There is a very real kind of camaraderie shared among coworkers. Regardless of age, job, or location, people who work together hour after hour day after day become irrevocably tangled in one another’s lives. The vast majority of my work experience has been in the restaurant industry. I was hired as a dishwasher at sixteen at a local steakhouse in Colorado and as soon as I turned eighteen I jumped to the front of the house. Waiting tables has put me through school, paid my rent, and introduced me to the most eclectic groups of people, some of whom are my closest friends.
Serving requires long hours, intensive weekly schedules and a perfectly constructed fake laugh. It’s not rocket science but does demand a fair amount of multi tasking, balancing and product knowledge. An incredible amount of media exists abut serving and the restaurant industry as a whole, such as The Bitchy Waiter or the 2005 film Waiting. The purpose of this article is not to complain about my job or shame readers into tipping a little extra next time they go out. I’m wiring this as a tribute to the people the job has introduced me to and address the phenomenon that is workplace friendships and how deeply they can run.
These friendships develop so quickly. The sheer amount of time spent with often the same six or seven people is a beautiful prison sentence propelling my coworkers far above “this girl I work with” or “my work friend.” It feels strange to be equally close with someone I have worked with for one year as I am to friends I’ve held close for four.
Lining up for a pre shift meeting, I look to my side at some really incredible people also doing their best to rock a viciously unflattering athletic wear polo. The doors open and the tables fill and I feel part of a crew sailing the cerulean sea of some Homeric odyssey. Each shift we navigate the high seas, battle monsters, collecting riches, and ultimately just trying to return home. We sail as a machine table to table accommodating needy and beautiful sirens. We weather storms of self seaters, wait lists, long ticket times, and shipwrecks in “the weeds.” We stand shoulder to polo clad shoulder and battle sea monsters of needlessly angry chefs. Charybdis and Scylla manifest in a section of disgruntled tables and we fight them with the best weapon we are given, “let me get my manager.”
I guess in reality it’s not the high drama of the Aegean Sea. It’s tiring work leaving us with sore feet, sweaty backs, dirty aprons and bulging wallets. It’s no secret that serving can really suck sometimes and it is absolutely not for everyone, but if you can find a group of people with which to sail these seas, the treasure can be yours monetarily and emotionally.
People and opportunity come into your life when they’re supposed to and the service industry facilitates that a great deal. I bonded with these people through work that is not always fun and sometimes actively horrible. No one has good days every day and a perfect employee is as mythical as the Scylla herself, however if a staff respects each other on a personal level work becomes more important than just money. You’ll go the extra mile to help someone out, pay your workwife’s IOU, and bus tables that aren’t yours to bus, not only is this friendship but being a decent employee.
Workplace friendships can negatively effect job performance and I will be the first to admit that it has for me in the past. When your colleagues are also your main bitches, chatting and working doesn’t always happen simultaneously. I’m learning the balance in personal vs. professional relationships but stand decidedly unapologetic for each of the wrist slaps I’ve received for being “too close with my coworkers” because what matters at the end of the day is the relationship. Adjective irrelevant.
Serving can exhibit the worst of humanity at times. Customers can and will cut you down because they exist, perhaps in the only aspect of their life, in a position of power. Nothing can be done but plastering on a fake smile and letting it roll off your back. Good thing there is a trusted crew on the ship who drinks with you after it safely docks.
I wish I could take people I’ve met in the three restaurants I’ve worked in during my life and sail the actual Greek seas with them but then who would be there for happy hour? I don't come here to make friends, I come here to make money is a stupid attitude because why not just do both? This goes out to the people that have made work, work. In this tumultuous world of hate, we should talk more about our relationships and friendships so thank you to the people who have become my friend through restaurant work. Introducing someone as my friend instead of my coworker is worth all the spilled ranch and ugly polos in the world.
