I needed people. A place to go. A thing to do. Oh, and I needed a little income too.
The understatement is that this year did not go according to plan. As I finished up school, I wasn’t finding or getting the jobs that I was hoping for. But also, when I listened to myself, I knew that I needed something different than what others said I should look for. My guiding light for this year is that I am researching and writing a big big story. I needed that to be number one. Every other part of my life could fill in around that.
Writing is generally solitary. Add the isolation of the pandemic, the anxiety of 2020, and my extroverted personality and you had a misbalanced equation.
So I pounded the pavement. Literally. I went to a cute district in my city. I talked to a restaurant owner I’d been connected with. I gave him my information knowing he’d never call me back. And then I spotted a Help Wanted sign. I went in. I expressed my interest, filled out an application, and was interviewed the next day.
At age 26, I was trained by a 19-year-old who attended the local occupational therapy (OT) school. In another life, I could have been her tutor or coach, but here she was instructing me on how to place a customer order into “POS” Point of Sale…aka the upgraded cash register. But wow, she was good.
For whatever reason, there were a lot of OT students working at the restaurant. They were excellent at explaining how to do things and being patient. I was grateful, and made a note: if I ever needed to hire, I was going to look to OT college students.
The head chef and restaurant owner is a woman. She was welcoming and had high standards. Constantly on the swivel, she looked for what needed to be done: she washed dishes, she packed to-go orders. “You help each other out” is her command. It was this culture that makes me feel comfortable. When I didn’t know how to fill out the shift report at the end of the night or when I accidentally broke an umbrella when setting up outdoor seating, I could bring it up. This culture allowed me to take ownership of my mistakes and learn from them.
As I wrote on the side, the sushi restaurant became a place to go, a thing to do, a system to learn, and people to share a common goal with. That goal shifted but was generally to survive the night and not contract COVID while staying in good spirits.
In the pandemic, working in the restaurant industry is an even riskier business. I wore my mask correctly the entire time, spare a drink of water. This was an opportunity for me to be friendly and kind to people rather than treat them as possible transmitters of a deadly virus, even though they could be that too.
My mental health improved by having a place to go and creating it for others. Before we opened each day, I was taught how to create a “place”. Outdoor seating transformed a metered parking spot into a fall-themed escape. Gords, flowers, bushes, lights. The meters still flashed, begging for quarters, but quickly became background as I carried out the umbrellas, chairs, and tables organized them just so to invite in a relaxed experience.
My batteries recharged by seeing and facilitating beautiful human moments. There are so many different types of people that come to sushi and I love it. Guys come to chill; girls come to catch up. Some do the solo thing and I dig it. On a less busy evening, a woman in her late 20s plugs in her computer and works from a table that on the weekend serves as a ground for 2 couples to laugh over 3 bottles of wine. There are families. The first dates. It’s a reminder to me of the life points we can go through. Dressed as a shadow, I silently cheer them on as people take off their masks for a meal and partake in the craftsmanship and connection offered by a sushi dinner.
I was challenged by serving the people I disdain. The people who make me scream inside. On the Friday before the election, there were two tables full of middle-aged men who drank too much. We all knew it. We differed on politics. I could tell that much as they finished their conversation and asked me to take a photo for their group.
I learned being of service meant that I heard and saw things I didn’t want to. Later that night I walked by carrying a few to-go orders and saw one man leaning across the table to his buddy. On his phone, showed off a picture of a naked woman with her legs spread. Who was she? A porn star? His mistress? She better be getting paid. The men who objectify women and do not fairly compensate them are certainly among my least favorite humans. It was a challenge to see that, acknowledge that it bothered me, and continue on with my work.
I didn’t want or welcome any rambunctious Friday or Saturday nights into my COVID life, but I wanted the feeling of going out, of seeing and interacting with people, maybe total strangers, however briefly. I have volunteered for over half my life, as a tutor, as a coach, at free medical clinics, in the hospital, but now with no salaried work, volunteering my time to support other people was a luxury, and I needed income.
My mental health initially improved by making money. At first, I made minimum wage. Since 2009, the Minimum wage in Pennsylvania has been $7.25 while the cost of living has increased considerably. I had income from a few other part-time gigs, but not many. I needed this. Then I made $10/hour plus tips. That first tips check was HUGE for me. In actuality, it was $41 for one night. To date, that was the most I made in a single night. But it was the extra, the non guaranteed amount, that I had earned by being nice or generally helpful.
