Serving the People ...Serving Myself

This Blog is Dedicated to Alyce...thank goodness we didn't allow first impressions to get in the way when we first met in 1984 at Record Town, where we realized we both were "experts" at music...
We started our waitressing career together, and the memories are incredible...we became, to our surprise as well, the very best of Friends...and I will always and forever be grateful for her friendship.  She was the one person who was always there at a moments notice when my marriage fell apart, she was someone who treated my boys as if they were her very own, and she was the only one, for the longest of times, who would just show up, with that warm and beautiful smile, a cassette tape she made just for me, and the ability to make me laugh, even through the hard times when I didn't even think I could smile.
Thank you Alyce, I hope you will always know just how much you mean to me <3


      I think each and every working person should be required to work in the Service Industry for at least 2 weeks out of their lives...I'm convinced there are many people who are not aware of just how much skill and organization it takes to be a really good server...along with the skill it takes to always be "smiling" even on your very worst days...

     I must say working in a restaurant created some of the best memories of my life, and I have never made quite as much money (or had nearly as much fun) as I did when I worked for tips, however it was some of the hardest (yet most rewarding) work I have ever done. And trust me, I could tell you story after story, some good, some not so good.  (Don't worry, most of us don't do anything to your food when you make us mad...MOST of us I say, and truly I only know of one incident in over 20 years of waitressing where this was so, and I promise you it wasn't me) but just in case, I suggest you always be nice to servers, especially the "not so nice" ones :)
 As anyone who has ever worked in a restaurant can tell you, it is a lot like a family...a very large, and very Dysfunctional Family :) and just like family, there are a whole lot of ups and downs, and fights with each other behind the scenes. Especially between cooks and servers.

     I was just 17 when I found my very first waitressing job at Perkin's Restaurant.  I was lucky enough to start this career with my very Best friend at the time, Alyce.  We worked the graveyard shift together...and we also worked at Record Town in the Mall together...to say we made quite a pair is an understatement...we were the modern day Lucy and Ethel I swear, and to this day, we can crack each other up watching paint dry...I mean honest, when we are together, you will beg us to give you some of whatever we are taking, we just feed off of each other, we usually laugh until we cry, and honestly, if we had taken our show on the road, well, I'm quite sure we would have been famous and Lord only knows where we may have ended up (most likely on a sitcom)!!!   I keep meaning to tell her, that when I watch the new tv sitcom "2 Broke Girls" with Max and Caroline, I immediately think of us back in those days...although, I promise you, back then we were not 2 broke girls, we both had 2 jobs and made a whole lot of money...and spent every cent!! (well, I did anyway) !!!!     Needless to say, Alyce       (Not pronounced Alice, Pronounced AhLeese, or as my boys used to fondly call her AHHHHHHHHYEESE), She was my hero, as she was funny as hell, and never at a loss for words when it came to quick comebacks! (I'm not sure I can now take all the credit for my funny comebacks, because now that I'm thinking about it, I'm not really sure I had quick comebacks the way I now do, until we were together every day...I think I really found that talent myself when I started hanging around with her!  And she will probably want to phone you from the car herself on that one...(inside joke, wayyyy before the time cell phones were available to all... will try to share with you later ...but anyways...Thanks Alyce!)  And Thank you for giving me permission to use your real name and photo in my story...xoxoxo 

     Sassy as the day is long, that was me back then...I went from so shy I could barely speak, to working at the mall for Record Town as Assistant Manager and Perkins as a Server...and just like that, this flower opened and has not stopped yakking yet...I also have one volume, and its LOUD, but in spite of that, many love me anyways:) so back to the story...
... We had a cook, Donnie, May God Rest his Soul, I miss him to this very day,  who decided he would test me to the limit to see just how far he could push me each and every night...Donnie and I became the best of friends oddly enough, you see, he was one of those people who had to see just how far he could go to irritate you, and he and I both had some control issues at the time, he wanted to control me, and I just wanted to control myself (still do)!!!!  He thought he was bad-ass, and so did I (still do!!) We fought like sister and brother, and until we actually became friends, poor Alyce was stuck in the middle of some very ugly fights in the middle of the night !  I will leave the fights we had in the past...what I want to say is, thanks mostly to Donnie, I think,  Alyce and I became two of the very best servers around, (and I'm proud to say that over 20 years later, I still am, when I was in Nursing School I had to go back to serving, and again loved every minute of it!!!) however, because of him and his temper, my mistakes were far and few between, because of him, I always made sure I had the right order, and that it NEVER sat in the window getting cold...bottom line, because of him, I learned to HUSTLE and I learned to double check that the order you were picking up had better be for your table!!!  Because of this, my tables were usually happy!!
 I would like to share with you some of the really funny stories that stick out in my mind, as they still can make me laugh out loud.

