The Misadventures of Doe and Terry....part 2

So, this place is busy to the point of insanity. I can barely think or process a rationale thought. I was overwhelmed but had no idea that was what it was. I just thought, keep working....get there early, do what you can do to contribute and try and keep as much in order as you can....if you can. I tell ya, I have never been apart of a 'Grand Opening' so I had no clue what to think or what to expect. I was just going to do what I could do to assist where I could, when I could. I didn't even know if I was doing things correctly, but nobody was telling me I was doing it wrong, so I just kept on plugging along. The days and nights were running together because once we got off work, we went out. Not out in the sense that we stayed out all night, but we generally grabbed a meal and few drinks after work at a few places that stayed open into the morning hours. This was a lot to process, as this was all unexpected, so a few days went by before I mentioned to the boss about me catching Doe out back smoking on the doja. I just forget about because it didn't happen again for the rest of the week that I knew about.

Anyway, I bring it up to the boss and he is none to pleased, as he should be. So, it is approaching Saturday, and low and behold, Doe gets let go, or fired... however you want to slice it, he was gone. So we started the next week with a new guy back there on dishes. Terry was still there and he quickly moved in on the new guy and introduced him to the pot scrubbing station. Can't say that I blame him ya know. Big difference in the work there . Ok, you got a three compartment sink with water that is sitting at 150 degrees plus due to sanitation and what not, or you can work the dish station where you spray off the dishes into a disposal and load them into a tray to get run through a dish machine that is hitting at 150 degrees plus where you don't actually have to dip your hands into the sub boiling water. Pretty smart move by Terry, shifting the new guy over to the pot scrubbing station. Gotta hand it to him on that part and certainly can't blame him. Anybody who has been in the biz knows scrubbing pots and skillets with all the cooked on bits and pieces pretty much sucks a fatty.

So this new guy is about as uneventful as a person can get. No priors that anyone is aware of...no blatant disregard for authority, no bad habits....... the guy just works and does a good job. Pretty great in my book, but certainly nothing to write about considering that I can't even remember the guys name. The fellow just gets to work on time and does exactly that...works. Well, I kinda had a hunch that he wouldn't be digging that station for very long, because it sucks, and I was correct about my hunch. In just the matter of a week and half, he was up in Terry's grill about swapping stations throughout the week. It got so bad that I had to intervene and rotate the guys where one did this job one day and the other the next. All the while, Doe would show up in the afternoons asking for his job back. Pleading with us, stating that he would not engage in his extracurricular activities during work hours. We weren't buying it. We had a guy here that wanted to work and did a good job working when he was here. Why would we want this potential hazard back there in dishland?.....we didn't. We could just rotate this guy and Terry and it would all be good, and it was.

I have to admit, it is some sort of sick human nature to have "projects"....or people that are somewhat dysfunctional that you want to help them and try to make them better people. Even when you are uncertain if you can even change these people. Some of them are beyond help in the outside world. In the job place, you can throw out the problems, the dependencies, the whatever it may be issues, they can turn into outstanding employees. They may be a trainwreck outside of work, but once they get to work, they are golden. It is like, they have a feeling of safety or a sense of belonging at the job. I like to think that it is a sense of pride because regardless of how remedial the task is, whether it is cleaning bathrooms, or dishes or scrubbing pots, these guys take pride in it because I believe they really understand that they are important to the organization or the machine and we need them to keep the machine running......and we do. They are important. They are the behind the scenes people that are helping keep the whole thing moving forward. So once you can look past some faults, you can understand and see that these are the people that would easily pick up a bat and go to work on someone that even remotely threatened you.....and they would do it in a heartbeat. Its a respect thing, in a weird kind of way. A simple, good job is all it takes with most of these guys and they are on your team for as long as you are there. That is loyalty!!!!

Terry was like that in every sense of the word. He got to work early. Started cleaning bathrooms, swung by dishland to see if there was anything there and then went to pot scrubbing to take care of the dishes that the chefs had been using for prep and what not. He developed a good realtionship with all the chefs and we are talking about 10 or so different guys. That is 10 different personalities that Terry came to learn and cater too. As I mentioned before, Terry was a mans man. A good guy all the way around and his hard work earned him the respect of everyone because he was reliable and always did a good job. Cut him a check on Saturday, he was still there on Monday. He might have a cooler full of fish and a few empty beer cans in the Tempo out back, but he was there and he was working. One can only wish to have a Terry back there on the dishes. It would make life easier in that department.