He had this “I-can’t-believe-my-lot-in-life-is-driving-a-bus” expression on his face. The sentiment seeped into his posture, and into his surly one-word responses to my instructions. He maintained that presence the entire day, up till the moment I signed his parents, indicating services rendered, and that he completed his duties.

After I shook his hand, he paused, then said, “Handshakes and thank you’s are nice, but that’s not why I do this job.”
I smiled and blinked, in that confused way we do when we don’t understand someone and hope they’ll go away if we stay cheerful and silent. He placed the form I just signed back in front of me, and pointed out the highlighted section about “gratuities not being included in the fee.” And he repeated himself:

“Handshakes and thanks you’s are nice, but that’s not why I do this job.”

Ah. He was, very not so subtly, asking for a tip.

I looked to my boss, Charlie. He had the very same smile plastered to his face. “I need you to tell me exactly what you need.” He blinked repeatedly.

Allan gestured to the paper. “Would you go to a restaurant, eat, and just pay the bill? Is that how you treat your waiters?”

Charlie explained to him, as nicely as he could muster, that we didn’t tip the drivers, and this was something he was going to have to work out with his company. Allan snatched his papers and stalked off, calling in heavenly reinforcement with a “God bless,” reminding us not tipping bus drivers wasn’t the Christian thing to do, before he disappeared out the door. I’ve never seen him since.

Despite knowing Allan was a troubled man working on his own issues, the whole experience left me feeling dirty. Well, not dirty exactly, but worse — cheap. I lived and worked in this community for a few months and had completely removed myself from the service industry for the first time in more than a decade. I surrounded myself with a constant stream of people whom I could tell, based on how they conducted themselves, saw these men and women in the service industry as beneath them. Did that influence or contact high or whatever you want to call it put me out of touch with my own humility?

Humility — how you view your importance to this world — is the quality I value above all virtues and attributes. It’s difficult to teach, and more difficult to fake, as it shapes your every interaction with others. At the same time it’s a quality closely tied to one’s resiliency; it toughens you up to do the hard work when your other resources: money, time, intelligence are scarce. And precisely because I value my humility so greatly, it strikes a nerve when Allan’s response challenges it.

Maybe Allan’s correct, and it’s proper etiquette to tip these drivers; just because we set the precedent of not doing it doesn’t mean we were right in the past. Navigating the rules and ethics of tipping is a treacherous path, though — put out a tip jar in front where something gets sold and money changes hands and we ask, “Oh, am I supposed to tip?”

Everyone knows they should tip their servers, though percentage points are often points of contention. Some tip bartenders extra generously, and others tip them the same way they tip strippers: a dollar per round, more depending on the square inch of cleavage shown. What about the baristas at our coffee shops? The furniture movers? Cab drivers and delivery boys? Sushi chefs? Camp counselors? Bell  hops and door men? Who do we tip and how much?

It sounds like an over analysis, but I don’t see it that way, because I am, and everything I achieve is, a byproduct of this system. In eleven years, I’ve made my living on both the overwhelming generosity and bitter stinginess of others. Every person whose food I served or dish I cleared, has microscopically yet very definitely had a hand in shaping who I am, and I am blessed. I am grateful. Not because of some glamorous lifestyle, or because I have so many great things, or because of any significant achievement: I am blessed to be at a station in life where I can make those things happen for me, if I work for it. Because of those people who tipped, I’m in position to earn it.

That’s the idea behind tipping, isn’t it? That no one’s entitled to it, no matter your life’s station or  your job title. No one’s entitled to the extra, even if you work in a profession where “a minimum 18 percent gratuity is charged for parties of 6 or more” or if it’s the kind of place where you put out a tip jar. We are not entitled to the tip. The same way we’re not entitled to the promotion because we’ve been with the company for x number of years, or the paying gig because we interned for three months and got really good at fetching coffee. We’re not entitled to any of it.

Everything we want, we must earn.