     Working at night can be quite strange...as there is a few hour window, between when everyone goes to sleep and the bar crowd come in, where it is, well, like a graveyard...mostly quiet with very few people and hardly any noise...On any given weeknight we had 1 cook and 2 servers...my enemy cook turned best buddy was a practical joker, so this one night I went walking into the back where he jumped out from under the prep table and almost literally scared the piss out of me...good thing I was young is all I can say about that one!
    
     Another morning, I put on my moon boots and jacket, said good-night to Donnie, who was smiling (a bit too much I might add), I then proceeded to my car, feeling quite bouncy hmmm...well, it would turn out that when I arrived home, I was mortified to find that 1). he attached a tampon to my car antennae, 2). He also lined my boots with "maxi pads" ...and 3.) a week or so later, I would also realize that my pockets were full of something, and when I said "what the heck" in front of a bunch of people of course, and pulled one out of the pocket, it was then that I discovered that I had about 8 tampons in my coat pocket...well he sure was original LOL.
    
     In the middle of a busy night, again, just 3 of us running the restaurant, that actually filled up right at 2:15am...I had to go into the walk in cooler to get another pie...we used to have these "HUGE" buckets prepped full of pancake batter...I used to use these as my "step-stool" to reach the pies...as they were so heavy duty they could take it....well, the one I chose to "step" on this night did not have the lid on quite right, so, there I went...I fell knee deep into pancake batter...let out a little scream(which no one could hear from the walk in cooler) I stepped out of the buttermilk, and proceeded on to the bathroom (well, hello...there were batter footprints all the way there) ...I'm not sure when Donnie stopped laughing about that one...I worked the rest of the night quite uncomfortably with buttermilk up to my knees!!!!  We actually laughed over that one for several weeks~!

     I'm not sure if you remember this at all, but Perkins used to have uniforms that matched the curtains...only problem was, they were wrap around jumpers that attached with velcro...one very busy night as Alyce was taking an order at a table behind me, I happened to glance back, and well, I saw her behind LMAO....when I did a double take, I noticed her velcro had become detached at some point and separated, and, well, you could basically see her entire behind...when she turned around and looked at me, I was laughing so hard I couldn't quite get out the sentence that her skirt was not attached in the back...when I finally did, laughing still, tears running down my face... she almost passed out from embarrassment...we STILL (ok, I STILL) laugh about that one!!!!

     Christmas becomes alot more fun when you work the night shift, and decide to go shopping during the day on no sleep, and a whole lot of silly...such was the case this particular Christmas season, when Donnie, I, Alyce, and Sharon decided to make a day of it and do our shopping...pretty sure no one else appreciated our antics, but we sure had fun (we were 18 remember) just mere children ...well, Donnie was 20 something...but anyways....we went to Marketplace Mall just after breakfast...we sat on Santa's lap...we rode the escalators at Sibley's the wrong way...to say we were annoying and juvenile is an understatement, but I can honestly to say, to this day, that memory sticks out in my mind as one of the best as far as Christmas shopping goes...a close second is the first year I was a single mom at Christmas and Alyce and I went to Greece Ridge Mall...somehow we ended up at Fridays, and well...we became the entertainment and drank free for quite some time that day...oh to be young and cute again!!!!

