By Anton Martin Smith Antonmartinsmithwrites@gmail.com or Martin Anton Smith@gmail.com
So I decided to step into the fray.
The chip shop people needed me.
So I stepped up to the plate, by stepping away from my usual plate.
Yes I was a regular customer – am still a regular customer.
So this proves it wasn’t a fatal decision relationship-wise.
I was just helping out, but it was still a little scary.
Sending food out in a timely fashion when all hell breaks loose.
Eateries are maligned by the snobs –
But lets call a pattie a pattie –
There’s not much more ‘short term higher pressure’ in business,
Than a restaurant or takeaway.
If a meals out in time you’ve passed,
If you add another ten minutes your ‘too slow’.
An no one cares if all the orders are coming in like middle-east missiles.
They only think of themselves and the clock – which is their prerogative.
So now here I was on the burgers, taking phone orders and wrapping the fish & chips up.
The phone orders were easy – people knew what they wanted & didn’t ask prices.
The burgers were a little more tricky – but I’d made plenty at home before.
Surprisingly I soon found out wrapping the chips was an exact science in itself.
If you don’t do things via exact steps – (namely, folding, cradling, centering) –
It all ends up looking like a teenagers (or an artists) unmade bed.
And the other major thing that was a surprise?
While manning the phones, I realized from the affect in the customers voices,
That the ‘every Friday kiwi fish & chips’ (& burgers & hotdogs etc),
Meant a lot more to people than I realized.
Hearing the childlike joy when someone lists a burger, a spring roll, a donut, a pineapple ring –
Was really something to behold.
It was then I realized that perhaps I wasn’t as much as a foodie as I thought I was.
Witnessing an adult still be able to have child-like joys was indeed my biggest take-away.
I’m glad I helped out, and I will do again if pressed under similar emergency conditions.
But all in all – I think it’s definitely better & more profitable on the other side of the kitchen.
Of course I should say I got yelled at a little,
The funniest being when I was slow on the uptake about Chow Mein does not entail having noodles –
This meant their was an an impromptu skit of “Yes we don’t have noodles but we do have Chow Mein”
The old adage of ‘if you can’t stand the heat get out of the kitchen’ is true.
Strangely enough this particular kitchen was amazingly cold,
Owing to it being mid-winter, a big kitchen and with the back door always wide open.
Incidentally I arranged to work for ‘food credits’ but don’t tell ‘the man’ about that –
It was a mutually beneficial arrangement between the two parties.
I’ve now eaten the credits entirely away – except perhaps a small ten-dollar plate of fish & chips.
All in all I’m glad I answered my local chippies distress call.
After all discomfort is where personal growth’s habitat lies…within reason of course.
And I’ve always dreamed of being a restaurateur one day.
And lets’s call a spring roll a spring roll – Being the YELL-ER is far better than the YELL-EE.
So far in life I’ve always been a YELL-EE.
By the time I shuffle of the ‘giant chip’ – it’d be nice to have the shoe on the other foot.
But I didn’t come down in the last fryer fat refresh – I know the truth is this:
Regardless of whether you’re a YELL-EE or a YELL-ER –
You ‘still gonna have to serve somebody’ – ain’t ya?
Yes – despite what the bozo’s on tv and the computer screens say –
We’re all just striving for a ‘better class of serfdom’ no matter how you slice ‘n’ dice the chip-shop onion.
So I’m glad I finally got around to talking to you about my ‘yesterdays news’ –
Or do I mean ‘todays fish & chip paper’?.
P.s. I forgot to tell you I dropped my mobile phone in the massive sweet and sour sauce pan,
WHOOPS! (it’s ok it was just a ‘burner’ anyway).
Anton Martin Smith Writer 