1001 Nights in a Two Hat Restaurant

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 I’m in the kitchen between lunch and dinner service doing some prep when Jess comes in to post allocations and ResPAK run sheets. She blu-tacs them to the lift-room door as usual but she has an additional laminated A4 sheet which she adheres to the white tiles lining the kitchen wall.

Eye-roll to self: more motivational bullshit.

I glance up in-between folding and read the document’s capitalised title.

‘YOUR CORE VALUES’

Thanks, Brené Brown.

“Wherever your center lies, know it, name it, stick to it, and believe in it. Everyone who works with you will know what matters to you and will respect and appreciate your unwavering values.”

This wasn’t Brené Brown. This was from Setting the Table: The Transforming Power of Hospitality in Business, by Danny Meyer. At least it was written this century.

I couldn’t think of a more meaningless quote to stick up on a restaurant kitchen wall. The only part of it that had any impact was the final sentence: “If you cede your core values, it’s time to quit."

Is this a passive-aggressive dare? It was such a loaded statement. Those of us who knew Old Area had ceded our core values, we had no choice. Now there was a mediocre white man in charge who lacked experience and the courage to grow into the role with honesty and humility.

We were witnessing the devolution of the restaurant we loved. We didn’t have to like it.

We knew Roadsy didn’t want us there, because we made him feel uncomfortable. Because the combined years of diverse, high-end experience of Old Area staff stood in contrast to his very limited experience, reminding him daily of his own professional shortcomings. Rather than embrace the knowledge and expertise that surrounded him, he openly resented it, growing ever more threatened and paranoid.

Consequently, the workplace had become an adversarial arena.

I didn’t envy the monumental task Jess was taking on, trying to turn front-of-house culture around, one inspirational quote at a time. I knew she was coming from a well-intentioned place, but achieving anything positive within the current framework was equivalent to piddling into a force-nine gale.

What would I have done, given the opportunity? Which by now I’d realised was never going to happen under this muppet: they like to make a lot of noise about mentorship programs and fostering talent, but you have to know the right bums to pat.

And you have to like patting bums.

A lot.

Firstly, there was zero opportunity for any of us to even have a center at work, let alone name it, stick to it or believe in it. It was clear majority management didn’t give two shits about that sort of thing, there was no interest in knowing what mattered to us and / or respecting or appreciating our unwavering values. The idea was laughable in this context; light years distant and lost down a black hole.

Current scholarship on internal comms suggests it’s difficult to impose values ‘from the top down’, while attempts to do so inevitably result in a cynical employee response.

Prior to starting the role of G.M, Roadsey swotted-up on how to manage people from mouldy 1930’s manuals, and appears to have ideologically aligned himself with Max Weber’s ‘iron cage of rationality’ thinking, where efficiency and (some bizarre kind of) logic are imposed upon staff, trapped in the system via a rigidly hierarchical structure, which promised an output of predictability, stability and order. Those who laboured within the confines of the iron cage were beset with disenchantment and alienation, ‘the polar night of icy darkness’.

That felt about right.

Apparently Roadsey’s research stopped there. I doubt he even made it to the end of the book. He certainly didn’t display any knowledge about the subsequent evolution that occurred over the next hundred years towards democratisation in the workplace.

These days there’s (theoretically speaking) less rigidity and more creativity when it comes to consideration around what factors are essential to organisational success. Forward thinkers who aim for organisational success recognise this is a measurable, direct outcome of employee happiness.

Take for example Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs. Modern organisations wishing to achieve workplace happiness have adapted Maslow’s theory of psychological health predicated on fulfilling innate universal human needs.

To summarise, humans have a hierarchy of needs, beginning with the basic-level physiological requirements of air, water, food, shelter, sleep etc. The next stratum includes the human need for safety (personal security, employment, resources, health, property) followed by the need to belong (friendship, intimacy, family, connection), and esteem needs (respect, self-esteem, recognition, freedom). Thus, personal potential (whatever that is) can be fully-realised once bodily and ego needs have been fulfilled.

