By Don Hall

I understand the idea of extreme service when it comes to dealing with customers and patrons. It's a crucial aspect of any business to have a reputation for being helpful and courteous when dealing with the public. The problem with it is that 95 percent of people going to a concert or attending a movie or dining out are really just looking for a good time out. Extreme service for that 95 percent is easy—get them from the street to the seat, make sure their needs are met and smile.

It's the other 5 percent that cause the problems. Maybe they are having a lousy day, maybe they have jobs where they are subordinate to a tyrannical, micro-managing fuckwad and feel the need to subjugate someone lower on the food chain than them, maybe they're merely tired of life and, in lieu of getting a readily available firearm and shooting up the place, taking a behavioral shit on a staff person is just a better alternative.

When I think of emotional labor, it is not the mental energy required to deal with explaining to racists what white privilege is or trying to get through to a misogynist why he shouldn't masturbate in front of unwilling women. When I think of emotional labor, it is the unreasonable expectation placed upon teachers, valet drivers, house managers, and waitstaff to deal with the mini-Trumps of the world as they demand to be treated as if they are somehow exempt from the simple courtesies of decent humanity because they are a customer.

I've never been very good at that.

If there was a 10th Level of Dante's Inferno, a Circle of Hell he missed because, well, he died hundreds of years before the idea of a suburban franchise restaurant existed, that Level 10 would be a Chi-Chi's in Wichita, KS in the late 1980s.

I was a college freshman, a music major and an actor. It was a legal requirement that I pay my dues by waiting tables. And I did. I waited tables at the Chi-Chi's in Wichita, KS in the late 1980s for exactly five...

...hours.

I had moved from my parent's house and into what my mother called "The Pea" because it was a tiny shared house painted an awful pukey green. But it was a roof over my head and I had to get paying work in order to supply my fair share of rent. I applied at Chi-Chi's, I was hired on the spot and asked to both train and start working the next day.

"Cool," I thought. "How bad could it be?"

I trained in the afternoon—the basics of the expediting process, the ticketing system, standard protocol. Zack was the shift manager and he walked me quickly through the paces.

"You ever wait tables before?" he asked impatiently.

"No. This'll be my trial by fire, I suppose."

"Oh, man. No offense but they hired you with no experience at all? Okay. Shit."

Zack explained that I was assigned a section of tables and that my primary job was to get the orders, get them their food, and move things along. The faster I got them their microwaved chimichangas and watered down Margaritas, the faster they finished, and the faster we turned the table over for another set of paying customers.

For an hour or so, I shadowed Zack, watching him take orders, smile, and push the specials, bring his orders to the expediting window. At this particular Chi-Chi's, the waiters had to go into the kitchen to pick up their plates, run them to the tables, and take the completed ticket to another window.

Zack was really solid with his balancing of multiple plates on his arm. He could transport four plates of rice, beans, and overstuffed and gravy-soaked burritos like a freakin' ballet dancer or one of those chair balancing guys from the circus.

"Do this shit long enough and you'll get a handle on it."

"How long have you been doing this?"

He stopped and thought for a beat. "Four years. Shit. Four. Years."

He looked around and saw that all his tables were full and were attended to. "C'mon," he gestured and we went through the kitchen to a small area out back. There were a billion cigarette butts on the ground. Zack pulled out a pack of Newports. He gestured to me. I declined . I didn't start smoking until ten years later.

He took a long drag. 

"So what's the worst customer story you have?" I asked.

"Worst? Oh, crap. This fucking guy once came in with a lady. Sat down, ordered drinks, looking each other over like they were the meal. Way into each other, right? Then his wife comes in and starts throwing plates of food and drinks everywhere. 

“Dude runs into the men's room and locks the door. Wife goes ballistic. Takes a chair and starts trying to break the door down. The sidepiece bolts out the front entrance. The wife chases her, knocking food and drinks off of tables, trips and lands face first onto a four-top. 

“Four of my five tables just get the fuck out of here without bothering to pay—total dine-and-dash shit. The manager—she was fired about a year ago—deducted the short from my check. Total shit-show, man."

"Holy shit. Is that usual?"

"Nah. Like once a week something stupid happens or some diner decides the waitstaff is there to act as their whipping post because they had a shitty day or something."

"What do you do about those types?"

"Smile and nod, man. Smile and nod. I used to spit in their food but I almost got caught. I can't get fired. I have car payments, you know?"

As we went back in through the kitchen, Zack pointed out the three shelves of microwaves. "When an order goes up, it gets set on the hot plate but sometimes the food gets a little cold and sometimes they undercook the chicken. Those microwaves are a quick bit of insurance. Be careful, though. The crockery plates hold onto heat like a motherfucker. One of those plates in one of those microwaves sits too long and you'll burn skin right off of your arm if you touch it."