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At 24, my father owned his first restaurant. The first Chinese delivery spot in downtown Albany, with stats like quote you’d get off the phone with Lee Fong and the delivery boy was ringing your doorbell unquote. When five p.m. came ‘round, it was sweet ‘n sour and Moo Shu out the wazoo. And my father, he’d storm the kitchen, up to his nostrils in hand-scribbled orders, and 1X1 he’d Gatling gun it to his partner and chef, Sam.

As quick as he shouted orders, Sam prepped the ingredients into wire handled white boxes. His hands dove in and out of his prep fridge like a conductor’s stroking his orchestra into the climax.  No premeasured portions, this wasn’t no Subway operation run by teeny boppers paid minimum wage to pretend to be sandwich artists. Fresh broccoli crowns and snappy peapods and crisp baby corn was weighed by their texture against your palm, by their feel, not by numbers on a scale. Sauces didn’t come in La Choy glass bottles, they were recreated from pinches and dashes of soy, sesame oil, ketchup, salt, sugar, mirin. Nothing written down, nothing completely standardized. Every improvised off the top.

Ticket minders lined every wall, and by five thirteen, white tickets with mental math computed totals surrounded my father. He and Sam were very fast, very smart. Both retained information like a sponge retains E. coli. But those qualities alone didn’t make them a good team. That wasn’t what made them a success.

Anticipation made them a success. My father didn’t just read the orders; he watched Sam, constantly aware of how fast he was packing, that if he was packing Orange Chicken, he only memorized the next seven dishes and he forgot there were two Kung Pao dishes, not one. It was a jazz duo between the two, never missing a beat even as they trampled notes and forgot orders, because at the end of a string of tickets, Sam would ask, “What did I forget?”

And my father knew. No hesitation, straight off the top.

The story sticks, on this slow descent towards Santa Monica Blvd, after day one on a manager’s desk, my introduction on How to be an Assistant. It sticks because amidst the coagulated information on the brain stem, the major takeaway, the 90 to the 90/10 is: great people anticipate. Don’t matter the industry, of food or film, the most important skill is the ability to anticipate the needs of the people around you. That’s what makes someone an asset to cause and company. Anticipation.

It’s not some voodoo extra sensory perception, neither – no ting-tangling spidey-sense alerting you of lasers or sentient metal claws in the immediate vicinity. Good anticipation is measurable. Actionable.  It’s work and research and focus on the details that directly affect you. The other components of a good assistant: phones mechanics, conferences and schedules and messengering, how fast you read and write; all trimmings. Anticipation, attention to detail, that’s the turkey. Not just saying it, not just putting on the resume because it sounds good. Living it, breathing it, delivering on it:

What’s on next week’s schedule? Next month’s? What meetings must The Big Cheese take? With whom, pertaining to what deals? Where and at what time is each of these meeting? How many glances and double-checks till you’re positive? Are you confident enough to schedule appointments on the fly, Blackberry unattached to fist, and without a peek at Outlook?

How far back have you read their e-mail? What projects are in the works?  Are you researching everyone in the phone log: who they are, who they work for, what’s their relationship to your employer? Are you building your own mental dossier of the people in the business? Why not?

Who are the clients? Who are the important clients? How does he speak to them when he’s got them on the phone?

Do you know when to interrupt? Which calls to give him when says, “no calls?” After your third reminder of who he owes, do you know who he’ll actually return to and who he won’t?

Who is the competition? What is their relationship to these people?

The assistant position isn’t a fair one. It’s not fair to get dumped on with miscellaneous chore, to take on work outside of the job description, or to get screamed at for failure to communicate, especially when the failure happened on someone else’s end. It isn’t fair that mind reading is required to succeed as an assistant. But since when was any aspect of this industry fair? Agents and managers get paid to make deals, not have myelin coated communication channels. That’s what the assistant is for.

