Bringing it Back Home

Last week I said I was going to explain how I had incorporated the ability to “think like a busboy,” into later occupations which do not involve moving glassware. I'm headed there, but I'll be making a slight detour, partly because my theory about this is pretty far fetched and may not deserve top billing, but also because I want to acknowledge some other things I learned in the bar and restaurant business, particularly as a waiter, that have been highly useful in later life.
In addition to the organizational skills discussed last week, these would include tolerance for all sorts of aberrant behavior, the insouciant philosophy necessary to sanely cope with the fact that you may be paid very well or not at all for the work you're doing and that this vicissitude may bear little or no relation to the quality of work performed, but most of all an ability to remain calm in stressful situations.
One occasionally sees studies ranking the most stressful jobs, and the most stressful job is never air traffic controller or brain surgeon, it's always “waitress.”
I don't know how stress is measured in these studies, but the reasoning behind the at first blush surprising conclusion is that while much rides on the work of directing air traffic or cancerous tumor removal, the work pays very well and its performers are highly respected and have job security -- unlike the waiter whom drunken plebeians can and do treat like an ignorant servant -- and, more importantly, they get to run the show, whereas the waitress suffers the wrath of the customer based on the poor performance of the cook, the bartender or even the dishwasher. When the kitchen breaks down, it's the server who takes the heat.
People sometimes say to me, “I don't see how you can do what you do,” meaning criminal defense. “I couldn't stand the stress.” While my response is usually, “I'm not going to jail,” I sometimes think, “Compared to waiting tables in Underground Atlanta during the Shriner's convention of 1973, this is a piece of cake.” I've never seen a lawyer break down and cry in the courtroom – though I've certainly heard some voices crack – but I've seen waitresses sit down on the floor in the kitchen and cry in their cocktail trays because they just couldn't go back out there.
Now, back to incorporating the busboy's adage, “Never make an empty trip,” into my later occupations. I've always used anecdotes about things that have happened to me, or simply things I've been thinking about that amuse me, in my jury arguments because in my business I believe you must first and foremost entertain if you want people to pay attention. Any of you who've actually seen real jury trials know they're often insufferably boring.
In the past few years I've begun engaging in occupations other than being a lawyer. As you know I write a weekly essay for this paper, but most of you don't know that I write fiction and will soon be attempting to market a novel. It is in these writing exploits that the busboy skill really comes to fruition.
My secretary recently remarked that one of my clients aroused fear in her, not because he's in any way aggressive, but because he is a very large, muscular man with a stern demeanor and steely countenance. I deposited that in one of the many empty compartments of my brain, and a few weeks later infused my take on her attitude into the character of a female cop questioning a gangland drug dealer.
Nothing goes to waste. The music I like, my backwoods Baptist upbringing, the games I play all make it into my writing if not my legal arguments.
One more example. In the infamous “Column The News Was Afraid to Print,” I observed that all joke punch lines, while unexpected, have to be logically consistent with the setup to be funny – else they're just nonsense – but the logic is somehow skewed.
I was driving through South Georgia on my way to a funeral recently when I passed a rural driveway with a sign reading, “Brewer and Son Stripping.” Now I know what these guys do is take paint off of furniture, but the scenario engendered in my stress addled brain was as follows.
“Take it off boy! Take it all off!”
“Hoochie Koo, Diddy! Shake that thang.”
Now I could have left that bit of depravity back on the roadside in Colquitt County, but I just found a use for it.

Thinking Like a Busboy

In my early 20s I worked in a variety of capacities – busboy, waiter, wine steward – at Dante's Down the Hatch in Underground Atlanta.
Since then I have had occasion to write two letters to Dante Stephenson. The last one was earlier this week, a letter of introduction I sent with my son who's going to school at Emory and needs occasional work. I thought Dante would appreciate that anachronistically formal touch. He is, after all, a man who sometimes dresses – I kid you not – in a Napoleon costume, and in spite of our sometimes contentious relationship during my employ, we have some things in common, not the least of which is a high opinion of ourselves which in me manifests itself as a bad case of smarty-pants and in Dante as egomaniacal derangement.
Just having fun with you Dante. (We love to kid the emperor.)
My other letter was on the occasion of the establishment's 20th anniversary, I believe, and was in response to a request by Dante that former employees wax nostalgic. I told him in that letter that I had learned more working at The Hatch (now, by the way, long since safely removed to Buckhead) that was of use to me in my “adult” life than I had in college. At the time I said it, I was certain it was true, but I could not have said what it was I'd learned and I didn't try.
Since then I've realized that what I learned, incorporated into my intellectual life and put to use every day, is “thinking like a busboy.”
In order to appreciate what I'm talking about, you'll have to disabuse yourself of the notion of the busboy as someone who cleans the dirty dishes away when you leave. In a place like Dante's, a good busboy is the point guard, the field marshal, the negotiator who makes the trains run on time.
He, or she, is not often tipped by the customer, but is well tipped at the end of the night by the waitress or waiter, if she expects her trains to run on time the next night. (The restaurant manager is more or less a glorified busboy who often makes less per hour since he doesn't get a slice of the tip pie.)
With that in mind, the key to thinking like a busboy is -- Never make an empty trip. If you have to go to the kitchen, take something with you. Always keep the big picture in view. Don't run to get something for table 10 without checking tables one through nine on you way out. If you've taken an order to the kitchen and there's no food ready to come out, bring some more glasses for the bartender whether he needs them or not. He will eventually and you'll have to go get them.
My wife and daughter scoffed when I mentioned this latest crackpot notion to them. Both claim that I do not put my busboy theory into practice, i.e. take stuff back to the kitchen when I'm headed that way.
Although I think they're wrong about this, I offer this information in the interest of a balanced presentation. I contend I bus as many tables as they do, but that's not what I'm talking about anyway. When engaged in housecleaning I employ the busboy mantra in its most physical sense. I maximize my efficiency by dropping laundry off on my way to get the mop, etc., but while so engaged, what I take with me is often not something as tangible as dirty socks. That's where application of the busboy philosophy to the life of mind comes into play.
And yes, Ricky, I know I have some 'splainin to do, but that will have to wait till next week, or else there might not be enough room on this page for people to tell us how their fractured lives will be made whole by the opening of the new LongHorn Steakhouse.