I was hired on the spot by both managers. They had just lost their general manager and the restaurant was going through a turn around period. I started out as a host with the plan that I would eventually be planned to be trained as a server. Everyone was very welcoming right from the start.
There has always been a sense of family in the work space. Even with the high turn over rate, there was always a core group that stuck around.
I believe it was Socrates who first asked "what's in the blackboard soup?"
I used the workplace as my distraction for the summer of 2012, and it rolled over to fall, and then to winter. I worked as much as I could to keep distracted from the things that haunted me in my every day life. I could go to Mac Grill and see the amazing people I worked with and get to have fun with them while making money.
It's rare that you have managers in a restaurant who genuinely care about the servers making lots of money. Our managers would do whatever they could to make sure we were making as much money as possible. It's so hard to find that in any business. I won't find that anywhere else...
More times the restaurant was chaos; people were screaming at each other; dishes would run out; someone would be crying in dry storage; someone else would be shoveling a Caesar salad down her throat with her hands; but despite all the ridiculousness, it was our home. It was where our family came together for work, food, and to just hang out and talk.
On a daily basis I'd right my name on a table upside down and backwards, and the people sitting would ask, "How long did it take you to learn to do that?" I'd always say "oh I practiced for weeks up at the host stand before I started serving. Every day I'd stand up there and right upside down," but really I learned my first day there. I wanted to be a server there from the instant I walked in.
Yesterday I walked through those doors for the last time, and it killed me a little bit. I've spent the past three years working in the restaurant with my work family. And to have that all go away in one day.. It's just still so much to take in.
I know that things will eventually get better, but most people don't understand. It's not just about losing my job. It's about losing the family that I spent so much of my time with these past three years. A group of people that have no idea how much they helped me in their own little ways.
Maybe one day I'll work with some of them again. I would be honored to have the opportunity.
#86MacGrill
