PREAMBLE

I’m a waiter. And I’m good at it. Along the way, I’ve picked up two essentials: Make nice with the chef and always have a glass of red wine at hand. Making nice with my chefs helps me deal with those not uncommon problems that occur in most restaurants. The red wine helps me deal with difficult customers.

Difficult customers are an inescapable element of the restaurant world. They can be demanding and entitled and annoying and giant pains-in-the-ass, but mostly they’re just hungry. Once fed, their blood-sugar levels normalize, and we get along just fine.

But it isn’t always about blood-sugar levels. Some customers act out not because they’re hungry for food, but because they’re hungry for attention, for recognition, for love. There’s a lot of pain out there. My job is to alleviate that pain to the best of my abilities.

My most piquant and lasting ability is born from a deep, subterranean insecurity: I need my customers to like me…even if I despise them.

And now….the stories