It can be frustrating, thankless work, executing the duties of an assistant at this standard. It’s easy to ask, “Is it worth it?” especially if joining the ranks of the Masters of the Universe isn’t the end goal.  Why kill yourself in this role if it’s not the angle you want to break into the industry?

Because people don’t align themselves with you because you’re acute or obtuse. They get on your side because they see you’re smart, that you’re going to be a success. And an IVY league diploma is hardly a guarantee of that. Getting the small details correct, following up on the miniscule, is.

Nailing the small details is the only way to prove you can handle the big ones.

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If you’re putting on a show, putting up a face to compensate for lack of heart, it’ll seep through the cracks. People front but can’t nobody front forever.

Everything starts with heart. The rest of the package matters: luck, talent, image; but a glossy veneer don’t hold much weight.

What is heart? It’s looking out for others, even/especially when they can’t help you in return. It’s networking with Priority One to put others in position for success, and developing your own career the ancillary mega. Heart is doing what you say you’re going to do.

The service industry – waiting tables – is primo case study for heart. The experiments happen in rapid succession, the outcomes are measurable and immediate (read: cash $) and servers wear their attitude like a paisley tie around the neck. There are servers who see customers with a dollar amount tattooed to their forehead. I don’t want to serve them because they don’t tip well – sometimes a judgment made on past experiences; more times than not, made based on race, dress, or apparent educational level.

Some treat serving as a reflection of themselves. The bartenders who talk more about themselves to the customer than vice versa (when did this start happening? When did it become okay?) Or the seasoned server, coaching trainees about her personal philosophy rather than the fundamentals of good service: When I serve, I’m on a stage, you know? I’m a fun server, I’m a flatter, I’m a schmoozer. (Why not try being professional and helpful, instead of working on your bit?) And the server who postures about, pretending to care beneath a waxy smile, who asks questions like, Is everything delicious? (if you’re not going to give them much of a choice, don’t waste your breath) and says My name is blah blah blah, feel free to ask for me next time (if they planned on it, they’d ask for your name.)

Then, there are servers who want their customers to have the best experience. They look the customer in the eye. They listen. When they train you, they say This is the proper way. This is best for the customer. When they work, they do things because it’s the right thing to do, not because they think they can glean more green.

In the long run, they’re the ones who earn the bigger tips, anyway. Because they didn’t have to rely on gimmicks or bits or up-selling to convince someone they cared.

They just cared.

Heart doesn’t always come easy. Especially not living in a city where it feels like few people are listening, and everyone’s looking out for themselves. But in the long-run, it makes life easier. Because you never have to look around to see what other people are doing, or how they’re doing it. You always walk tall – the consequences be damned – when you start with heart.

Related posts:

1. Heart

He took a drag. Stared out across Culver City rooftops. “Wish someone told me that, when I was in New York. So I kept acting, instead of wasting two years bartending.”

The choices? A modern, fine-dining Japanese restaurant. Or a local, burn-n’-turn Thai spot.

If I’m serving, I want to learn – and I knew since square one there was serious educating to get done at the Japanese restaurant. The sommelier introduced two wines every pre-shift, dishing out bubbles and aroma wheels and a lexicon concerning tannins and notes and complexities of such complexity my notes consisted of a mish-mash of nada. Our bartender didn’t consider himself a sake expert, but that didn’t stop him from selling a $160, 300 ml bottle of sake to a Hollywood financier trying to impress his date. “It’s not what you know, it’s how you sell it,” he said, and proceeded to break it down.

Then there were the countless Japanese dishes, beyond Benihana-hibachi, onion-ring-volcano gambits and a sushi selection found in most Ralph supermarkets, next to the frozen Tilapia filets and Long John Silver fish sticks. Management wanted the servers to educate themselves. Any question – they tried to answer; if they couldn’t, they directed you to a better resource. Not one condescending eye cast for a silly question. If you wanted an education on food and drink, this was the spot.

