Herring-Hawker's Cry

Locomotive Hootenanny: Oh, you know, it's work. →

I had this remarkable realization while laughing with customers during a particularly ridiculous workday, yesterday. It was a day that exemplified Murphy’s law, and even included my coworker filleting the skin between her index finger and thumb. But I realized that my work area, that place behind a bar that separates a select few - myself and coworkers - from the masses, is not unlike being on a stage. Few jobs allow the patrons to witness the production of the product. Everything becomes a spectacle. Witnessing the production of whip cream is not to be missed. The effortless scooping and shaking and stirring and pouring all becomes something to watch, almost a sort of magic. Our laughter and banter, our teasing and battles of wit, are often not to be missed. And customers want to be invited on stage, listening intently as we regale them with tales of absurd and neurotic patrons and trash bags filled with condoms. Smiles could not be broader when we decide to give a drink for free, or offer to make something not on the menu, but you’re sure as hell to like it. They marvel at how we laugh during times of pressure, shake our heads at the bitches and bastards, and they look on in awe when we playfully bicker in light of it all.

I notice what books you put on the counter, I see the laxative box poking out of your purse, and I can tell when you’re meeting someone from an online dating site. We take in all these details, and share them with one another. And suddenly, customers are more than their name - they are drinks and the descriptions of their company and the books they are reading. We are on our stage, and we are fully aware of who comprises our audience, we know we are the ones being watched, and that’s really something else. We have the machines and we have the stage, and we know who you are, and maybe, in a way, we are the deus ex machina of the under-caffeinated. We can make days or we can ruin them, and I don’t think that is an opportunity I will get elsewhere.

Of course, we also scrub toilets, mop floors, and clean a sort of muck from mats that defies description. It’s not a job to glorify, nobody should want to be us. I barely make minimum wage and, amusingly, would no doubt not be able to afford patronizing (as a regular customer or as a condescending asshole) my store were I not drinking and eating there for free. But if I can’t laugh at this job and enjoy the sort of baffled admiration that comes from our regulars, then I am hopeless. Life is full of complete blunders and small triumphs, and if you don’t exaggerate the latter, then the former is sure to bury you.

Welcome to my workday.

Very nice. This could be the beginnings of a decent 100-page memoir. Along the lines of that French grocery store cashier.

I’m not kidding. You have something here. Am I right, people?

Posted February 20, 2010 at 2:33pm || home

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