157 Marbles
I speak to everyone in the same way, whether he is the garbage man or the president of the university.
Albert Einstein
To obtain an assured favorable response from people, it is better to offer them something for their stomachs instead of their brains.
Albert Einstein
It’s nearing the end of summer in my particular spot in space and time. I’m finding myself exhausted from how busy the restaurant where I work has been. At this point, I’m looking forward to getting my kids back in school and going back to school myself. During the summer, my life revolves around my kids and my life as a waitress.
When the Steamclock across the street from the Gastown café where I work chimes four o’clock, it’s time for me to start my life as a waitress. The summertime tourists are sometimes puzzled by me. I get questions like, “Have you always been a waitress?” from a lovely blonde Texan and, “What else do you do?” from a rather kind American man, who immediately realized his query could be taken the wrong way. But I’ve always viewed it as an in the meantime type of job - I just didn’t realize my meantime would last so long.
My life as a writer revolves around pen and paper, my life as a waitress does not. I like to have eye contact with my customers and I can’t get it if I’m busy scribbling down their orders. I often get asked (especially by larger groups), “Are you sure you’re going to remember all this?” I answer, “I just bring you what I feel like bringing you.” Nervous laughs. Then the surprise when everyone gets the right food.
Benefits to waitressing include: not having to cook every night and the ability to comfortably don a tank top when most women at my age require a personal trainer (those plates are weighty); learning not to be afraid to talk to strangers like I was when I first started in the restaurant biz; acquiring asbestos fingers and an appreciation for sensible shoes; knowing how to ask “pepper?” and “cheese?” in five languages; and adapting to cultural nuances such as the German love of espresso after dessert (a Grappa offered on the side). Above all, I’ve adopted this crazy yet optimistic idea that if I do a job well, I’ll be rewarded.
There are many aspects on the flip side: there’s the occasional ego bruising by those customers who insist on defining me by the job that I do; my posture has changed – I lean into life now, head forward, as if I’m stooping toward a table; wrinkles have accumulated on my forehead from my attempts to produce a dramatic rendition of the specials using facial expressions; and my crow’s feet have deepened from frequent smiling. And always, always I walk the fine line of being a server whilst not being a servant. I recognize that there are many people who think they are better than me because I am serving them, the trick is not to believe it myself.
Postcards of the Steamclock say, “each quarter hour the clock sounds the Westminster chimes.” In truth, a slightly off-tune version of the chimes. I often imitate the clock throughout the night, my own “theme and variations,” whilst at the computer, in the kitchen. The cooks protest (with expletives), “We’re back here so we can’t hear the clock!”. Customers ask, “Don’t you get sick of the clock?” I smile. My mind fast-forwards forty years to the site of a Forget-Me-Not ward in a seniors’ home somewhere. An older version of myself mindlessly hums the familiar chime over and over again. A puzzled nurse: “What’s up with that old bird?” Her co-worker: “Who knows?” The only thing left from my life as a waitress (oh, I’d probably still have the asbestos fingers;)
What would it take for us to channel Einstein’s ability to speak to garbage man and presidents in the same manner?
What would it take for you to truly see yourself as something much different than what you do? As Eckhart Tolle writes, "Authentic human interactions become impossible when you lose yourself in a role.”
I speak to everyone in the same way, whether he is the garbage man or the president of the university.
Albert Einstein
To obtain an assured favorable response from people, it is better to offer them something for their stomachs instead of their brains.
Albert Einstein
It’s nearing the end of summer in my particular spot in space and time. I’m finding myself exhausted from how busy the restaurant where I work has been. At this point, I’m looking forward to getting my kids back in school and going back to school myself. During the summer, my life revolves around my kids and my life as a waitress.
When the Steamclock across the street from the Gastown café where I work chimes four o’clock, it’s time for me to start my life as a waitress. The summertime tourists are sometimes puzzled by me. I get questions like, “Have you always been a waitress?” from a lovely blonde Texan and, “What else do you do?” from a rather kind American man, who immediately realized his query could be taken the wrong way. But I’ve always viewed it as an in the meantime type of job - I just didn’t realize my meantime would last so long.
My life as a writer revolves around pen and paper, my life as a waitress does not. I like to have eye contact with my customers and I can’t get it if I’m busy scribbling down their orders. I often get asked (especially by larger groups), “Are you sure you’re going to remember all this?” I answer, “I just bring you what I feel like bringing you.” Nervous laughs. Then the surprise when everyone gets the right food.
Benefits to waitressing include: not having to cook every night and the ability to comfortably don a tank top when most women at my age require a personal trainer (those plates are weighty); learning not to be afraid to talk to strangers like I was when I first started in the restaurant biz; acquiring asbestos fingers and an appreciation for sensible shoes; knowing how to ask “pepper?” and “cheese?” in five languages; and adapting to cultural nuances such as the German love of espresso after dessert (a Grappa offered on the side). Above all, I’ve adopted this crazy yet optimistic idea that if I do a job well, I’ll be rewarded.
There are many aspects on the flip side: there’s the occasional ego bruising by those customers who insist on defining me by the job that I do; my posture has changed – I lean into life now, head forward, as if I’m stooping toward a table; wrinkles have accumulated on my forehead from my attempts to produce a dramatic rendition of the specials using facial expressions; and my crow’s feet have deepened from frequent smiling. And always, always I walk the fine line of being a server whilst not being a servant. I recognize that there are many people who think they are better than me because I am serving them, the trick is not to believe it myself.
Postcards of the Steamclock say, “each quarter hour the clock sounds the Westminster chimes.” In truth, a slightly off-tune version of the chimes. I often imitate the clock throughout the night, my own “theme and variations,” whilst at the computer, in the kitchen. The cooks protest (with expletives), “We’re back here so we can’t hear the clock!”. Customers ask, “Don’t you get sick of the clock?” I smile. My mind fast-forwards forty years to the site of a Forget-Me-Not ward in a seniors’ home somewhere. An older version of myself mindlessly hums the familiar chime over and over again. A puzzled nurse: “What’s up with that old bird?” Her co-worker: “Who knows?” The only thing left from my life as a waitress (oh, I’d probably still have the asbestos fingers;)
What would it take for us to channel Einstein’s ability to speak to garbage man and presidents in the same manner?
What would it take for you to truly see yourself as something much different than what you do? As Eckhart Tolle writes, "Authentic human interactions become impossible when you lose yourself in a role.”