It sounds convoluted, but it boils down to: ‘no shit, Sherlock’. Applied in the workplace, an employer underpins their employe’s innate need for job security, workplace safety, stability and security, with a sense of community and belonging, recognition and empowerment and acknowledging meaningful contribution, in order to assist the employee in achieving their full potential.

Roadsey failed after level two. Beyond providing us employment, thus fulfilling the basic stuff, we weren’t to feel like we belonged, or had anything meaningful to contribute. We were itinerant placekeepers.

The people who were celebrated were people like Jerkwood, who received an award for ‘Best New Talent’ after coming on board for the reopening.

Jerkwood had been at Area for less than twelve months, and magically he won ‘Best New Talent’. Talent for what? Sucking-arse is my guess. Fortunately for Jerkwood, the judges for the ‘Best New Talent’ award seemed to have been unaware that he’d already been employed at Area seven years prior, so he didn’t really qualify for ‘New Talent’ at all…

Staff awards were presented at most staff xmas parties, Global Financial Crises notwithstanding. They usually consisted of dining vouchers and prizes of that ilk. Occasionally, trips to local or interstate vineyards or nice hotels were awarded, and it was generally understood these bigger prizes were recognition for many years’ loyal service or a job well done. The system had been fair and everyone generally felt satisfied and content.

But the prize for the surprise new category, the one-off, never-awarded-before-and-never-awarded-since ’Best New Talent’ was a trip to Switzerland, via the Loire Valley. What on earth could Jerkwood have done in less than twelve months to have deserved that?

Jerkwood’s talent is for smooth-talking and social climbing. He is not a team player. Yet we were expected to turn up like happy little Vegemites, working hard in our iron cage, while management help themselves with gay abandon to the tips we made with impunity.

Carlo enters the kitchen, noting any birthdays, anniversaries and dietary requirements documented in his section for this evening’s service.

Like a creature in a forest, intuitively noticing every little change in his surroundings, sensing the hunter has been to set his trap, Carlo pauses momentarily. He sees the new poster, and he stops to read it.

(Carlo, to me) ‘Who put this up?’

(Me) ‘Jess’

(Carlo) ‘Hmm. Apparently it’s time for me to quit.’

I’m in the kitchen folding hand towels next to Teresa, who’s also folding hand towels.

My escapism on this day involves meditating on the art of the cutlery change.

Once the food order has been taken, changes are made to the table setting according to what’s been ordered. Do they need an oyster fork, marrow spoon, crab pick or steak knife? You get the appropriate cutlery from the closest waiter’s station and return to the table to make the changes.

At this point, guests are generally ensconced in conversation. The idea is to intervene as subtly as possible, keeping disturbance and distraction to a minimum.

Ideally, guests have left the table as per the factory settings, ie, as it was when they first sat down, but inevitably they feel the need to customise. Some move silverware off to one side, clearing space in front of them. Left-handers sometimes swap their cutlery over, putting the forks on the left and the knives on the right. Men instinctively man-spread their cutlery, while a surprising number of people are weirdly compelled to fondle the stems of their knives.

People who leave their cutlery alone are a rare breed.

As a waiter, you approach the table looking for the point of least resistance, so you can commence changes in the least obtrusive manner. Which of the guests looks more intelligent, or better mannered? Do them first, so the other smart ones on the table know what’s coming.

People unused to dining in proper restaurants and teenagers are always disconcerted by the cutlery-change manoeuvre. They don’t know what to do with themselves, unaware they don’t have to do anything, so they squirm and fidget, or they exaggeratedly duck to one side to make room, as though I’m placing a brush cutter on the table and not a knife.

I usually start to the right of a guest with their knife changes. Standing next to them with my tray of cutlery, I slide the regular knife off the table, immediately replacing it with a steak knife. 70% of the time, this prompts the guest to place their right hand upon their knives.

Why? Why do they do this?

Are they protecting their cutlery from further tampering? Are they telling me ‘you’re done here, please go away?’ Is it a subliminal defence move? Who knows, but it never fails to bother me.

