I have always been a pretty strange guy. Wildly curious. Not knowing what the rules really are. Always curious. Always inquisitive. Always needing just a little more information than what was told to me.
I have never really meant anything by this but this does seem to frustrate people. Mainly the people that can’t really explain a certain rule or why it’s important.
I was never trying to annoy people - Well, the majority of the time at least - But to me, it was normal part of conversation to pull out a few more details to make a better educated decision. I usually tried to explain to them, as I was being fired or close to it, that this was only to help make me a better employee.
Faster. Smarter. More efficient.
This was almost always in the best interest of the job or the company.
However, especially with people in superior positions, this kind of mentality is not usually welcome. This is why I have been fired from every corporate job I have ever had.
I didn’t have a choice but to become self-employed. Entrepreneurial. Pursue creative direction and try to combine it with business. I was apparently the only person that wasn’t going to fire myself even though, there are many times when I annoy myself too.
I have always looked at the world with vivacious curiosity, seeing this game to be played and this realm of characters that could play a part in it. By interacting with the characters, I could build relationships and those people would in turn educate me through those conversations.
I’ll give an example:
I was a waiter in restaurants for 8 years. When I would get hired to a new restaurant, I would always try to make a genuine connection with the boss first. The owner of the restaurant. The GM of it. Whatever. I would get their respect and then meander from there.
Remember, it was all completely genuine. It really was and they knew that. But it also helps in every possible way.
If the owner of the restaurant liked me, I could starve off a few more complaints from the wait staff. The owner would give me give me a little extra credence if I made some mistakes and usually use our relationship to train and educate me, rather than just giving up. I would always move very quickly up the restaurant ladder because of this relationship too and I circumnavigated countless situations when I had NO experience in a certain department but was given the role because I could talk and exuded genuine confidence.
(I was given the lead/only bartender position at one of the most popular restaurants in St. Louis with absolutely no experience before. I was given my own bar, with hundreds of people to serve drinks that I didn’t know what the hell they were every single night. I was answering questions I didn’t know the answer to. It didn’t matter - I said it with confidence and everyone ate it up. The first time someone ordered a Manhattan, I thought there was Coca-Cola in it. I literally had no clue. Still, I was the lead bartender there for 4 months.)
From the owner of the restaurant, I would always make friendships with the kitchen. These were difficult ones because the front of the house and the back of the house were different worlds. From polished presentations to the gutter and grease. The kitchen was always busy doing something and there wasn’t a lot of time for candid conversation. These moments had to be clawed for, during a cigarette or while they’d chop onions, and they had to be brief. The kitchen usually isn’t a soft group, looking for existential conversations on the meaning of life. They were raw, blunt, non-emotional. They had been burned, literally and figuratively, overworked and underpaid. They were not in the kitchen to make friends with everybody - They were there to go to war with their platoon. And, almost never was the front of the house in their platoon with them. This took a lot of adapting and, again, a lot of pure authenticity to build those relationships.
Once the kitchen liked me, things flowed smoothly. They would forgive mistakes I would inevitably make, especially in the beginning, and re-fire plates with only one glare of death. They would take extra time to show me what’s in dishes, why they chose it and why it’s important. This information helped make me a lot more money with the guests because I was a lot better informed. Also, I learned how to cook myself during this process. I could ask for things and actually get a real response.
If the owner and the kitchen liked you, you have a pretty strong foundation. The manager is an extension of these two (as well as the front of the house) and usually saw it was in the best interest to make some sort of alliance with you. You separated yourself immediately as someone that was not just there to get his tips, waste it at the bar and try to fuck the new hostess. You were there to pay attention, work hard and do it strategically. This intelligence was noticed though it was a very precarious line you had to dance.
You never want to be the over-confident, arrogant guy. That will kill you from all these relationships in two seconds flat. That’s regarded as ego and everyone in the restaurant fucking hates ego, even if they have to deal with it from time to time.
Just be kind. Be real.
Now, of course, make great relationships with the front of the house too. The bartender will be every bit as valuable as the kitchen but this is a real relationship outside of that too. The bartenders have stories. Real stories. They’re masters at conversation and don’t have the luxury to be the bubbly, popcorn personality that many waiters to have to channel. Most bar regulars are there to drown the sorrows and burn. down the small talk. They’re not there to get a motivational speech, even though these are great from time to time, but there to feel just a little more tethered to the world through even a distant relationship.
Bartenders are loyal and no bullshit. These are great, genuine relationships.
