My co-workers, they often blame me, as if I invented humanity and human behavior, as if I were responsible for a good portion of the 'difficult people' who come, as if they had come by my special invitation, the customers, the ones who come and say, when it's obvious I'm not there, a rude thing to do, 'where's Ted,' regulars, as we say. ( They do present a burden, the burden of making conversation.)

I'm not there.  They don't get the best service, for one reason or another, and they make it known.  Justly, or probably unjustly, they complain.  Their egos have come out, and apparently feel they have been shorted somehow, and the one person, it seems, who could disarm their egos through his own study of the matter is not around.

And so a sort of bickering arises.  'Ted gives special treatment, lets people taste any and all wines they want, cuts them deals that we don't do.'  The usual talk that goes around the workplace.  Oh, Ted's people.  Ted's people who suddenly feel slighted even as they are getting perfectly good and normal service.  He works the slow nights, who knows what he does, what he promises, what he, basically, gives away.

And the latest incident of this leaves me up at 5:17 in the morning troubled by all this.  The regular who comes in with his wife, who got so upset about the service he received one night that he went downstairs to seek out the manager with complaints about everything.  100$ check comped.  "the food was awful, the service was terrible, etc., etc."  And what do I want to do now really the next time he comes in but show up at his table with a bowl of soapy water, dip my hands in, rub them, dry them with a towel, hold out clean hands and say, 'bro, I don't know you anymore.'  Maybe my coworkers are right, on certain levels.  Maybe my tolerance is too high.

I've always sensed that it is foolish to enter into confrontation and childish things.  There are certain people in the world who aren't into ego, and humanity needs such people.  The customers come, and before the inner light, they are calmed, and find their own inner light, or at least so might you think, a Tolstoy on a good day.

But my coworkers at the old bistro do not always see it that way.

Tao Lesson to be learned:  Never show up to work in a good mood.
(sound of gong in background)


"Here Comes Everybody," accordionist James Fearnley's book about the Pogues, brings across a MacGowan condemned to his own private hell and sleeplessness.  I have no doubts about that, but his music is amongst the most calming I know.

There is a place for kindness, beyond whatever roles we are stuck in.