Because I’m not finished.

But neither are they.

In a subtle yet deliberate move, the guest then pushes the knives out further to the right, so they’re jammed hard-up against their water glass. This while I’m standing motionless next to them, soup spoon poised to place in between the steak knife and entree knife. The guest’s hand remains absentmindedly attached to the cutlery stems. Now I’m forced into the awkward position of shoo-ing the meddling hand out of the way, so I can place the cutlery down and position it correctly.

It’s similar to this other thing that happens 90% of the time when you’re standing at the table with two hot dishes balanced in your non-preferred hand, burning through four layers of waiter’s cloth, while you clear space on the table in which to place the searing hot dishes. Despite your instinct to madly bulldoze-clear space in the centre of the table, you do your best to perform the task with grace and care, we are in a fine-dining restaurant after all.

You’ve made space and you’re reaching back to the hot dish resting on the wrist of your non-preferred arm - which has begun to blister - when some cunt decides, ah great, the waiter has cleared a space which I will now slide my wine glass into the middle of…

Brah, this is not your real estate. Nor is it a game of tic tac toe; it’s not your move. Leave the table to us. And don’t try to be ‘helpful’.

The cutlery change is an awkward transaction for both guest and waiter, as it necessitates two people coming into each other’s personal space. The guest unused to dining already feels uncomfortable for any number of reasons (intimidating space, first date, prior argument etc) and they haven’t had time to take the edge off with a drink, so they’re agitated and looking for something to fiddle with. From the waiter’s perspective, we’re copping awful perfume, moth-balls, old man-smell, halitosis and unhygienic scalps. We are as unsettled by this process as you are; please leave the cutlery alone so we can do our jobs quickly and efficiently.

My ruminations are interrupted by Jess, who swishes in through the swing door, all slim, prim and proper; stovepipe trousers and nice shiny-sensible flat shoes. I notice she’s gravely serious, exaggeratedly so. Is she about to tell me I’m to face a firing-squad? I glance at Teresa, head down, folding. She’s not picking-up the vibe. Or perhaps she know’s what’s coming.

(Jess) ‘How’s your night going Tash?’

This isn’t normal.

She sidles up next to me, so I’m betwixt her and Teresa.

(Jess) ‘I like your earrings.’

(Me) ‘I wear these all the time.’

Awkward pause.

(Jess) ‘We had a very serious complaint letter last night from one of your tables.’

Fuck! What did I do? DID I KILL SOMEBODY?

(Jess) ‘There was a birthday that wasn’t recognised.’

(Me) ‘What table?’

(Jess) ’Thirty-three. The young Asian couple. It was her birthday. They wrote a very long letter and CC’d Mr Meringue into it.’

(Me) ‘Do I still have a job?’

Shit. I didn’t check the notes. It was pre-theatre, I wasn’t getting slammed, they were there early, I have no excuse.

(Jess) ‘Your hair looks nice. Have you had it done again?’

Oh, please…

Dolefully, Jess turns and leaves, returning to reception.

(Me, to Teresa) ‘That was weird. I mean, the delivery…’

(Teresa) ‘You know how females gain trust with one another by giving compliments? She probably felt very uncomfortable about having to give you that news.’

Jess’ manner threw me, so that’s where my brain got bogged. I was glad of Teresa’s perspective; her logical explanation allowed me to shift focus back onto what I was supposed to be thinking about: my fuck-up.

I had to process this.

First, get angry and indignant, blame someone else, blame the system, go into victim mode.

Seriously? Someone’s birthday ruined because they didn’t get a birthday candle? Give me a freaking break! They got otherwise flawless service, and they seemed nice…not the sort of people who’d write a whinging complaint letter. Does it really matter that someone they don’t know didn’t wish them ‘Happy Birthday’?

Fuck people who outsource their happiness! Last time I checked, a birthday candle isn’t high up on Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs. It’s a bit like a request for a glass of ice. ‘Sure I’ll get your ice,’ I say, before immediately forgetting… Maybe order decent wine so you don’t have to disguise the taste.