I made a mental note to not order the chicken here. 

That evening, I donned my uniform and leapt in. For an hour or so things went smoothly.

Then they came in.

They were benign at first glance. Dad, Mom, and 10-year-old son, all out for a night on the town for some microwaved refried beans and pre-made Sangria. Once seated, I realized that this was, for this particular tribe, a Big Night Out, meaning that they were looking for Five-Star Treatment at a fucking Chi-Chi's. I could handle that.

And then I looked into the boy's eyes.

Not like a creepy thing—it wasn't as if I had to. It was as if I couldn't help it. For the boy's eyes were dead, malevolent, like an evil, lifeless doll or something. And I realized I was serving tortilla chips to a budding Jeffrey Dahmer.

I rationalized. Someone, somewhere, had to have served a glass of iced tea to John Wayne Gacy, right? Ed Gein probably was served breakfast at some diner by someone, yes?

I served them the complimentary chips, salsa, and a crockery bowl of guacamole. I took their drink orders. And I went about my business. And at one point, I relaxed and absentmindedly went to scratch my ass. It was covered in guacamole. I realized that the little demon seed was waiting until my back was turned and was taking a spoon, filling it with guacamole and flinging a tiny ball of mush at my ass.

I approached with a smile reserved for masking indignation and rage.

"Folks. I hope everything is alright. I put your orders in and the food will be here in a bit. I noticed your youngster is flinging guacamole at me and I'd love it if you could make sure he isn't, you know, doing that anymore."

The monster grinned but with those dead shark's eyes.

And they laughed.

They were in on the game and because they felt that, somehow, it was a part of my $2.30 an hour job to endure their child's game, they laughed as he continued to try to launch green avocado bombs at my fucking ass.

I approached the table again after grabbing a rag and wiping my ass with it by the bar.

"Hahaha. Seriously, folks. Please have your son refrain from throwing food."

The mother got very serious. "Or what?"

"Or... or what?"

"Yeah. What're you gonna do if he doesn't stop?"

Now I could see from which parent the kid received his genetic absence of soul, his built-in malignancy. Mom was daring me to do or say something. I did some mental math. $2.30 an hour plus the hope for tips minus the piece of my dignity required to smile through this bullshit. The sum was less than the cost. Yet still, I needed the job. I had rent to pay, utilities to contribute to, and books to purchase for classes. I felt a heat creeping up in my neck and into my face. 

Is this what this waiting tables crap amounts to? Put up with assholes in hopes of a five-dollar tip and the scraping of my self respect? How many of these fuckers could I look forward to and how much of my amour-propre would it eventually decay?

The pint-sized fiend had gone too far I decided. His parents were assholes who thought nothing was funnier than their little goblin torturing an underpaid waiter. Retribution was demanded by the Gods of All That Is Just and Right in the World. 

I went back into the kitchen and microwaved the child's plate for a full five minutes, then put his food on and gave it another three. That fucking plate practically glowed from the molten lava heat it was carrying. I felt like I was handling plutonium covered in nachos and mild salsa.

I brought the food, careful not to let the little bastard's plate sear my flesh off. I gingerly set the food in front of them. I smiled, this time with my own dark set of eyes.

"Here you go. Please be careful, though. The plate is extremely hot. Don't want you to burn yourself." I looked him in the face and practically dared him to grab the scorching object in front of him like telling a child to not push that red button no matter what. Do anything except press that red button. Human nature being what it is and has always been, we simply can't help but press the red button.

I turned and, as if on cue, heard what sounded like a woman being thrown from a cliff. The scream was high and shocked. I spun on my heel and noticed his fingers, red and blistering and I offered, "Oh no. I told you it was hot. Maybe you could put some guacamole on it but YOU ARE ALL OUT OF GUACAMOLE, AREN'T YOU?!"

The kid kept screaming. The mother started screaming at me. The father just sat there as if willing his life to simply end. Zack ran over, saw what was happening, pulled his filthy rag, dipped it in a water glass, and wrapped the little shit's hands in it.

The shift manager fired me in the spot. I never received the $6.90 I was due but I can bet all of seven bucks that that little motherfucker never flicked food at a waiter again. I realize in relating this tale that, in search of work that entails working with other sentient beings, it may paint a negative for me for future employ. I can say that I've not harmed anyone in this sort of capacity since, but I do not regret the choice. Would I do it again? Not on your life.

Oh, the hot plate? Yeah. Maybe. But I'd rather have that molten plate permanently stuffed in my guacamole covered pucker hole than ever wait tables again.