for those few years harder than some do in a lifetime. I really did learn so much from working there, about the dynamics of human relationships in terms of business as well as the personal; how stress can intensify, strengthen or destroy those relationships. I learned what it felt like to fuck a waitress on top of the salad greens in the walk-in and how to quickly rearrange things so that no one was the wiser.

It was a good gig, but man am I glad that I don't work there any more. Of course, it's different now. It's slick and modern, though the food is the same. The cooks are mostly the same. When I walk in I half expect someone to slide a glass or two of bourbon my way, or see the pile of abandoned umbrellas that would accumulate until a sudden storm, when I would sell them off for $5 a piece to any customers that wanted one. It's like coming back to your parents' house after living on your own and being surprised that the things in your childhood closet are packed neatly away in boxes, moldering in some corner of the basement; in their old place, your mother's collection of handbags, dad's golf clubs and a sewing kit that seems far too large for how seldom you've seen it used, though it's been around since you can remember.

I agree that everyone should work in a restaurant, if only to learn a little empathy and to feel the contempt of little people who think that because you are in the service industry, you're servile, beneath them. People should work in restaurants to learn how to drink like Viking raiders back from pillaging and still get up in time to set up for the brunch shift. I think people should work in restaurants to learn how to work together, how living hand-to mouth doesn't have to be miserable if you're all in it together.

Thank you for posting this. I have recently been thinking about getting a second job at a restaurant for the experience as much as for the extra money. This puts a really interesting perspective on it and makes me want to do so even more. I'm worried, though, that since I have no experience I will end up at a crappy restaurant and it go badly.

It's tough to add to what's already been said, but one odd habit that pops up now and again, even though it's been a long, long time since I worked as a hostess and a waitress, is looking up when someone comes in a door. It comes from those times when there were lulls between rushes, and no preparations left to do, when we'd gather and talk, usually behind a barrier of some kind. There would always be a straggler group to come in, that wasn't in on that mysterious universal clock everyone else was on (that had nothing to do with time) that created rushes of unknown origin.

The best memories and friends come from the restaurant I worked at the longest, while in college. It was the hot restaurant to go to, at the time. There was a weird kind of pride in that. It was hard to get a job there. Some of the most creative and smart people I had yet to meet, I met there. It was my first contact, right out of high school, with actual artists and writers, theater and film grad students.

Being taken in as one of their own gave me confidence to go from undeclared academic drifter and go all in on art.

My proudest moment was learning to balance the giant trays, and be able to move quickly and seamlessly around the chaos with them fully loaded.

I also took a lot of dance classes back then, so busy Friday and Saturday nights felt like a kind of ballet. But a common work dream was not of dance but war. Our restaurant combined into an old WWII movie, and between bombings and bullets we kept our stations running.

And nothing beat the beer afterwards, or the banter in between.