There comes a time to share and there are times to be silent. Judging from my books, blogs, and other literary dumplings, some might be under the impression that I have bared my soul and not held back. Others might mutter, “Who gives a shit what Charles Atkins writes?” Understandable. Blogs can seem so narcissistic, so self-involved. The endless or all-pervasive memoir can be so tiresome. Lord knows that everyone has a story, and that there’s a book in everyone, even if it’s boring as hell. There are moments though, when confession can be both good for the soul, insightful, and beneficial to the reader. Even though the Buddha indicated that there “is no observer,” it seems important from a confessional standpoint that I relate a story and some observations along the way.
As mentioned in earlier blogs, a radio gig, along with writing professionally, I work full-time job. For six years, I was the maintenance manager for a business that owned a couple restaurants, an office building, apartments, and a number of rental houses. The owner of this enterprise is a self-made, affluent man. We grew up in the same Chicago neighborhood although he’s a couple of years younger. We didn’t run in precisely the same circles – back in the day – but there’s an unspoken trust and understanding of shared experience between us. It was that old neighborhood work ethic and earned respect that compelled my friend “Allen” to ask me for a favor – the first time he had ever done so.
Although both of his restaurants were successful, he had some major difficulties. His newest restaurant, a four star affair which he started in 1990 was having personnel problems. Anyone familiar with the restaurant industry knows that it has a high turnover rate. Executive chefs can be such prima donnas. His gourmet restaurant was reeling from a series of untimely departures, but he claimed that he had that under control. What Allen was concerned about was his bread-and-butter café that is a virtual dining institution in the very large shadow of the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. There was mismanagement, missing money, a decline in quality, and his profits were eroding.
I had worked behind the scenes fixing his problems, without supervision, for a long time. In desperation, he asked me if I was ready to move into management on the service side. He knew that I had lots of management and supervisory experience from running my own business for 15 years, along with years managing about 100 people in a Chicago area manufacturing business, back in the late seventies. What he didn’t know was my years as central figure with NSA/SGI – a veritable training ground for management excellence – or as some might argue management negligence.
When we got down to serious negotiations, I honestly conveyed to him why I no longer ran my own business, and why I chose a job that removed me from the dealing with the public any more than was absolutely necessary. There has never been any shortage of drama in my life. But one series of events – that at first seemed somewhat disconnected, changed my whole life and state of mind.
I lost my father, my brother, and my mother in less than three years. My perpetually troubled marriage of 25 years ended – and I was asked to resign my position in the SGI. Let’s just say that it was the best for all concerned and leave it at that.
At age 55, I was being asked to leave the security of a job I knew and performed well for a high-level position I knew absolutely nothing about. I would have to start over. Challenge has always intrigued me. When someone told me I couldn’t write a book on healing that would get published because I didn’t have the right academic credentials, I took that as a challenge. In my own skewed way I thought, “Eat shit. I’ll show you,” and I did. My whole life has been that way. So when my friend Allen asked me to take over his prize restaurant, there were more than a few people who inferred that I wasn’t qualified. My response, “What could go wrong? We sell hamburgers.” Well, we don’t exactly sell just hamburgers; we sell nine different kinds of burgers, and thirty other menu items.
To master this job, I had to lean how everything was made, how it must be presented, how it must taste, how every operation in the kitchen and dining room had to be coordinated. I had to learn the exact function of every job in the restaurant, health codes, an entire accounting system, and last, but certainly not least, supervise an ever changing staff of twenty-something’s.
In several months of 50-60 hour weeks, working the PM shift, I have thoroughly mastered every aspect of restaurant operations. I owe that to the work ethic instilled in me by my oh-so strict parents, a natural thirst for challenge, my fervent prayers to the Gohonzon, but most of all to the decades of leadership training I acquired in the SGI.
What has emerged as the biggest obstacle is not balancing the books at the shifts close, but dealing with a staff of kids who know far, far less then they think they know, and motivating them to challenge a life time of accrued laziness and surmised self-importance. Getting the best out of kids half my age who are unable to tolerate even the most gentle constructive criticism, and brimming with the iron pyrite of post-teenage wisdom has been the most formidable task of all. Yet I know that I was not much different than they were twenty-five years ago. The only difference between us, perhaps, was my forced military training. But it’s the kids who are making my transition interesting and rewarding. I look at this experience as a great adventure in training young minds. They will never have a teacher like me again, and I have become a student once more.
