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I attended Texas A&M University and was, in fact, a proud member of the Corps of Cadets. Not to mention the Fightin’ Texas Aggie Band, one of the finest military-style marching bands in the country. (If you don’t believe it, just ask any one of us! But I digress.)

Anyway, one common denominator of most college students (at least it was back when I was one) was the, shall we say, lamentable lack of funds. So to keep body and soul together, and hopefully earn a little extra spending money, many of us took part-time jobs of one sort or another.

Now, by this time I was no stranger to assorted odd jobs; I’d already had my share of slingin’ hash at fast food joints, taking tickets at the movie theater, and anything else that would bring in a dollar or two. So I was pretty much open to practically anything. Although I may have drawn the line at wearing a tomato suit. But then again, maybe not.

However, since I was in the Corps, one job opportunity presented itself that was pretty much ideal: working as a waiter in the Corps cafeteria. Now, you might be thinking to yourself, like I did, A waiter! Sheesh, that sounds like a lot of work! Well, I’ll tell ya; it sorta was. But bear with me for a minute for, as Paul Harvey might say, the rest of the story.

All the Corps dorms are grouped together at one end of the campus, and as I mentioned, we had our own cafeteria. But unlike a typical cafeteria, we served food “family style” (that means we’d bring bowls and platters of food out for each table, and everybody served themselves, as if you were at your Mom’s).

Our job (among other things) was to bring all that out on huge serving trays, carrying as many as eight large bowls or plates on each run from the kitchen. Sometimes they got pretty heavy! And, just to make it a challenge, no waiter worth his salt used both hands to carry their tray; the *ahem* proper way was to balance that huge, loaded tray on one hand as we threaded our way through the crowed room to our tables.

Yep, it was hard work; I’m telling ya, there were days I thought I’d never “get everything done”. But believe it or not, I discovered being a waiter could actually be a lot of fun (at least at this place, anyway - I’ve never waited anywhere else, so how would I know?), not to mention some great benefits, too.

Now, before I get to waxin’ a little too eloquent (the word bloviating comes to mind), the question before the court today is, what, if anything, did being a waiter teach me about life, the universe, and everything?

Opportunity Knocks in the Strangest Places

I have to tell ya, I never wanted to be a waiter - no way, no how. It always seemed to be about the worst job imaginable. I mean, serving mediocre food to people who couldn’t care less - well, it just wasn’t my cup of tea. On the other hand, being broke does tend to make one reevaluate their options, if ya know what I mean.

However, once on campus the opportunity sortof popped up out of the blue. The money was good - better than almost any other unskilled job I could have found. The thing that convinced me, though, was the friend who told me about it. His experience (from the year before) gave me what I needed to get past my inherent kicking and screaming reticence.

Besides, it was essentially right next door (within 100 feet - thus, no car needed!) and the time frame was right (mealtimes were already blocked out in my schedule). Only after I took the job, though, did I begin to realize just how good it really was.

Lesson Learned: Opportunity knocks in the strangest places - and you’d better be ready when it does! Forget the list of “things you’ll do” or “things you won’t”; just try to be flexible and open. You might be surprised.

Service is What You Do

Y’know; when you get right down to it, it matters not whether we’re freelance writers, presidents of countries, shoemakers, worm farmers… or even, heaven help you, waiters - we’re all in the service business. That is, we’re all in the business of serving our customers. And lemme tell ya, if you haven’t tried listening to your customers, then Bubba, you ain’t been servin’ ‘em well!

For instance, it was a certainty that every table had folks with certain… well, let’s be diplomatic and call them idiosyncrasies. On this table, the Senior (there was usually only one per table) wanted to see a certain brand of hot sauce at his place (and the hotter, the better - the most asked-for brand, “Green Dragon”, pretty much says it all). Hey, no problémo; I made sure there was enough to peel the paint off the floor (which, come to think of it, it would have).

Over on that table, maybe the Juniors preferred chocolate milk while the Sophomores preferred regular milk. So as I prepared their tables each morning I switched the cartons around as needed. No big deal.