It was an experience replicated to exactly the zero degree at the Thai restaurant, where the only thing management frowned upon more than idleness were questions. Not that there wasn’t plenty to learn – on the contrary, it was a cuisine of which I knew zippo, with Thai-lime-chili sauces and fresh cilantro and cucumber slice garnishes. After years of working in kitchens staffed by Chinese, I was suddenly surrounded by the by the buzz of Thai and Spanish. Even the menu selection – Thai dishes complimented with fried rices, Chow Mein noodles, Korea BBQ, and a sushi bar – was reminiscent of a menu I discussed about replicating in the past, but never seen well executed.

There was plenty to learn, except it was done on your own, with an observant eye and attention to detail. Ask too many questions, and you were regarded with suspicion rather than delight; who learned well under those conditions?

Teddy nailed it though – I didn’t come to learn about the restaurant business. I came to write, to work in the entertainment business; which job catered to that End Game? I left an hour early to get to the Japanese restaurant, followed by a ten minute skateboard ride just to get through the doors. If I worked a double, I’d have nothing to do other than aimlessly wander the 3^rd Street Promenade with weekend European tourists and upper-middle class America during my break.

I commuted to the Thai spot in four minutes – by skateboard; home in the same amount of time it took most people to dig out their car keys. There was no “studying” either, no reviewing the wines and dishes I learned that day. I’d make a better income at the Japanese restaurant – cover more of my overhead, sustain my spot in this game – but that wasn’t why I was here, either. I didn’t move to Los Angeles to cover overhead, to play it safe and eke out a living, until I went broke half-heartedly chasing a dream. I came to write, to carve my niche out of the entertainment sphere, and the Thai restaurant gave me a stronger foothold to do just that.

I called my father for his input, after my talk with Teddy. I told my father what he said.

“That’s right,” he agreed. “That’s the only way you should look at this situation. Juggle both jobs at first, to make sure you like this new restaurant. As soon as you know you want to stay, drop the old job.”

I told him I knew that was the play, but I felt… guilt. There was loyalty to the Japanese restaurant, because they hired me first, and had been good to me. I felt I owed it to the management to stick with them, instead of dropping them like a bad habit the instant something better came–

My father cut me off right there. “That’s the last thing that should cross your mind,” he scolded. “This is the restaurant business. People leave – it’s the highest turnover rate of any industry. Don’t  worry about the restaurant or your managers; they don’t care about you. Right now, you’re alone in Los Angeles. No one’s going to help you if something goes wrong, so the only person you should be thinking about is yourself.”

Of course, he was right. He and Teddy were both right – which is why I left.

But I struggle with the idea, to only think of myself. The mentality infects this city – after only a month, already I see and feel its effects. It’d be so simple to buy into it, to bury the moral compass, but I can’t, not without a fight. There are consequences of thinking only about oneself, or thinking solely about money, or about what the benefits one reaps for xyz action, and they are ugly. It taints everything and everyone it comes in contact with, a reverse-Midas’ touch.

On the other hand, I’ve seen what happens when you stop caring solely for yourself, or your bottom line. When you take two seconds to stop kissing ass or climbing the corporate ladder. When you care more about doing the right thing, or getting it done right, instead of recognition or credit… and it’s a whole other world.

It’s also much harder. As is any endeavor that’s worth the effort.

Related posts:

1. How Much to Save Before Moving to Los Angeles
2. One Month In – Part Two
3. Wait

Caress with the index’s paddy flesh paddy, then square off the block of rice. With two fingers, shape it: give it a curl that’d make Goldie Locks blush; an arc so gentle baby’s bottoms gives it a rash. Rotate, and repeat.  21. 22. 23. Rotate, repeat. Rotate, repeat.

It takes 10,000 repetitions to achieve mastery.

26. 27. 28.

“Let me show you something.” From the bar, Joe come-hithers with a wagging digit.

