The Talking Waiter

The Talking Waiter:

He likes to talk, this new waiter.

He's new, not to everyone else but to me - he was hired and fired in my absence, my short and unproductive vacation. And now he's been rehired.

"I'm upselling wine" he tells us, as if this explains why he's stood in front the same table for 20, 40, 60 minutes talking nonstop, about anything .

He does bring in the tips, the negligence of a dozen tables will yield fruit upon the thirteenth, me, this style of service offends me, if my waiter stood and talked to me for even 5 minutes, unless I was very regular and genuinely liked him, I'd tell them - politely - to go away.

And his conversation, it comes at a cost, everyone else runs his foods, sets the tables, polishes the cutlery, while he stands there and chats....

"I am an educated man!..This is ... and ... and ...."

He has opinions. Educated, or so he tells us, opinions, "Where did you go to school?" I ask when he's done telling the table how smart he is.
"In Paris" is his reply...
I try for something a little more specific, he can't remember details, only that he was educated.

Me, I don't talk to the tables if I can help it. It's a bad trap, you end up being expected to talk to them when it's busy, the restaurant doesn't work that way, there's too much to be done. Thus I'm silent, I don't know our customers that well, haven't worked there 10 or 20 years, let the other waiter, G, do the talking.

This new waiter, he likes to talk..

He's Arabic, from somewhere in the Middle east, has a wife and kids here, I try to find out where from - Lebanon? Morocco? Syria? He can't answer again, long stories involving his grandparents and inlaws and outlaws and the secret police and immigration, by the time he's done I'm more confused than ever and he'd have me believe he's Italian.

He's adopted a western name, something simple and common we can all remember, the Chinese and Philipino cooks do the same, but I've seen the cheques, he's definitely Arabic.

He is beside himself with laughter, he can't go on, really, finally he wipes a tear from his eye...I'm running the food and he points to where it should be set.

"I will do what my father did when his horse was stolen"...He's laughing in the midst of his own joke, it's so funny he can't finish telling it, finally..."He bought a new horse..."

The table laughs, politely, or perhaps they're genuinely amused, I can't tell, I'm off doing other things.

We're a small restaurant, we can't afford to pay someone to stand and talk to tables. It's his dodge, I've worked with talkers before, it's their way of getting out of doing anything remotely productive. We carry him.

He fucks up orders. Lots. It's because he's too busy talking and waiting, it's the art of listening, but he doesn't get it, he argues with the customers, they just want a laid back meal, and soon they forget and accept his mistakes and are listening to his soothing drivel once again.

There's an iPhone app that monitors the ebb and flow of conversation. I'm pretty sure he would score a 90% or greater. Sad I don't have an iPhone.

The staff, most don't like him, they find his persistent chatting and pretended authority annoying.
What's he an authority on? Why, ask him a question and he'll tell you....

****

Goats produce 50 liters of milk a day. Me, I don't know, but most goats aren't even 50 liters big, the more I doubt this the more he backs his facts, he knows this, a goat is a valuable thing where he's from ("and where is that exactly....?" I ask...), he stand by it, he should know, 50 liters a day...

****

A table of 5 businessmen and a single business woman. He tells us that the woman, she's hot for him. She's probably in her early 40's, attractive, he's convinced - or trying to convince us - that she wants him. We decide to play along. After the table has left we write a short note on the back of the bill telling him how much "she" enjoyed the service and inviting him to call her. We get one of the girls from the kitchen to volunteer her cell number.
We wait until he finds it.
"Of course I would never call her..." he says. "I have a wife and children....still, I told you she was hot for me...."
He can't get over it. He knew all along, told us, what do we think? And still he keeps talking.

****

Of course he calls. Again and again. And the kitchen staff member gets so tired of his calling and playing the role of the excited mistress that eventually - at 3:00 or so AM, she forgets to answer.
He finally gets her answering machine, and begins to figure it out.

****

He was calling to tell her that he had a wife and children, and then when he talked to her he didn't know how to break the news and so wanted to let her down gently....he's explaining this to the kitchen..they're not that stupid....

He's made himself a fool, and for a night he's suddenly quiet. A couple of the staff try to blame his mood on me - I point out that I merely provided him the opportunity, it was him who leapt upon it....

*****

It's a table - large - set menu, business people, they don't want to listen to him and so he's forced to stand and listen to them. He pulls me aside: "I've been listening to them..." he begins "You know, they're not that smart, I could do their job...it's all luck..."