As I said, it was no big deal; but those little things paid off. At the end of each semester, it was traditional for each table to give their waiter a tip (not allowed during the year). Sadly, some waiters got bupkus. But my tips, I’m proud to say, were surprisingly generous - and very much appreciated.

Lesson Learned: By listening to my customers, I had all the information I needed to make their experience better. Those little extras didn’t really add anything to my work load. But, it made a memorable difference to them. Oh, not necessarily 5-star restaurant-worthy, but still. I’m just sayin’.

Don’t Rush Me!

Every morning and every evening we served about 3,000 cadets, and it was always the same routine: 6 am reveille (wake up to a bugle - how fun!), immediately followed by “falling out” for uniform inspections. By 6:30 they herded into the mess hall, scarfed down whatever the meal of the day was, and by 7 am were out the door. Whew, what a mad rush!

As waiters, though, we were sortof above all that, don’cha know. Since we were, you know, really busy while everyone else was eating, we only got to eat after everyone left. As it turned out, there were a couple of really great benefits from that.

First of all, unlike everyone else, we could take our time and eat at a normal pace; no rushing, hustling, OR bustling. And, it was quiet, too. You know the sense of serenity you experience right after a big storm goes through? Well, once the mob left the building, it was like that.

Second, and even better, we not only had our pick of the best food, but there was plenty of it. Now, lest you think we were scraping the leftovers from plates (yuck!), lemme tell ya, this was the cat’s meow!

See, there was always food that hadn’t been taken off their serving platters. Even on Steak Night (every Wednesday: T-bones, no less), there were steaks left over. (It always amazed me that not everyone liked steak, but what the hey, you know?) And, since there was no rush, we could go around the room and pick and choose whatever we wanted.

Extra milk for breakfast? Hey, no problem; chocolate or regular? Mmmm, those cookies were sure good. Go ahead, help yourself! I’m tellin’ ya; we ate like kings!

Lesson Learned: I came to realize that the best part about the whole thing wasn’t that we could eat well. No, it’s that the slower pace made everything better. That’s kinda my philosophy now: get it done - but savor it, too.

Rank Does Have its Privileges

One of the most practical benefits of being a waiter was I got an upgrade in privileges. Now, for those of you who haven’t had the, um, blessing of being indoctrinated into the Military Way of Doing Things, this one might need a bit of explaining.

See, in the Corps of Cadets, life is all about privileges. Every grade-year had their own, in descending order. Seniors (ranked somewhere just below the level of God), could do pretty much anything they wanted. Juniors (perhaps just above mighty men of yore), had fewer - but still not too bad. The next level down, Sophomores (equivalent, more or less, to “normal” people), had even fewer. For those of us at the bottom of the pile, the Freshmen - well, it was our, um, privilege to be pretty much slaves to everybody above. (But it’s OK (deep breath); I’m over it now.)

Anyway, it meant that, although only a Freshman (defined as lower than the lowest layer of whale poo in the deepest part of the ocean), while working in the mess hall I became the equivalent to a Sophomore in privileges. It wasn’t insignificant, either; the general idea was to prevent us from being treated like dirt (which as I said, tends to be the sad lot of Freshmen) and more like a normal human being. It helped keep things running smoothly.

To tell you the truth, I’ve never had a problem with the idea that rank does indeed have its privileges. It always seemed, I don’t know, like a pretty natural development to me. If you think about it, it’s essentially the same in every organization, too, no matter how big, small, flat or stacked they happen to be. Maybe not quite to this degree, but still (after all, pecking order is especially well-developed in the military).

The only time it ever really bothers me (and rarely then) is when I believe the evidence demonstrates the ones “up there” didn’t earn their position. But… that’s a whole other issue.

Lesson Learned: The fact is, those guys at the top have their job, and I have mine. But we need each other to make a company, and together we get it done.

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[By the way, since we're still in the midst of our What I Learned From... writing project, I looked this post over and realized I've touched on at least 5 of our 18 topics: school, friends, food, time and automobiles. So I'm counting it as an entry!

You can do the same for pretty much any post you write between now and Sunday night, May 18^th, when the project ends. Send me the link and I'll count it!

If, by some strange chance occurrence, you don't know what I'm talking about, then drop by the kickoff post, check out the details, and then jump right in!]

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