He plucked the Saran wrapped rice finger without a raised eyebrow. The sliver of warm sushi rice, encased in a sheet of plastic would prompt questions from most, but it isn’t Joe’s first time. hardly

“It’s about being fast, right? You got to be quick, doing sushi. So when you first take the rice, don’t start by rolling it up into a ball. Roll it into a cylinder,” he demonstrated, whirling the rice morsel in his excuse for a right hand. It’s more the size and texture of a baseball mitt; dark and leathery, the color of chocolate, capable of fielding blinding hot grounders or crushing the skulls of children and smaller horses. It can get surprisingly surgical, too; his fingertips manipulate the grains more skillfully than a Boardwalk full of rice scribbling scribes trying to make a buck. In seconds, his sliver of rice is the correct proportion to top with sushi.

“Then, when you’re squaring off the fish, do this first.” He squared off the rice; a block with rounded corners, then with deliberate slowness, he slid his hand into First Position, the Caressing Index Finger.

From there, he slipped into the Shaping Position, adding an arc that’d make Greek architects tear out their hair and bring the finest NBA 3-point shooters to their knees.

Joe’s sushi making was a streamlined methodology, one honed with his own 10,000 repetitions. He shaved off every possible millisecond and discarded every wasted motion from his procedure. He once managed Ichiban, a speedy sushi spot that churned out 200 plus checks on nights this restaurant clawed for triple digits. He saw his share of sushi before he quit, to open his café in downtown Albany.

“Owner of Ichiban, no good,” his girlfriend Tracy said a few days ago. “He make Joe do lot of work, and Joe have to make specials, too. But he always say, Joe, you not do enough work.”

“And Joe, he always outside,” she continued, “Talking to customer. So they thinking he owner. But Owner, he has to stay inside and cook, and get mad at Joe. But he not tell them this thing, they just thinking it.”

Joe’s ruddy face was serene as he continued explaining sushi’s finer points. He was either unaware or unmoved by his previous employer’s indiscretions. “The most important part of sushi is the rice,” he said. “The rice has to be right, and it’s got to be right the first time. You don’t get a second chance.” He imitated laying the rice to the fish. “When the rice touches the fish, it sticks because of the vinegar and the sugars. It won’t stick if you try using the same piece of fish twice. And when you roll, you got to roll with your fingers tips.” His mitts became cat claws, and he mimicked raking across the table. “Don’t do it like these sushi chefs; you can’t mash rice on the seaweed, you know? It’s got to be fluffy, or it’ll taste bad.”

He leaned back in the bar chair, and stared up at the television screen through his fashionably square glasses. “Oh my god, my master, he put me through hell like you wouldn’t believe. Eight months, and all he let me touch was the rice – wouldn’t even let me make a California roll. Would you believe that?”

Harder to believe Joe’s decision to give it all up, and turn his back on the time he invested into his training, the 10,000 and 100,000 and 1,000,000 repetitions he underwent to reach his current level. Mastery might lie somewhere in the 10,000 repetition mark, but how many more does it take to know this isn’t what you want? How long after working out the finer points before reaching the point where nothing’s fine?

Joe offered one more tidbit. “Oh, and sushi is supposed to look alive, okay? So don’t make it look like a brick; give it a long tail, so it looks like its swimming. Make it look like a fish.”

No one asked Joe for his advice. No one requested his expertise. But in his café, when he stands behind a deli counter, surrounded by cappuccino machines and milk steamers and triple-shot-espresso-soy-milk-no-foam-latte shenanigans, that mastery will amount to nothing. Offering the fruit from his labors is his one more last chance to make use of his skill set, before embarking on a new 10,000 repetitions.

He returned the sliver of sushi rice in the Saran wrap. It was still warm.

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1. Rolling With Michael
2. Heart
3. Sushi Rice

At the end of our serving shift, I told the other server our tips were a dollar over, and I wanted her to have it. She tried shrugging it off. She continued pushing the vacuum cleaner over the tan carpet. “Don’t worry about it,” she said.

I insisted. I told her I left it in my pocket and almost forgot it. If she didn’t take it, the guilt would eat me.