He's right. I've listened to them, there's no great conversations going on, it's all BS.
But he doesn't understand how much more socially acceptable he'd have to be, and I haven't the heart to explain it.

*****

Staff go for drinks. Sometimes we play pool, he has his own cue, it's in his car, we wait while he gets it. And he actually has some talent for the game, which only serves to make him more disliked...

*****

He's seen the little trinkets and goo-gaws I bring back for staff from garage sales. And he wants to tag along, he's convinced that the costume jewellry I've bought for the girls is real, the fake pearls and cubic zirconium and 24 carat gold plate, he wants to buy some for his wife.

***

The staff explain to me that he claims to have lost his virginity at age 8 to a 20 year old babysitter.
He hasn't told this one in front of me, perhaps afraid I might call bullshit. Or query the sex of the babysitter....

****

He's forever trying to ingratiate himself to the owner, ridiculous stories, guessing games...the owner shows him an old passport photo...
- "I know exactly when this was taken....1978? 1979?" he says. The owner shows hime the date. "74! You see, I was right!...."
He's grateful for this job, prospects for him weren't that great, while he was fired from here he sold cars, 2 in 4 months, he was hired back when his wife came and plead for his job from the owner.
And he's borrowed money from him, as has his wife, ostensibly to help with immigration costs....

****

He's bought a book of fruit jokes, dumb-ass jokes for kids that he bought off of someone who came in the restaurant, reading the look upon my face he continues to tell them to me: "Why is a banana never alone? Because it's always in a bunch..."

***

It's one of our wine tastings and he's managed to corner the host in a corner.

"We are old hands at this business.....I used to serve Jean Chretian....and Brian Mulroney...and...."
We're waiting on the customers and the host is too polite to escape the conversation, I think to rescue him but I'm subject to this every day of the week....Later I can corner him and tell him about how I used to serve Adolph Hitler and Jesus Christ....

****

He's talking to his wife on the phone. It's all Arabic, babble babble "Bitch" babble babble "Asshole",...
The nephew's curious, don't they have words for these things in his language?
He, too, is annoyed at all the patter, at the way he "upsells" the Ripassa, one of our cheaper wines, "And this is the ... Ripassa, second press of the Amarone...."
The nephew has his own version, simpleton that he is even he, on occasion, has some wit...
"And this is Ginger - Ale, second press of Coca-Cola....and this is butter...second press of milk...."

****

"They have yet to invent something that works to trim nose hair...."
- "scissors"? I suggest
"No way!".

****

He's the knack of doing you a small favour, like brushing an imaginary piece of lint off of your lapel, then telling you it was nothing. It's shit, but he does it with the customers as well, exaggerated laying of the napkin across the lap, other trivial services that by his emphasizing the triviality actually make them seem bigger than they are. He doesn't clear tables, it's beneath him, or take dessert orders or - if he can help it - polish cutlery.

***

He's telling us about how he won a million dollar on the slots at the Casino, was cheated out of it, he was surrounded by drunks and little old Chinese ladies patting him on the back and congratulating him, when the final lucky gold brick shifted on the video wheel and he found himself out of luck. And so he calls the manager over and has her check the machine, where's his winnings? and she tells him he's not a winner, he tells her to check again, she does, he's still not a winner, he's not convinced, he demands justice and the drunks and elderly Chinese, they're behind him cheering him on, demanding that he be paid....
Security comes, he's surrounded "You touch me and I'll be forced to defend myself, and I'm not paying the surgeons to put you back together again....AND I have a heart condition.....I'm not some bum off the street that you can push around, I'm a businessman....and your breath stinks...stay away from me..."
He doesn't get a million dollars, not that night, ejected from the casino, yes, but he's got a number that he can call to have things fixed.
He's finished polishing the glasses, polishing them again as he tells the story once more to all who care to listen..."I've filed a complaint, I think they'll try to settle..."

****

Today his wife called the restaurant, he didn't come home last night, was he out with G?, well, eventually he did come home, 6:00 AM, now she's missing all the money in the house and her jewelry has disappeared, she's convinced she's been robbed, it couldn't have been him, there are more calls throughout the day, the police are over investigating the theft, G is calling him on his cell but it's disconnected, G's day off is at stake and he's pissed, we speculate - gambling? another woman?