     Another good story is when a bunch of us decided to go to CoCo's next door to Perkins to drink for the night...funny thing about this crew, is that we had weekends off, and like I said, we were like family, so on the weekends we would hang together as well...we would drink at CoCo's (they all knew us by name, since they came to eat at Perkins every night after their shift) and wow, did we have a good time there, especially on the dance floor (I owe my dance moves to them and their awesome DJ lol ) to this day Alyce enjoys when I do the "Wiki Wiki Wiki Wiki" dance :) ...also known as "Jam on It"
 Well...of course once we were done drinking we went to Perkins for breakfast...and the cook who drove us over there in his standard jeep, well he hit the building, shook the entire pie case...scared the patrons inside, and when the manager came outside to see what was up, there we all were...most of us a bit tipsy...and of course it was the really "strict" manager...he was not amused at 3am, especially when we told him I would not be at work at 6:30 (I had just recently picked up some day shifts on the weekend to help out...oops)

      I could go on and on, with story after story, but I won't...They live in my memory bank, where I hope they will always be...I also hope you enjoyed this trip down memory lane with me...Alyce is still in my life, I don't see her as much as I would like to, but she is still one of my best friends...Donnie, I still think of him all the time, and miss him, his sense of humor and antics can never be replaced, and I wish he was still here, on earth, with me, he truly was the brother I never had...Sharon, I hope to one day reconnect with, we have been out of touch for several years...she is a Sheriff at the Jail now...hard to believe how we all have changed, yet remained the same ...

...OH...as promised, here is the "phone from the car" story...
One night...Alyce and I were driving from one place to another, looking for fun as we often did, when we decided to request a song from a local radio station...I had recently noticed, that the Rochester Telephone building next to Southtown Plaza had installed pay phones, that you could actually drive up to and "phone from the car" ...amazing I thought, that is so cool...so as we were headed to our destination, and wanted to request a song , I said, "Alyce, we can phone from the car" (if you know me, you know how excited I said it too) and Alyce said "OH MY GOD, you have a CAR PHONE???) she said this seriously, looking all around for the "car phone" and of course, no, I did not, in fact, have a car phone, but I drove up to the payphone, and said, "Look, isn't this SO cool?"  ...we laughed for years over that one!!!!!! And several times we would look at each other (after cell phones) and say "wanna phone from the car?!?!?)

     To anyone who has never worked in the service industry, I hope you will remember the next time you go out to eat, that your server is a person, much the same as you are...they may be having a horrible day in their personal life, yet they do the best they can to serve you and keep you happy...before you get really annoyed about waiting, or thinking they are scatterbrained (may I remind you, servers who work in this industry for years cannot be scatterbrained, for there is a whole lot of skill and organization required to do this job) remember they may have just been held up by a rude table they were taking an order from before you, being yelled at by a table, being held up by a table who requests items one at a time because they can't quite think of everything they need at the same time and keep sending their server back for "just one more thing"...dealing with cooks who are testing them or withholding their food on purpose because they don't like them or are mad at them for something...the examples are endless...and YES, I will say, there are horrible servers out there who are rude, or just plain can't cut it in the service industry...but before you judge, or withhold their tip, please think again, and just remember they may be doing the best they can, and the 4 dollars an hour they are making will not feed their families...(If they are just plain rude, or act like they could care less, or act like they are doing you some kind of favor by serving you, then by all means, don't tip them, they do not deserve a tip if they are portraying this kind of behavior) ...but please please please...if you know they did the best they could, at least give them 15% for thier effort :)

      There are far too many special people to mention that have become family to me over the years, from every restaurant I have ever worked in...but I know that you all know who you are, and the special place you will forever hold in my heart. All of my Waitress/Server/Cook/Restaurant Friends (wow does this go back to quite a long time ago) There are so many of you who became my very best and dearest Friends...and I cherish the memories of each and every one of you!

     I now realize that while Serving the people, I truly Served myself and made so many wonderful memories...

     I've so enjoyed these memories...I sure hope you did too, and thank YOU for reading, and supporting my blog <3 





                                                                                     Much Love,
                                                                                          LB

Me and Donnie

Me, Alyce, and Sharon (And Santa)

                              Donnie was there....he was watching, he would NOT sit with Santa LOL