She thought about it for a millisecond. “Okay. I’ll take it. I’m poor,” she said with a short laugh, then, just as quickly, “just kidding,” as she shoved the money into her hip pocket.

For Karen, the Lobster Meat Summer Roll was love at first sight – filled with delicately cooked lobster meat, fresh spring mix, mangoes and strawberries. The sushi chefs wrapped them in rice paper, then drizzled a tangy Thai citrus sauce on top, and perched it upright in a tantalizing balancing act. “Oh, that looks good,” Karen said.

So good, in fact, that when she saw Tracy carry an unfinished piece back into the kitchen, her eyes grew to size of saucers, lustful, in hope and anticipation. “Oh,” she said softly. She quickly followed Tracy in. She asked, “Are they going to take that home?”

“Uh, no,” Tracy said.

“Good,” and with one swift bite, it was gone.

Wei-Yi breathed in figures and numbers, and spat out the results in different languages. She couldn’t pick up how to be a good server, however. She didn’t last long. Yet she forced the restaurant to limit the post-shift meal (and its 50 percent discount) to one item.

“How come you’re ordering so much?” Alan asked, watching her ring in her and her boyfriend’s dinner, as well as her lunch for tomorrow, into the computer.

“Well, it’s 50 percent off. Why wouldn’t I order a lot?” she said.

Kathleen, who eventually replaced Wei-Yi, had a similar mentality. She shared the same cluelessness about restaurant work, too (though she remained blissfully free of the intelligence.) Once, she forgot to remind our Head Chef to keep mushrooms out of the Sautéed Noodles. The dish came out incorrectly, and that the fault lied even remotely upon her never crossed her mind. The notion she should offer to pay for the wasted dish – beyond her grasp.

Instead, she volunteered to eat it.

“Oh, I was hoping you’d ask!” she replied when the owner asked her if she wanted it. “I love noodles!”

And you’ll find the sushi chef, Alan, constantly rummaging through the fridge, a stray Greyhound looking for its next free meal. The wiry 26-year-old – who’s first in-line for breakfast, lunch, and dinner – knows how to put the food away. Just as long as he doesn’t have to buy it.

Before the staff dinner, he came into the kitchen, and picked out a yellow banana – ones used for tempura dessert. “It looks like it’s going bad,” he said.

Frank sat atop an empty soy sauce container. He didn’t even look up from his newspaper. “So just eat it,” he’d replied, but Alan’s didn’t hear, already half-way through the banana.

The word “free” in “The Free World” has taken on a new meaning. “Free” has infected our consciousness, and today we’re a culture scrambling for handouts: checking Craigslist for rummage “sales,” or visiting BJ’s for free samples. Fans at a sports event will dive over three seat rows to get an extra-large t-shirt they’ll never wear, shot from an absurd cannon-contraption, simply because, besides their dignity, there’s nothing to lose.

Free downloads.

Free money.

Low shirt, short dress, and a seductive glance equals free drinks.

Free morsels on toothpicks – little pieces of Bourbon chicken you take not because you’re hungry but because they’re waving it in your face and jeez, it’d just be rude to refuse.

No sex! – but here are your free condoms, just in case.

Free HIV tests.

Free month supply of Extenz – “you just pay for the stamp!”

Free magnets, pens, pencils. Free meals, free lunch, free time.

Free Willy. Free mugs. Free ringtones, wallpapers, and Proactive Refining Mask solutions.

In this world dominated by “free,” it’s rare to find someone like Martin, who looks down upon the notion of handouts or charity. It’s rare to find someone who refuses “free.” On one slow Saturday evening, Frank planned on leaving work early to have dinner at a new restaurant down the street.

“Would you like to come?” he asked Martin.

“Uh, no,” Martin replied with a snicker.

Frank ignored it, as he did whenever he already made up his mind. Ten minutes later, Martin changed out of his uniform, and they put on their coats. “Can we do separate checks?” Martin asked, as they stepped out of the doors.

