I am looking for a lot of men who have an infinite capacity to not know what can't be done

    My first two years of college, I worked the same job I'd had during high school. I was a clerk in the bakery of a locally-owned grocery store. I also had a student help job on campus in the AV office, where I delivered films, printed signs, and generally made myself useful to the nicest lady in the world. Sometime during my junior year - I think? or at the end of sophomore year, maybe - tensions were running high at the store, and when push came to shove, I left. It was probably pretty foolish, given that I needed to pay my rent and tuition and so forth, but my temper, once aroused, cannot be denied. I immediately set out looking for a new job. I found it in a most unlikely place: an ice cream parlor that also had a sort of quaint restaurant going with it. They made homemade ice cream, and the new owners (the place had been in town since 1929) had expanded the menu rather dramatically, thanks to his culinary training back East. They were hiring a "night cook," and the position required kitchen experience. My by-then four years at the bakery counted well in that regard, and I was well-spoken and thoughtful, which probably counted more in my favor, so I was hired.

    It was probably not the best hire ever. I'd never properly held a knife before. That was apparent right away. And my ability to prioritize was fledgling at best. And my attention span...what was I saying? Oh, those first few weeks were a challenge for all of us. The owners (the man was the "real cook," and his wife was the manager/book-keeper/waitress/occasional cook) tore their hair out over me. The waitresses (we called them "waitrons," in an attempt to be less sexist but really just being ridiculous and melodramatic) were deliberately patient and probably wanted to murder me. The customers were nothing but polite and friendly, which was definitely the best part. Nobody ate there because they were expecting five-star food (or impeccable service). The clientele was primarily faculty, some staff and a few over-moneyed students from the university (directly across the street) with too much time on their hands, looking to be fed something hot and fairly tasty with accompanying drink cup kept full for the duration. Nothing more complicated than that was necessary.

    Over time, I learned. My grilled ham & cheese became a work of art. My Reuben was renowned. (The key is to truly cover the bread with dressing, then cover the dressing with cheese, so that the kraut doesn't soak into the bread, and the juice from the beef doesn't soak into the other side. And, of course, to evenly distribute the beef and kraut throughout the sandwich so that each bite has all four flavors.) My bacon cheeseburger was a thing to write home about. (It's not that difficult, really, to break the bacon in half, so that each bite of burger has a corresponding bite of bacon.) My patty melt made one of the regulars' heart sing. Fettuccine Alfredo. Chicken Piccata. Fettuccine Carbonara. Lasagna to order. The owners began to feel comfortable leaving me alone for longer periods, sometimes whole nights, sometimes multiple nights at a stretch. Multiple preps, runs, clean-ups, in a row.      

     And then, winter came. In the custom ice cream business, especially in the north, that's a killer. A waitron left the job and was not replaced, the others taking longer shifts to replace her. The owners began covering more shifts, to save money. We started getting some slightly cheaper ingredients, to compensate for lower sales. I thought everything was going to be fine, until...

    ...they asked me to take a couple of shifts, waiting tables. 

    Looking back, it should have been a compliment, of sorts. They clearly wanted to keep me there, and were willing to do what they could to make it possible for me to keep on. They were risking the jobs of the waitrons - clearly skilled, experienced, also relying on shifts - and giving shifts to me, who'd never waited tables even once. It should have been a blessing.      

     But it was a curse. It was the devil, speaking through their faces. I couldn't refuse, but I also couldn't believe that it was less than a disaster waiting to happen. Still, I showed up at the appointed time, dressed in the opposite outfit (clean clothes, for work? How weird is that?! I typically wore something that I wouldn't mind eventually burning, because it would within months or even weeks smell so vile [like grease and cleansers and God knows what] that I wouldn't be able to stand it. I had a system of stripping out of my work clothes on the [enclosed, thank you] porch before zooming directly into the shower after work.), disconcerted as all get-out. It wasn't very busy, but I was put right to work. Didn't get too much training, even, since I think we all assumed I was just going to "get it," as I'd seen it done before. 

    I didn't get it. At all. My brain just doesn't work like that. I couldn't remember anything. What to ask, what comes with what, who was sitting where, what was supposed to be written down, how to move my feet in order to get my body back to the kitchen after taking the order...nothing. It was horrifying. I got the "oh, you poor mentally-challenged waitron" look from the customers. I got the "I'm gonna f'n pound you" look from the cook - which I totally recognized, having given it from the other side of the window only the day before, damn it. I got the giggle of either commiseration or condescension from the other waitron, who'd been either intimidated by or loathing me just yesterday. And, from inside myself? Variations of panic, disgust, nausea, resignation, hysteria, and God knows what else. It was awful. Humiliating. 

    Perhaps humbling is a better word for it. The great waitron experience lasted four days. Four shifts, rather. At that point, my red, pocketed apron was replaced with my old, familiar, wrap-around-my-body-twice white one, my name on the calendar moved from the waitron shifts section to the old, familiar 2:PM-to-close or 3:PM-to-close cook section, and life returned to normal. No more was said about my foray into public service. No more was said, either, about cost-saving measures. The owners, it seems, became contented with making it happen in other ways.

     My perspective on it is this: they'd trained me to be more than that. Not that waiting tables is "less" than me. Hell, no, it's not! I'm clearly not equal to that task, and then some. But they'd trained me, spending a great deal of time, energy, brain power, skill, tenderness, product, blood, sweat, tears, and money, turning me into quite a damned good cook. I wasn't a chef, but I could cook a very good meal - at exactly the same time that I was also cooking 20 other very good meals, while also prepping what I needed to prep of tomorrow morning's breakfast and tomorrow's lunch needs. I was well-paid to do that cooking and food prep. Was it the best use of my time, and the investment that they'd made in me, to at that point turn me into a waitron? 

     That is the difference between a good manager and a bad one: recognizing where skill is wasted in performing tasks better performed by someone with lesser, or different, skills. Surgeons shouldn't be digging ditches, because then there would be no one to perform surgery, right? Not that cooks are surgeons...you know what I mean. It's good for neither surgeon nor ditch-digger for surgeon to be in that ditch.

[the title quotation is by Henry Ford]