The waiters are great also since you will be spending so much time with them. But there is always a bit of competition and rivalry to be had, at least in my perspective. You all are playing the same field, trying to make your tips and finish your side work. Regardless of a false rivalry, this is a crucial time to make an alliance though that alliance should always be paid attention to. The other waiters are likely playing a similar game, though their reasoning could be different.
But being a waiter is being your own king, in charge of your own domain, to make as much money with it as you can. The amount of money depends on your personality, your understanding of the food, your speed, your charm. Once you understand this, I think it’s easy for most people to construct a personality that works best for them. I don’t think this is a negative thing at all - I think it’s to be expected in such a weird space - But it is something to keep in mind. If they are that good at constructing a personality to fool a table and exploit it (though again, fool them in the right way), then they are likely masters of doing that in other realms of life too.
Because of this, a lot of waiters that I’ve met seem to be very solitary personalities, outside of the confines of that restaurant. Usually, the closest they let people get to them is with their restaurant family but, outside of that and in the real world, their charming outgoing personality usually ends. They’re cat people more than dog people. They smoke a lot of weed. They drink a lot. Usually alone or with their boyfriend/girlfriend.
(This is a random side note but maybe they are solitary personalities because, each and every night, they have countless conversations and get to know people. But, when they pay their check and say their goodbyes, they never see the majority of these people again. All of that emotional energy put into genuine conversations always lead to nowhere, except for the money they were hoping to make with that table.
This seems to transactionalize conversations and relationships and might damage the belief in people really being there for them, long term.)
Now, why is all this important?
Once all of these dynamics are understood, things make a lot more objective sense and you can just observe and adapt as you need to. People seem messy and complicated but they’re really not if you’re paying attention. They really aren’t.
People tell you EVERYTHING.
But usually they don’t tell you with pure words. They speak it with their response, with their eye contact, with their body language, with their inflection. They speak it with their reaction. They speak it with their actions.
These things are unmistakable and always correct. But, interpreting these things take time and patience and most people simply do not want to do that. They would rather take the face value of what is being told to them and accept it - Even though this leads to many things that damage peoples perception. If you’re truly paying attention to how something is being said, you can weed out the truth from the lies. This is essential. You need to know when people are telling you the genuine truth so that you can be closer to them and let them be closer to you. You MUST be able to tell when someone is telling a lie, or at least not telling purely the truth, so that you can protect yourself and, more importantly, protect your perspective on the overall quality of relationships.
People that are damaged by close relationships that lied to them are absolutely destroyed and, many times, it can follow them for the rest of their life. There’s 8+ billion people in the world but people live in very small bubbles of that world so their experiences largely dictate how they think the world operates.
To be naive and simply take things at face value opens up the possibility for you and your childlike wonder to be killed. Whether this is literal or figurative, this is very fucking real and not something to take lightly. Your reality is constantly being reconstructed through our neuroplasticity and it is essential that we keep our perception of reality pure.
I am not telling you to try to live a life of rainbows and kittens. I am not even telling you to try to avoid pain.
I am telling you to live your life as real as possible. Wake up and pay the fuck attention. Stop being naive. Stop being stupid. Educate yourself. Strengthen yourself. Get yourself in shape and do the things that make you feel fulfilled. Make no mistake, the world is a dangerous place and everyone is out there playing a single-player game.
But, if you’re paying attention, you’re strong enough to make reality a very rational and very beautiful place. People cannot lie to you so you can form real relationships based on the truth. Relationships built on the truth have real depth and you can share real information with them, as they will do to you, and you both get to grow and learn how to navigate the world. There is nothing more valuable and necessary to life than this.
Yes, the world is a dangerous place but you are strong enough to bend it in your favor. You can build alliances. Relationships. Partnerships. While everyone is asleep, you can be the first one awake to make that day your own. You rightfully view anger and braun as insecurity so you’re able to stay calm in the face of it. You’re not as reactive. You’re in shape so your mind is clear, your thoughts able to flow to an end when they need to. As well as a clear mind, your physical aptitude allows you real self-confidence because you had to suffer to get it. You will need this genuine self-confidence if you’re going to try to get what you want.
This confidence speaks to people immediately and tells them to listen to you. That you have something to say. And, if nothing else, it tells people to just get out of your way and let you do what you need to do.
It also gets people to open up to you because they trust you and tell you the truth.
So, whether in a restaurant or in the world, build real and genuine relationships. Tell them the truth. Be good to them and follow up with them when they share something significant. Make no mistake - A real relationship must have every action supporting it being viewed as genuine. It doesn’t take much to put a crack into relationships and they never fully recover from that crack.
It is only by being strong that you can truly be kind. That you can truly be compassionate.
Be yourself. Be strong. Pay attention. Be genuine. Be good to the world.
