DAY 19:2: SMILING WHILE TRYING VERY HARD NOT TO PUNCH SOMEONE

I arrived at work this morning to find myself one of two people in the restaurant. It was me and the chef. And no one else. I work in a coffee shop so a barista is rather essential. The time ticked away and no other staff member walked through the door and I was frantically trying to put together my limited knowledge of the coffee machine. It was looking increasingly like everyone would be served instant coffee. Thankfully, reinforcements were called in before too many people had wondered into the shop. Sundays mornings are usually quite slow to start as people like to sleep in. But when Cape Town wakes up they want their coffee. And they all want it at the same time, from the same place, preferably a place that is understaffed that day. The masses descended from every corner of the southern suburbs, clad in their active wear, dragging in their wake sticky children who are preparing to throw all their food on the floor and be generally annoying.

It is very easy to spot who has clearly never worked as a waiter. They will painfully waste your time all the while being incredibly rude. You will politely tell them the kitchen is swamped and the food may take a bit of time, there is literally one human being in the kitchen doing his very very best. They will see the chef frantically beating omelettes with one hand, frying bacon with the other and throwing toast onto plates in between and they will moan that their food has not been prioritised. Despite seeing every waiter completely spinning and running themselves ragged, they will summon you to their table with an impatient flick of the hand or, the absolute worst, clicking. Towards them you will stagger, balancing a tower of dirty dishes recently cleared from tables, squeezing two paid bills under your right armpit and three bills still to be distributed under the left. Supported between your shoulder and ear is the card machine which another waiters is frantically signalling for. On your head you balance 3 plates (1 sunny-side up egg that needs to practically still be raw, 2 eggs boiled for EXACTLY 11.32 minutes and scrambled eggs done softly, no butter, chives on the side, done only with half an egg that is fluent in at least 4 European languages and three blocks of feta stacked in a little pyramid. The cubes should be of a 2x2 dimension"). On top of balancing all this on your person, under your breath you are reciting the four orders you just took so that you don't forget them. And oh crap! That person is still waiting for their flat white. With all this you stagger towards the arrogant finger snapper who takes his time in finishing his story about his roaringly successful financial merger before turning to you but never actually looking you in the eye. He will announce that he would like to order and then, only then, proceed with his perusal of the menu. Ten million questions will be rained down upon you until he decides to "create his own" breakfast with vague and complicated phrases.

"And what kind of bread would you like with that, sir?"

"hmm (an 800 year pause as the man considers this great question of bread. He is possibly also running through the history of bread in this time and trying to remember each and every type of bread he has ever come across in his life time. He thinks and thinks. Around you the restaurant sinks further into chaos as the other waitress drops to the floor in exhaustion as she now has been left to run the entire place. She crawls from table to table and she STILL needs the card machine. Customers queue at the door, waiting to be seated. Meals that need to be taken to their consumers flow out of the kitchen with no one to take them. The man continues to think, his mind has probably wondered by now... bread... bread... should I get bread? Tim Noakes thinks not... but he's a bit of a quack... I wonder if that court case is still going on? Case... Ah, I must remember to pick up my briefcase from the zip meander tomorrow... Tomorrow is Monday? Gee, how time flies. Should I be planning for Christmas already? It'll be on top of us before you know... I hope Lisa and her kids can't come this year... I guess we have to invite them though, maybe we can send their invitation late and then hopefully they will have already made plans... why is this girl staring at me? Oh right) what kind of bread do you have?"

(Lists the available bread options)

then, DESPITE HAVING HEARD THE LIST HE WILL ASK FOR SOMETHING YOU DID NOT MENTION.

"Unfortunately we do not do sprouted Peruvian-grain toast, sir"

"That's odd. Oh well, I guess you can just give me whatever then"

When people say this I literally want to punch them in the face. If there is an option. Choose one. Do not leave the decision to the waitress. We do not know what you like. We do not know your name let alone how you like your eggs done. And as sure as "EVERYONE WILL GET A CAR!" from Oprah, if the waitress gives the person "whatever", they will have something to say about it. "Aw, I really should have gone for the (other whatever). Pity. You can't change it for me, can you?". That last question is not a question. "Of course! No problem!", the waitress will beam before returning to the desk to embark on the void process, get shat on by the manager for putting that on the system, annoy the chef and generally slow down the whole process of everything because a choice was not made in the very beginning when God created light and gave you the chance to specify that you wanted your eggs medium poached and softly spanked when taken out of the pot.

Me trying to laugh at the old man who just "answered" the card machine and then fell about laughing at his own ingenious wit.

I do really enjoy waitressing though. It is all worth it when you get a delightful table who chats, jokes, is respectful of your time and treats you like a human being. For these tables, I will go to any lengths and will not mind at all if they dither on decisions a bit or change their minds. Obviously you go to a restaurant to get something you enjoy and have a wonderful time but please, just be nice to the waitress.

After work I went home and sat down for a very long time. I later had coffee with a wonderful human that I am lucky enough to have been friends with for 17 years this year! Crazy. Needless to say, she featured in my photo of today which was taken on film.

Thanks for reading!

19/21 photos (8/10 film)

19/21 sunrises