The rare gems … in the depths of hell

If any of my readers have been wondering where I‘ve been the past few weeks, believe it or not, I haven’t been on vacation; in fact, quite the contrary.  I’ve been living in the depths of hell, painfully waiting on the masses of the uncontrollable summertime travelers to America’s Finest City.   

I’ve realized throughout my recent posts how much I enjoy writing about the good stuff; the meaningful connections I make, the quirky people I encounter and all the smiles I’m able to generate in others.  Because the people I’ve been dealing with recently have been, for the most part, stressful and negative, I haven’t felt inspired to write a single thing.   Lately, the majority of my guests have been an agonizing combination of high maintenance families on tight budgets, tons of foreigners who drink like fishes and tip like hell, snobby rich travelers who apparently think we’re slaves on their payroll and transients who complain we have “nothing good to eat” yet camp out for hours snacking on appetizers while chugging Miller Lite and tip like you know what. 

But the more I thought about it, there have been a few treasured moments among the chaos where I’ve been able to ignore everything negative around me, take a deep breath and smile.  And it’s been those people, the rare gems, who have had the ability to make me smile.  How refreshing. 

Here’s one example…

I waited on a foreign family the other day.  They had a three-course dinner, along with two bottles of wine.  When I picked up their credit card slip, I saw a $5 tip on a $283 tab.  Frustrating, yes; unexpected, not particularly.  I don’t expect much from a foreign table (there’s a stereotype for a reason), but no matter how much we expect it coming, it still burns a bit. 

As the sting was still fresh, I tried to keep my cool and greeted a new table.   It was a couple down from Orange County for a quick San Diego weekend getaway.  She immediately smiled at me and ordered two glasses of Pinot Grigio.  She said, “I’d love to order a third glass and you can join us!”  I grinned and replied, “I wish.  You have no idea...”   When I delivered the wine, she was glowing and asked me, “What do you eat here?”  I was apparently feeling candid and replied, “Well, to be honest, I don’t really eat here that much.  We try the new food items once and that’s pretty much it.”  She said, “What?!  They don’t feed you?!”  I explained that this restaurant is a hotel-owned establishment and we eat cafeteria-style food elsewhere in the hotel.  Needless to say, she was shocked and seemed to feel bad for me.  We continued with our playful banter for a while which eventually led to her inviting me to hang out with them in Orange County.  At some point she confessed her and her husband were playing some type of people watching game.  She grinned, “Ok. I’m going to ask the next guy who walks by to take you out on a date tonight!”  She was hilarious and brought me to giggles.  She was so entertaining that I forgot about my $5 tip and all of the other nonsense I’d been dealing with for the previous four hours.  She drew me into her upbeat energy and I will forever be grateful for her that night.   She literally saved me on a day I was drowning. 

As servers, we deal with so many difficult people and unbelievable amounts of stress that one positive person can truly turn our day around.  And sometimes even the smallest of compliments can be a beam of light when we’re struggling deep in the dark trenches.

I bid a thank you to those rare gems who have restored my faith in humanity and have inspired me to write once again.  ~ HK ~