Waiter Detox Day -1(minus 1)

I've been thinking about Haley a great deal these last couple of days. Haley, just Haley. There are only two thing I remember about her: she was six foot four and she was named Haley because she was born in 1986 when Haley's Comet came around. Of course, in 1986, I was a teenager and living in the cold war suburbs of Denver. My friend David Reid and I spent our weekends awake all night star gazing, and I remember Haley's Comet very well. Perhaps that is a story for another time.

I met Haley when she came into Marlowe's, the restaurant where I worked at the time. She had never been a server before, and although it was not required to get the job, there just aren't many people who walk into a restaurant without experience and get a serving job. I was taken with her immediately. She was 22 years old at the time, and she had just graduated from college, Hawaii, I think, with a degree in Marine Biology. Marlowe's in Denver seemed like a very far distance from marine biology save for the fish we cooked and served nightly.

“Why do you want to work here?” I asked. It was a legitimate question.

“I just graduated,” she said. I knew this already by looking at her resume. “I just want to spent a year as a server. I want this experience.”

“Trying to drum up money for grad school?” I asked. Also, a legitimate question. I was just finishing grad school myself.

She got the job. She was a good server. She was a popular staff member. She made many friends. And I know she partied, only because I knew the crowd she ran with. I also know she made a good deal of money.

When she put in her notice, I asked: “Why are you quitting?” I was good at the legitimate questions. After all, she was making good money, living a fun lifestyle and she had a lot of friends.

“Going to grad school. My year is up.”

What I was impressed with, really, was that she said she was going to work for a year as a server because she wanted that experience. And when the year was up, she quit. The last I heard of her, she was in Hawaii being a marine biologist.

I think about her now, all these years later because I am about to separate from my restaurant job. I have had a number of restaurant jobs over the years. Perhaps too many jobs to consider. The bigger ones: St. Marks/Thinman, Marlowe's, Portland City Grill, and Martinis Bistro. There have been smaller places too: The Monkey Box, Starbucks, Peaberry Coffee, Atticus and The Greenbriar Inn. I didn't last long at any of the smaller ones because I moved, they were temporary positions or I got laid off. I didn't choose to leave any of the smaller places. But I did quit the bigger ones.

And tomorrow, February 10, 2022, I will not only leave Martinis Bistro, I will leave the service industry. And so help me, I hope I never set foot into a restaurant ever again. I will be leaving this profession exactly 21 years to the day from when I entered it. I started on February 10, 2001. It has been a very long time.