“May I clear your plate, sir?”
Hotel Busboy Blues
In my junior year of high school, I moved up in the world of work. A friend, and a friend connection seems to be the best way to get a job, hooked me up with a gig as busboy in the fancy restaurant on the top floor of Stouffers Hotel. The hotel was kind of a big deal in the small Midwest city I grew up in.
“Wow, you’re working at Stouffers,” people said.
Busboys wore a monkey suit. A mustard yellow jacket, white shirt and black bowtie. Black pants and shoes. A Korean lady in the uniform office issued my work duds. So, it was rather official.
Busboys assisted the servers. When guests were seated, we were required to water the table. Holding an ice bucket in one hand we used a pair of tongs to, one by one, place ice cubes in the water glass. After the glasses were iced the busboy filled the glass with a beaker. One by one.
This sucked. It took a long time, especially on a table of several people. Sometimes ice slipped out of the tongs and skipped across the table. Nobody wanted a gawky kid plinking cubes into the glass and then filling them. People having dinner want to relax. Give us our water and get the hell away. An uncomfortable silence happened as we all endured the process. Plink, plink, plink. This was mortifying when cute girls were at the table. When the manager wasn’t around us busboys took to pre-icing and filling water glasses. Then we could quickly place them, right side of the plate above the knife and spoon, and back off. The servers didn’t care and didn’t want busboys in the way when they greeted customers.
Busboys cleaned dirty plates as people finished eating. “May I clear your plate, sir?” Unless they were obviously finished and were members of the clean plate club. In that case, pretending to be invisible, we’d slyly remove the dirty item. Clear from the left.
We were at the bottom of the restaurant totem pole. Sometimes a guest tried to order from us. “Your server will be right with you,” was the demeaning response. “I will not be bringing you any food or drink. Just disregard me. Unless you want more water.” That last part was unsaid but clearly implied.
After guests left we’d hustle to clean and reset the table. This was important because the host needed open ”tops”. A “two top” is restaurant lingo for a table for two. “Four top, five top” etc. The servers wanted to turn over tables as often as possible. More tables, more tips. Busboys carried trays laden with dirty tableware back to the dishwasher. Dishwasher was a job often performed by parolees. I think the hotel had an arrangement with local POs. There was a pair of ex-convicts, Jimmy and Richard, who were frigging terrifying. Richard had a long knife scar on his belly he liked to show us.
“In the joint we used to buy and sell punks like you,” Richard told us. “Two for one special on your ass. You got pretty lips.” That kind of reassuring comment was about the extent of his repartee. Jimmy was an enormous weightlifter who thought Richard was funny. He cracked up when Richard blew kisses at us. A steak knife got accidently tossed into the tub of dirty cutlery was not funny. Steak knives had a separate container because they were sharp serrated instruments that could cut the dishwashers hands as they scooped them up for cleaning. Jimmy would wave a steak knife like a shiv, miming how he would cut our throats if we put them in the wrong place. Nice guys.
The servers were either much older career waiters or pretty college girls from the University of Dayton. I have good memories of the servers. They tipped us busboys at the end of the night. I remember waiting expectantly to get cash in hand. We needed each other and it was in our mutual interest to treat the customers well. Better service, better tip money. Pay was minimum wage, two something an hour plus tips. Tips could be like, between $20 and $40 a night. That was pretty good in the 70’s. I was a high school kid who was always flush with green.
On the weekends, we went out drinking with the wait staff after work. There was a downtown bar, the Century Bar, that served underage kids, that’s where we went to share pitchers of beer and to relax in the common context of co-workers. The Century Bar. Just a narrow 50-person capacity tavern with a jukebox and a popcorn machine. Crap. I just googled it and yeah it’s still around but now it’s a “Bourbon House”. There’s a picture of a bartender in an apron and full-on hipster whiskers. I am fond of Jim Beam Black Label, that shit is so smooth, but, that’s not the point. Where do poor underage kids go to drink in Dayton now? Certainly not a “Bourbon House.”
A young Arnold Schwarzenegger came to Stouffers. The specialized appetizer was Welsh Rarebit. Every table got a complimentary hotpot of this melted cheese concoction and breadsticks for dipping. Arnold pushed it away. Too fattening. He ordered steamed salmon and a vegetable. Must have been on a no-carb body building diet. The Smothers Brothers stopped by and were just as friendly and funny as their TV personae. Same with Betty White. Bob Hope, in town for the Bogie Busters golf tournament, ate there. Bob wore plaid pants and a golf blazer.
There was a jovial GM that liked to be pals. He told us a dirty joke about squirrels. The punchline was “fucking nuts.” Once my co-worker and I were way late for work. Why? I forget, probably we were messing around and just lost track of time. My friend tried to cover our asses with a lie. Flat tire. “And I can believe that?” the manager asked. Yes, we assured him, complicit in our fib. “Next time call,” he said. A long silence followed. He knew we were lying but it was going to be a busy night and he needed everybody on the floor. And we were good workers. Well, I was. My friend was a screwup. No matter. In retrospect, we should have owned up. A good boss respects the truth and will work with employees to move forward. That is basically what the manager did with a nonverbal. Redirecting a mistake into positive energy improves the morale of the workplace, can I get an amen?
Bussing tables was not a fun job. I ended up working in hotels for many years as bellhop and bartender, positions with more money and status. Always hated wearing a bowtie. But, if one had a good attitude, work ethic and some humility, all good life skills, the money was good for a high school kid.