Appreciating the Unseen

Appreciating the Unseen

This Thursday I shadowed my fiancé, Stryker, at his restaurant in Redondo Beach. As the General Manager of Chez Mélange there are a lot of perks for the both of us: free food, wine, wine gifts at home, all things wine for that matter, and the accessibility to be behind the scenes for 5 consecutive hours during the prime-time lunch through dinner hours.

I know that he works hard. I know that his hours are crazy beyond belief. I know that he has some serious complaints about his job. I knew all of this from what he told me. Though, experiencing his life through a lens of someone who has never once worked in the food/beverage/hospitality industry was more eye opening and insane than his words could ever describe.

When I got there, Jesus, one of the servers at Chez, had an anxious and stressed look on his face. It was barely 4pm. They had just opened about thirty minutes ago. I thought to myself… “what could already be wrong” … Well apparently, a lot can go wrong in a short amount of time.

Andy Orlin, a restaurant manager in St. Pete’s Florida explains in his article, “What I Do as a Restaurant Manager” how most of his time is spent prepping. In more depth, he states, “It's a lot more than a waitress in the front and a cook in the back. It's hours of prep before we even open, maintenance staff cleaning every inch of the restaurant and kitchen, checking inventories, purges, more prep work, scheduling, and training.”

Orlin, is right about that.

In trying to figure out what was going wrong, I lingered in the shadows like a creep. Watching intensely and taking notes.  I either looked like some restaurateur critiquing the restaurant to give them their ratings-or (most likely) I looked like a real-life, in person stalker. There truly was no in between here.

Anyway, I took notes on what I heard, how the staff was prepping, what I saw, and what the customers were saying. Throughout the course of my time there, I saw rude customers-and when I say rude I mean the type of people you wish you could donkey kick in the face. I saw the cutest old couple in the far back corner of the restaurant against these aged brushed red bricks and I saw the entire staff fake it until they made it (literally).

When one of the rude customers, yelled drunkenly at 5:30pm that her gin and tonic lacked gin at the bartender, I watched the bartender Drew: smile and apologize, turn around and roll his eyes so intensely I swear my seat moved. I watched my man apologize profusely as he made them a new drink himself, reassuring that it wouldn’t happen again.

I watched as the drunk woman snatched the drink from him and said, “better not”.

When another rude customer returned her entire meal, and I mean make the chefs cook her a whole new plate “on the house” because she “couldn’t eat it with the gross number of croutons” in it, I watched the server Brenda bite her lip and smile, as she took the plate from the lady and walked away uttering unspeakables under her breath. Understandable.

I also took time to go behind the scenes into the kitchen. I swear, behind closed doors at restaurants, pardon my French, but SHIT GETS REAL.

In the kitchen, line preps are screaming at each other for things that have not been accomplished. A whole lot of “Fuck yous” and “Putos” hung in the air and plunged into smashed dishes and increasing irritability.

I watched the head chef, appropriately nick-named Chef, scream “get the fuck out of my kitchen you little bitch” at one of the line cooks who didn’t cut the correct number of vegetables to be used for the dinner meals that evening.

I watched my man handle these various situations with a whole lot of strained ease. He would comfort the disgruntled customers with compensated fresh meals, with appropriate numbers of croutons. I watched him manage the live entertainment, the bills, the bar, the staff, the inventory and the menus. I watched him take on each task with an uncertain breath between each move.  I went outside with him as he practically ate his cigarettes on his two minute breaks.

Stephan Harding in his article, “Why Managers Have a Tough and Stressful Job”, explains perfectly the stress driven responsibilities my fiancé is tasked with every day.

“What makes being a manager so unattractive? On one level, the answer is obvious — just look around today’s workplace. As downsizing lengthens everyone’s to-do list, expanding workloads add new burdens to the manager’s job. With many organizations expecting managers to act as player-coaches, both performing and overseeing work, their roles often become complex and unwieldy. Organizational flattening and widening of managers’ spans of control stretch their ability to spend time coaching, or even to become acquainted with, any individual employee.”

I watched as Stryker, and the entire staff took in every literal and figurative “fuck you” with a fake smile and level of uncertainty. I watched it all unfold in front of my eyes. And my God, if I never have to work in a restaurant-I might as well be the happiest person in the world.

Props to everyone and anyone who works in the restaurant industry- God Bless your beautiful, poor souls.