When first hoodwinked into this new role, the owner had somewhat expected me to come on the scene like General Patton – taking command, finding the slackers, the dopers, and the thieves, then forcing them to change or run. Instead, I adopted the strategy of humility. I began the new job as an acolyte – with authority, of course, who aspired to learn every aspect of the new job, extracting whatever knowledge the “kids” had to offer, and adopting an air of openness and tolerance, versus being a hatchet man.
This course of action has served me well. In a couple of short months, I have managed to assimilate what there was to know of the essential, and I am learning all the rest. Those who were open to the new manager, sharing their knowledge have done well with me. Those who misconstrued humility for weakness are now suffering on their job. Thanks to my Buddhist practice, this old man has been able to thrive in an ever-changing, challenging work environment.
Of all the surprises I’ve had – and there have been many – what has struck me hardest has been the customers. I’ve always been the impatient consumer, the picky customer, the ugly American. Now that I’m on the other side, I’ve come to the some harsh realizations about the American consumer – although it’s probably more than just Americans.
We are spoiled, narcissistic, and shamefully wasteful. The food we throw away seems sinful, for lack of a better word. People often throw away enough food from a single meal to feed another person from an impoverished country.
We have also created a level of expectation for speed and service that is completely unrealistic by any standards. Although every customer is different, as a general rule, I have observed the following behaviors. People demand fawning attention and if they don’t get it, they punish the server with attitude, complaints, and small tips. They frequently expect near-immediate preparation of their food, regardless of how busy the restaurant is, and often insist on time-consuming, aggravating variations to their dish. The behavior of most guests is one of quiet dining, but there always seems to be one or two tables every night of customers that have no conception of how loud they are. They talk far above the ambient noise level, they laugh and howl like monkeys in a frenzy, oblivious to the peace or comfort of the other patrons.
It staggers my mind how self-involved, shallow, and nitpicking people can be. During a warm spell a couple of weeks ago, a woman came into the restaurant with a party of five other people. She wore a spring coat, which I thought was rather odd. I thought she must not have felt well by wearing a light coat on a 90-degree day. The restaurant was cooled to comfortable 72 degrees. Although the restaurant was filled with more than 100 other people – who were all perfectly comfortable, she called me over and insisted that I turn off the air conditioning, or at least turn up the thermostat because she was cold. Never mind that she would make 99 other people uncomfortable, what mattered was her needs, and she was wearing a jacket! But it is not uncommon to hear a series of comments on the very same item– like a hamburger: it’s to greasy, it’s too dry, it’s not cooked, it’s over cooked, and so on. The soups are a whole other realm of opinion. It’s too salty, it’s not salty enough, too many vegetables, not enough vegetables. Mind you, our restaurant has been voted best restaurant in Champaign-Urbana many times and is arguably the best overall restaurant in the area.
And the most humbling aspect is that the restaurant staff must figuratively kiss these people’s ass or they may not return. If you tell them to keep it down, they will stiff the waiter on their tip, if you don’t get the food to their table, perfectly and within minutes, they complain and will have no compunction about telling others what a lousy restaurant you have. If they complain, you must take it in the rear with a smile. If the food is not fast enough, the food not perfect, or the service was sub-par, you must give it to them for free. If you can’t comply with these unrealistic expectations, some other restaurant can and will. As an observer, I can only say that my eyes have been opened. But I can’t help but think that not even 100 years ago, when a person outside the big city wanted a meal, they had to shoot it or cut its head off, dress it, pluck it, and cook it. They also had to grow their own vegetables, weed the garden, can the bounty – weather permitting, then spend hours preparing it. In those days, no one would dare complain if their meal took fifteen minutes to cook and serve, they would be delighted.
My, how times have changed. I think the ugly American is in need of a reality check. We now live in a world where the peasants act like aristocrats. In the mean time, I’ll continue to learn the business and provide the service that we probably don’t deserve by practicing my pucker for all the ass I have to kiss. But there's that dark side of me that wants to polish my boot so I can see the reflection of my face as I punt some pompous butt out the door.