And then I learned that my financial ceiling at that restaurant would be $12/hour plus tips. And then the tips didn’t come. When people signed their bill as I handed them their takeout, and they didn’t add any tip, I had to wonder: did these people not know that we made money on tips? The waiters, the hosts? When you order takeout or delivery, do you not realize that after the chef packs that food nicely into the box, a whole other human goes and plays Tetris with your sushi so that it comes out looking nicely? Did you not realize the care that goes into ensuring that the cold sushi stays cold and the hot soup, teriyaki, and udon stay hot?
There are few people who do. I call them “the Luke’s of this world” after this wonderful human Luke, who tipped 20% for takeout. They are my heroes. I fundamentally believe that if I am making a base of $10 an hour, (yes, that take-home pay is $7.08 after-tax) and if someone is ordering $100 worth of sushi, they probably make more than $10 an hour. They likely have a little bit of room to tip. My new view on it is that people ordering takeout ought to be more conscientious and generous, especially during a pandemic where I have risked my health for you, yes you to have your salmon avocado rolls.
I don’t get to keep the full tip. I split it with co-workers who work in the back and pack up their sushi. Some days I am the Tetris packer, and I stress over how many chopsticks to give you. Is that order for two people or one? Which would be more offensive? Regardless, I’m only getting half or a third of the $20 tip, but it still adds up.
Part of this sushi therapy-job was adding positive energy and gratitude to the customers around me. I build up the anticipation of you getting your sushi. If I was a little shit, I don’t think I’d tip me either. But, I also know I’m not a little shit and this job has allowed me to see how other people bring their problems and put them on you. It really is an “it’s not you, it’s me” situation. I strove to treat everyone with kindness, hospitality, and speed, and some people are receptive to it, mirror that back, and others don’t. It really is them.
Tim Ferris believes everyone should work in food service, and I couldn’t agree more. It requires a lot of finesse and teamwork. I say that as a four-year Division I athlete. It’s learning how to talk with people and work with people. People write and devour books about human interaction, motivation, and teamwork. Reading does not actualize. You practice these skills night after night in the hospitality business.
Working in the hospitality industry helped me see why the industry has a high turnover rate: three delivery drivers come in, each for two different orders. At the same time, a party of five with a child is ready to be seated. You’re trying to take an order over the phone. Oh and that guy that just paid you in cash wants exact change. No tip.
And when it’s quiet, I have a choice. I can think about my project, about organizing my next day, and goals for the week. I ground myself in my body, breathing in and adjusting my stance, noticing the subtleties of how I am in space, where my head is at. Alternatively, if need be, I can also distract myself with sanitizing and over sanitizing: menus, doors, tables, pretty much anything.
The plexiglass, masks, face shields, and hand sanitizer protected me against the customers at the front, but because I did well as a host, they asked me to do some work in the back becoming the Tetris packer. I learned to “move the bag, not the sushi.” I learned which bags work best for which types of orders. I learned to keep hot things hot and cold things cold. But in the back, in the kitchen, I noticed fewer people wore masks.
Working as a host up front, I wasn’t aware of that. I learned one day, a week after the fact, that a person I’d been working with one entire night had COVID. I wasn’t told. So when just after that incident, the restaurant had to close for 2 weeks, I was suddenly out of a job. I didn’t qualify for unemployment. When the restaurant reopened, the city was doing takeout only. Fewer openings with wait-staff that now needed jobs. I mentioned some discomfort with the policies and I was gracefully told I was no longer needed.
I was one of many who got similar news during the pandemic. I was able to reflect because my other jobs had picked up a bit giving me a relative sense of security. But, the pandemic brought and continues to bring unpredictable closures and lags in local businesses. This deeply affects those whose full livelihood is in the service industry, who don’t benefit from the tax reduction of withdrawing from 401Ks because they do not have a 401k, and who might not be able to get enough consistent work for them to be helped by unemployment benefits. Often many in the service sector don’t have health insurance. Overall it has disproportionately affected women of color because they work at higher rates in the service industry.
At first, I was sad about losing my job. Take-a-long-shower-and-eat-a-mug-cake sad. I liked my co-workers. I liked my place to go and things to do. In that experience, I saw the importance of a collaborative culture, I got even better at restaurant multitasking, playing Sushi Tetris, and talking down heated delivery drivers. With this time away, I had to figure a few more things. I reflected on how this much-needed distraction in my life wasn’t working for me anymore. At the time, under the given circumstances, it helped me, but as I saw the ceiling of income, increased exposure to COVID, and time away from my writing, it did not make sense for my life circumstance anymore.
In a year where many things had gone wrong, the restaurant became a series of things that I personally could do right. I solved lots of little problems. It reminded me of how capable we are of stepping into something new and succeeding. And it also reiterated the importance of continuing on and guiding myself to the next part of my journey.