Before he left for the city one weekend, he ordered two Jack and Cokes for himself, and a martini for his friend. I told him it was on the house. He left a $20 bill on the bar anyway, went outside, and waited in the car that was warming up in the parking lot.

I followed him out, and threw the bill through the window, into his lap.

Two minutes later, he came back in and slapped it on the black stone counter. He gave me a serious look. “Ming, don’t ever take anything for free,” he warned. He didn’t elaborate. Martin rarely did. That was his style: put out a nugget of wisdom, and see who picked up on it.

Then he was gone.

It was this attitude, this nose-in-the-air defiance to the Free Movement, that earned him the respect of others. It’s why I respected him. Because a person who never takes is a person who does not need.

And a person who doesn’t need – wouldn’t you call that being “free?”

Martin wasn’t – isn’t, perfect. Far from it. He is still guilty of his own childish behaviors, susceptible to the whims and fancies of a 7-year-old child. Yesterday he tells you he’s getting married and moving to Indonesia. Tomorrow he’s living in Kentucky, working for another restaurant. Anytime someone tried to give him money, he made an unnecessary production of the affair, so that people had no choice but to recognize his principles. Kayleigh once tried giving him $5, for the coffees he bought her, but he refused the money. They argued for a few minutes, until Martin finally took the $5 bill, and threw it into the trash. Then he walked upstairs, with Kayleigh shouting at his back, “I’m not taking it back! It’s staying in the garbage can!”

“Fine,” Martin said.

Minutes later, Big Chef came running up the stairs, holding the $5 bill. “Money, money, money! Honey, your money!” Kayleigh laughed, and half-exasperated, half-relieved she didn’t just throw out good money, said, “Yes, Honey, my money.” She took the bill and put it into her apron. Martin smirked from the corner of the bar.

Someone once referred to him as a martyr, which is more accurate than not. I prefer thinking of him as a person with honor, though. A person with pride. He is someone who takes nothing for granted, here, in the Land of the Free. He knows there are notions and values that no one can just give away, with, say, two proofs of purchase and the cost of shipping and handling.

No. There are still some things you simply must earn.

Related posts:

1. Pride
2. Service

Serving was how he passed the time in high school and college. He did well because his memory was sharp, he was quick with figures and quick with his hands. But his belief in delivering quality work with quality service kept him in this industry that turns naïve idealists into cold, calculating machines. Which was easy enough in good times, but during the bad times, you see how quickly those ideals get compromised.

“You don’t know how lucky you are. You can go out to dinner, spend $100 before tip, and it’s not a big deal. You can’t appreciate it.” There was truth to his words. Looking back, by the time the server cleared the dessert plate, the whole event was another memory. It was a miniscule detail the moment it was over, like brushing your teeth or putting on a clean t-shirt in the morning. “But for some people it’s a very big deal, and you have to treat it that way.”

“What if this is a family who can only afford to eat out once a month?” he asked.  A family of six; the father works six days a week while the mother stays home to take care of the kids. After the parents look at their budget, after deducting the costs of rent, utilities, groceries, putting money into the college savings and the account that looks more like a bad joke than a retirement fund, they figure, okay, we can afford to take everyone out to dinner once a month.

Their meal won’t be special to you. The parents won’t order wine or cocktails. The whole table will order water with lemons because it’s free. They’ll ignore your carefully crafted specials pitch, and opt for four of the more inexpensive entrees, and they’ll ask for a few sharing plates. They skip the appetizer, and the dessert.

Their check won’t be special, and the accompanying tip even less-so. Other than the 35 seconds spent grumbling over their meager contribution to your bottom-line, you won’t remember these guests in any way.

“To them, though, that meal is special, so you have to treat their experience the way they might see it. That’s how you look at your job.”

“What if you ruined this meal for them?” Frank continued. “All month, they look forward to the one night they get to go out, and do something special for the family. And you ruin it with your attitude, because they tipped you 4% percent less than you think you deserved.”

