A Post Post About the Boss Boss

                This post has been a long time coming. Not because I haven’t posted for a while, which I haven’t, but because I’ve slowly been formulating this idea in my brain for quite some time. Actually, what I was formulating was a massive book on the subject. I was figuring out the title of the book, the book jacket, what I would wear when I was interviewed by Jon Stewart after my book sold a flagillion copies…ya know, preliminary brainstorming. But now I have come to my senses, kinda-sorta, and decided to just blog about it. Maybe a few blogs because one posting could never be enough to encompass all that is…dunDunDUN (and believe me, I’d really rather not say this) MY BOSS!

                Ok, so now if you know what I’m talking about you have either groaned instinctively, laughed out loud (for real, not that acronym bullshit), or done the voice (“Eh, what this? Blog? Is that like a sexual things?”) And if you don’t know to what or to whom I’m referring don't worry. I’m about to help you.

                I work at a great restaurant with great people. The management staff is, and has been, very supportive. I mean that not in a swooping in and taking an order disrupting your entire flow kind of way, but as in they cared about my progress in grad school, and would ask about my life with a genuine twinkle of interest in their eyes. The food is also damn good. Anyway, with all pleasantries aside, and with all due respect, my boss is a 66 year old Italian man who is good at what he does and has been around the block. He knows that he knows what he’s talking about, and he knows what he wants and how he wants it. The problem is the rest of us do not.

                I will give you a brief example. Your name is, oh I don’t know, let’s say, Jim. Your name is Jim. You are the first person to arrive for the dinner shift. You are virtually alone in the restaurant with with Boss. You hear him calling Stephanie. You don’t know Stephanie. Maybe she’s new. Maybe he’s on the phone.  Oh, no…wait, he’s looking directly at you wondering why you’re not responding. Finally, you give in. Your name is Stephanie, Jim. Or Todd, or Edith, or Bort. Any of these could be your name. Any name, any name at all, could be your name. And while we are on the subject of names I will give you a very brief Boss to English dictionary: Flashlight = a lighter, a lighter = torch, pruning shears = pliers, sputnik = fountain birthday candle, and “Eh, da thing dere” = whatever he is pointing to or is closest to you. When you say, "Hello." He may respond with, "What happen?!"

                He frequently doles out advice along with directions for the day/evening. He will chide you with, “Don’t tell your father how to make children” or reprimand you for conversing when you should be working by saying, “You can talk to da girls when you see da chicken take a leak.” He reminds you that he is calm and ready to take on the night (and you should be too) by saying, “I am the tiger of the forest. I no scare of lion. I no scare of bear. I no scare of little bird that come to pee on my head.” He means not to worry if 400 people all walk through the door and demand to be seated. You should only worry if zero walk through the door, because "You cannot make a customer. Only God can do that. But you can always make a table." Good thing God has a carpenter in the family because I'm gonna need more tables if he doesn't quit making customers at 7 o'clock on Saturday night. But the best piece of advice that he gives, regularly and as often as he can, is the good ol’ appropriate in all situations standby of, “No push push in the bush bush.” Figure it out for yourself. It's a literal statement.

               
       All that aside for now because there’s more, oh, so much more… I wanted to show you my interpretation of one of Boss’s directives. It is as follows:

  The complete and detailed instructions. "Play with this paper, please." That is it. Do not try to over think it, like maybe there was an arrow, or maybe it was taped to something else that, within the context clues, made sense. Nope. That is it.

So...we started off with something easy.

 But then I thought we should aim a little higher, play a little harder. This paper was good for more than just a simple airplane...

                                                              A Boat.

(I wanted to say "A goose" Jim Carrey style but that was too hard to make in the
short window of time I had to do this while
still looking up to say, "Have a good night! Thank you!.")

 But then I realized who we were dealing with. He expected more from me, I was sure of it. What could he have meant?!?! He always says, "There are two things most important of all: God, work, food...and sometimes drink." So out of those two things he so deftly counted there was only one thing I could really do. Since number one is God and he's got the toughest job of all, which is making customers, and I can't do that, the next best thing was number two. Work. If only God can make a customer what can I make that would benefit the work the restaurant is doing while still following his directions??

 I MADE A TABLE!!!!

                                                           Task owned. 

The boss is pleased.