A birthday ruined because someone didn’t get a candle on their plate! What about the rest of the incompetence that goes unchecked in this place?

Once the burning flame of my indignance dissipates, I realise deep down there’s not really a case to defend.

That was a lapse in care-factor on my part. I failed to appreciate the importance this couple attached to their special day. They chose Area as the place they wanted to celebrate and they would have been really excited to come here. I’m supposed to make the magic happen, but I didn’t. I missed a small, simple gesture that should have completed their lovely evening.

I was annoyed, too that I’d let myself down. This one lapse undermined so much of my hard work and effort - it would undoubtedly be used against me.

This got me thinking about Teresa. There still remained a small amount of residual weirdness between us, left over from long ago. Was it my ego that wouldn’t let go of that grain of distrust? Sure, she’s operated in ways I wouldn’t have at times, but so does everyone. Perhaps it was a case of not resolving the issue because I didn’t know how, but it was past time to drop it.

In re-examining this old grudge, it was a natural progression to look at other sticky affiliations. What exactly was my problem with Suzie Pants? Because it was my problem. He’d never been anything but nice to me.

Enough of this examination. I drew the line with those two. I’d known them both long enough. I wasn’t about to start questioning my instinctive distrust for the likes of Reza or Kosta.

The decanter

It’s a Saturday night.

I’m out at reception, helping seat guests.

A guy comes in, says he’s got a reservation, and he’s brought a bottle of wine. This is unusual, but not unheard of. Sometimes people bring a special bottle of wine, but it’s generally by prior arrangement. This guy had not made a prior arrangement.

He puts forward his case. It’s a special gathering of three friends who haven’t seen each other in years. They’ve travelled from Singapore and Dubai to be here, it would mean a lot if they could be allowed to enjoy this wine together. Whilst not completely obnoxious, the guy is shamelessly pushy; he insists on a table in the front room, but I see a little later he and his friends have been sat in section two, on table 32.

I also note the gentleman’s wine has been decanted; bottle and decanter sit next to one another on the polished wood, mirror-backed waiter’s station around the corner in the front room. The bottle stands out as unusual, because it’s not a wine that’s listed on our extensive wine list.

Back in the kitchen, I’m madly folding pre-folds between running food. I’ve made a stack and need to run them out to stock up the station. The pre-folds are stored concealed in a cupboard underneath the shelf upon which the decanter sits, it’s wide, angular body gleaming in the highlights of shiny, gloss-polished timber, reflections of the glimmering harbour bouncing back from the mirror backing.

I pop the stack of pre-folds up onto this shelf as I reach down to open the cupboard door. Suddenly, time slows, so I can absorb the horror of what happens next. The pile of pre-folds glide, like a year-12 physics frictionless-puck experiment, swiftly along the polished timber shelf towards the glass decanter, shunting the wine-filled vessel back towards the mirror. I watch transfixed, unable to do anything, as the widest part of the Zalto Mystique decanter, designed to provide the ideal amount of surface area with which to aerate wine, crashes into the mirror, and very gently chinks, causing broken glass to fall into the wine. There’s now a neat little hole in one side, otherwise the decanter remains perfectly intact.

Fuck.

I peer around the corner into section two. The three gentlemen have three full glasses of wine in front of them.

Now what? Georgie: she’ll help me.

(Georgie) ‘We can strain it through muslin?’

Georgina responded calmly and rationally, but I couldn’t get over the idea of these gentlemen consuming broken glass, before being rushed to hospital for internal lacerations after their final meal at Area. They had to be told what happened. And they needed to be told by someone in a position of authority. 

That would be the Head Sommelier.

But Jerkwood didn’t want to do it.

Jerkwood didn’t know how to do it.

Jerkwood didn’t have the maturity to front up to the guests and say, ‘Gentlemen, I’m really sorry, but we’ve had a little accident with your wine.’

Even though that was his job.

My first response was to imagine how the same situation would be handled by the experienced, suave and reassuring Mr Dunne. This was so far removed from professionalism I was mortified. Both because of what I’d done, and because the guest would now be subject to an awkward and deeply unsatisfying apology from someone who was hopeless at dealing with guests.

