Restaurants and butter knives

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I am one of the many pieces that fit in at the restaurant Water and Salt, one of many that make the whole machine work.
But unlike any common machine, the main pieces are made of flesh and bone, and like the good characters of Shakespeare if you tickle them they laugh and if you hurt them they cry as well, and pay attention you don't have to go to Denmark of the dark ages.
Here at the "Água e Sal" you get all that and more, because we are like butter knives constantly being exposed to the buttery events that pull us up or push us down, whatever the odds.
This is a place where sanity and insanity go hand in hand, allowing for a touch of madness and reason to make all the darn thing work.
Dividing the hierarchies, I can start with the management. My sister the owner and the main manager, followed by another sub-manager and then me, the sidekick of the universe. Three sectors follow: - the kitchen, divided by 2 shifts, with lunch and dinner; - the saloon - one double shift for lunch and dinner, with rest intervals; - the cleaning - with double shifts as well. The latter one doesn't give me as much hassle as the rest.

Humanity.
Ever since I discover them with all the subsequent feelings of envy and competition, I knew, that we as a species were condemned to a very agitated course through the rivers of time.

Such is the case of this, our little haven of food.
A word of warning, to you, the eager romantic minds, who foolishly dream of, one day, opening a restaurant of your own:

Eject that thought from your skulls, right now!
Please, perform a self-surgery and remove the dream part that might have put that nightmare-vision there in the first place.
If Hannibal Lecter can do it to Ray Liotta, so can you to yourselves, there is nothing to it. The Chloroform is in the first shelf of the medicine cabinet in your bathroom. I always leave it there, for any such emergency.

It's too late for me, because I am already involved, but there is still hope for you. You don't believe me. Fools, do you want to be just another butter knife in the grand scheme of things!?
I let you know this, opening a restaurant implies, a great skill at balancing the accounts, and you have to be a perfect juggler with the bills, the pay checks, the income and the outcome.
Be prepared to be a priest or at least a good psychologist with a Masters Degree in mind disturbances, to hear and help out all the restless persons that daily come through the office with a middle life crises.

E.g. "the people from the Kitchen refuse to collaborate with us, and we are unable to provide a good service to the customers"

E.g. 2. - the kitchen strikes back - "the guys at the saloon, always come with difficult requests to change the cooking process of some standard dishes, but we can't when we are in the middle of making a storm of requests.. They are unreasonable"

Then there all the little details to resolve everyday, that usually linger because you depend on someone else to resolve them.
The heating system, talk to the landlord maintenance - Good Lord! They are as helpful as bag of peanuts in the middle of the desert when you are fighting hard to get your hands in a cool glass of mineral water without gas.

What do you do to a waiter that does this! See the scenario.

A lady enters into the restaurant, sits at the table and asks with a German accent:
- I want water without gas!
The waiter brings her a glass of vodka and comments with a fellow colleague:
- How can someone drink Vodka at this time of the day!?
Same lady:
- Excuse me! This water tastes strange!

Oh well!
Getting back to butter knives and troubles, the details one have to resolve are so many, with all the routine events (checking up on the products that daily get to the restaurant, making a list of all that is required for the following day, calling the different companies for new orders, controlling the costs, balancing the expenses), just that is enough to drive you mad.
I guess this is something you have to be very keen on doing it, because, after all the inside wars, come the plethora of customers whose personality can be as diverse as all the different characters that have been lay down on film, theatre and in real life performances.

Despite all the harshness of it all, it has a kind of madness underlying the nature where we are blend in that is very rewarding.
You get to be a psychic for a few hours, learning all there is to know of a person or a pair or a group of people, by the way they move, the way they look, the way they talk.
Analysing it all, you check everything to the slightest detail, but in the end, you two were being stared from the other corner of the room by any customer who judges you by all the same criteria.
That place is indeed a stage where humanity performances stand out of the raw nature of each one. Nevertheless, we get to do it over and over again, never knowing where all might lead us.

Listening: Vangelis - Soil Festivities

cocasman@zmail.pt