Zero to two

I have a job interview this week!

My current serving job is, well, not so great. The place is one that I frequented during college--my mom would occasionally drive the 40 minutes to campus and we'd jaunt a couple of miles down the road and get a bite to eat there. At that point, in my recollection, it was a really lovely place--the food and service were always great, and even though there was sometimes a wait (especially in the spring and fall, since it's on a smallish lake and therefore very much a Summer Place) it was always worthwhile.

Right now, I wouldn't necessarily recommend it. It's always busy, true; the food is decent still; and the service is passable. But no one really cares, and it shows.

A lot of the current servers were there in 2000-02, when it was our favorite place, and they've confirmed my impression that it's gone downhill. After two years of working at the Roadhouse, there are certain things that I don't feel the need to cut corners on. One of the big ones, since I'm a carb fiend, is the bread. It's really difficult to bake your own bread at a restaurant (trust me on this; my mother did it for years, mostly by herself, and was also baking for a few other restaurants at the same time. It is BRUTAL) but in almost every town, there are fantastic bakeries putting out really nice, crusty bread. They're not all artisan bakeries, for sure, but there's just got to be a better option than shitty foccacia. The current job switched from a decent proof-and-bake loaf to a really crap one right after I started there, and to quote my old boss and mentor, you really can taste the difference. It's squashy, with zero crust, no flavor beyond yeast and cheap herbs and whatever was in the oven right beforehand. The restaurant made this switch to save about fifty cents per loaf.

Problem is, the old bread was somewhat legendary. People loved it. I got more compliments on the bread than anything else I served there before the switch. Now, I'm bringing more and more of it back to the kitchen. In purely practical terms, too, this new loaf isn't cutting it. It dries out so fast in the warmer that once the loaf is sliced, we have maybe thirty minutes to use the rest of it before it's inedible. And we can't not keep it in the warmer, because once it's cold it's inedible.

If it was just the bread, it maybe wouldn't be so bad. But that's a whole other set of issues. From ticket times to service standards to staffing to management, and not even getting into the kitchen itself--generally speaking, entrees for a table of four will come out over a span of ten to fifteen minutes, so if you start running food as soon as it's up, the first person could easily be done eating by the time the last person gets their plate; or worse yet, the first plate sits under a hot lamp and dries out for x minutes while everything else gets plated (or in some cases, cooked). Bad.

Anyway, getting back to the interview. I claimed, when moving, to really only want a job where I could sling beer and yell at people, and not worry about the service or anything like that. Turns out it isn't true, exactly. It's been so ingrained that cost-cutting for the sake of cost-cutting doesn't always work like you plan out (this bread, for instance; we have the same par for slices-per-person [that is, we would if we had a par for anything] but we're bringing so much back to the kitchen uneaten, compared to the old bread, that I'm sure we aren't really saving any money. Good work, management!) and that taking more tables just to have the potential of making more money doesn't always work out (spending more time with each table tends to up the tip percentage, and that works well at the end of the night--plus it's immensely less stressful), and I've turned out to miss my old job terribly. Weird relationships, scheduling issues and all. I even signed on to work a wedding through them in June, just because I miss it. Who would have thought....

I haven't had coffee yet. Apologies for the rambling.

This coming interview was set up, more or less, by my old bar manager. He used to own a brewery on this side of the state, but quit, and came to work at the Roadhouse. We talked about a beer a lot, and while his management skills weren't my absolute favorite (though they've apparently improved dramatically since I left) we ended on great terms. He gave me a list of places to apply and told me to name-drop at will--he is a fantastic reference over here. One of the better options on the list was Hopcat, a new-ish, up-and-coming beer bar in downtown Grand Rapids. Turns out, while the GM wasn't looking to hire anyone right away, my old manager had sent him a text message or five regarding me, and my old roommate is a server there--so he was interested. I didn't hear back from him for almost a month, and in the meantime, I got the job I have now (with the giant caveat that I'd be picking up a second job ASAP).

Finally, on Saturday morning, my phone rang. It was very early and I was massively hungover, so I didn't get the message immediately, but my interview is set up for 2:30 tomorrow afternoon. And I do think that this place would be a positive change of pace, in contrast to the very negative one I've been dealing with for the last month or so. So, keep your fingers crossed.

What I've been planning is to work two jobs all summer. College is expensive, and rent and the like. Two jobs means all my income from one goes into the savings account, and income from the other goes toward those pesky expenses like rent and food. And beer. Plus I won't have the time, or energy, to go out and spend money. All-around win. Yes, it will be stressful, but I've done the two-jobs-for-the-summer thing kind of a lot. I figured out how to make it work in my favor. Here's hoping both places go for it....