This responsibility isn’t a burden many servers carry on their shoulders. More often than not, they care little about the quality of food and even less about the quality of service. Their primary concern, at the end of their shift, is escaping with more money in their pocket than they came in with.

“That’s why you have to be different,” he said. “You have to care more. You have to know serving is not about you.”

Related posts:

1. Tipping (Isn’t a City in China)
2. Start With Heart

Joseph signaled for a second sake, and it was only as I poured his cup did a downwards glance catch the book’s color-illustrations: warriors in full-metal jackets resembling skirts, steep triangular helmets, halberds and katana.

I glimpsed the single-word title in the margin: Samurai.

With that, the entire scenario of this balding man, sipping his green tea over his bento box lunch coagulated like a specimen in a Petri dish, like déjà-vu after a handshake, or a certain smile. Joseph’s childhood was engrained by two events: the first, always the last man standing on the gymnasium hardwood, even after the girls. The second was the afternoons afterwards, which he spent absorbing kung fu movies and Samurai epics.

These afternoons spawned his interest in karate and Bushido, honor and seppuku, qi or chi or ki or whichever two letters are currently vogue.  It turned him on to The Dao, The Way, The I-Ching, and its physical counterparts like gung fu or wing chun and jeet kun do.

He ate Pocky Sticks and top-shelf ramen.

He owned his own pair of chopsticks.

He even had a sushi making kit lying around somewhere in his apartment.

All thoughts and practices and products pulled from ideologies as different as Naruto and Ni-hao Kai Lan! but falling under the umbrella in his mind of “Asian;” this alluring culture and aesthetic where he discovered acceptance. Despite never having so much as an Asian pen pal, and the closest he’s been to the continent was Lee’s Market on Central Avenue. That made the feelings even more real, not less, however. Call it faith – to believe in something without having seen it. How else did he explain his draw to the culture and the people and their way of life? Or those feelings he harbored, in the darkest crevices of his heart, that he’d be so much happier if he were born Asian?

Of course, Joseph turned a blind eye to the discrimination Asians faced, the social stigmas and the rejection outside of watered-down, trendy ideologies of feng shui and chakra balancing and Chinese take-out boxes. He didn’t notice those lofty notions of pride, honor, and perpetual motion towards becoming a Zen creature being replaced by designer products: Mercedes-Benz and Rolexes and iPhones. He only saw what the tourist books and large textbooks about Samurai life wanted him to see: the mystery, the history, the high drama.

He even started falling in love with Asian women, every single one he passed by: wandering the stacks in the library, brushing close as he left the coffee shop, standing outside of the movie theater. They whisked away his heart with a single glance, like ninjas in the Tokugawa era. He felt she (and she and her and she) would understand him better than any woman ever would. He imagined he could tell her anything, and she’d cradle his face in her soft hands and tell him it’d be alright. He loved them for the thought of them; the thought of their long black hair, demure glances and soft voices, and the way he’d hold her close during cold nights. Don’t call it a fetish, either, because he was one of them – maybe not in his eyes, his skin color or the texture of his hair, but where it really mattered. In his heart, he was a Japanese warrior.

He raised the sake glass to his lips, and to his dismay, it was empty. He sighed, closed the textbook, and all those thoughts took flight again. He was back, sitting alone in the restaurant, plain old Joseph.

He struggled with his large, white hoodie, and shimmied it over his squat frame. He donned a white ski mask to cover his face, then pulled the hood tight over his head, shielding himself from the cold outside. The large book went into his bag, a green-nylon one, the kind female soccer players toted around during fall practice, and with an awkward swing, he secured it to his back.

Have a good day, I wished him as he left.

He pulled down the mask, revealing his puffy face. He thanked me. Then he said something in Japanese, and I could only smile back. In this area, few employees in a Japanese restaurant are actually Japanese. I considered telling him, to save him the trouble or embarrassment next time. But I held my tongue, afraid to break his heart.

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