I was simultaneously humiliated and furious.

But it didn’t end there.

The following day I was called into the office by Jess for a talking to, where she explained to me that Jerkwood didn’t feel as though I’d been ‘sorry enough’ for what had happened. She asked me to go and grovel to him for forgiveness.

This was too much. A one-way traffic Head Sommelier, great at ordering wine, hates talking to guests, so spineless he can’t address a runner with his grievances, so he runs to mummy.

What was it he wanted anyway? What on earth would satisfy his petulance? Was I supposed to self-flagellate before him? Lay prostrate at reception and let guests wipe the soles of their shoes on me?

I did what I was told, Jerkwood got his apology.

On reflection, my greatest failure from that time lay in adhering to a mindset of senseless optimism, thinking things had to get better purely based on the fact they couldn’t possibly get any worse. It was hard to believe we were not yet at rock bottom, but as fate would have it, we had a way to go.

Perhaps the resistance to pull the pin and walk came down to stubbornness and obstinate refusal to let go of the past - Area had been a great place to work after all, but that was firmly in the rear-view mirror, shrinking into a remote and distant history. It was akin to the bewilderment one feels at the end of an abusive relationship – reluctance to leave, because you can’t help but remember how good it used to be.

Or maybe the need to stay-put was driven by the desire to stick around and see how the shit-show ended.

There were other, personal reasons why I stayed; comfort in the known and a persistent, nagging lack of self-belief. Often I found myself at the pub, bored and with nothing to say to my immediate company, wondering what exactly I was doing there. It was habit. Bad habit. I was hanging out with people I thought were my friends.

But even that justification was fast losing credulity.

Pete was approaching peak-cretin. This was a cyclic pattern he went through from time to time, ditching all humility and anything nice about himself while adopting a brittle, artificial caricature – the hard-drinking, hard-smoking hard-gambling hard-bitten tough-guy. 

The Zalto-like fragility of his persona couldn’t handle any form of scrutiny, so he coddled himself in non-challenging company that enabled cretinous behaviour: Elouise. She was devoted to annihilating her consciousness, so they were in good mutual company.

Every Tuesday they were rostered on 9-5’s together, so they’d make a big show of declaring it ‘Schooner Tuesdays’, before running off to The Ship Inn together, and were usually still there when the rest of us finished dinner shift at 11:30pm or 12am, by which time Elouise was ready to catch a taxi back to Bardwell Park and Pete had turned in to a shiny, red-faced alcohol-fuelled monster, then he’d disappear into the pokie room and lose $2,000.

This was demoralising, but it was his choice. He once claimed to Karen that he was a gifted gambler and could do it full-time if he wanted to.

More genuinely depressing was the occasion Johnny got robbed outside the Strawbs. He told me it was a gang of housos from up the road. They took everything he had – watch, bracelet, passport, wallet, birth-certificate, headphones – everything except his phone and his housekeys, which he’d begged them to leave him with. How they managed to understand pissed Johnny’s pleas we’ll never know, and despite eventually getting back his watch and bracelet from a pawn shop via the police, it was nevertheless a low point and deeply upsetting.

Joel’s replacement was an utterly worthless individual named Charity. As with every Michelin-pedigreed manager we’d ever worked with, we watched and waited attentively for signs of when and how she may prove herself a useful colleague, and like every other Michelin-starred manager, she seemed completely unashamed about doing fuck-nothing on the restaurant floor. Did somebody handcuff her with cable ties? Oh no, I forgot: hands-clasped permanently behind the back is Michelin-manager Modus Operandi. 

Quite simply, Area is not the type of restaurant where anyone can stand around looking decorative. We already have a G.M. and Head Sommelier who’ve publicly stated in no uncertain terms that they’re not interested in being on the floor, so why have we hired another inoperative? 

I can see ‘Talent Acquisition’ down at HQ….’You’ll be perfect for Area!’, and dopey Roadsey, both mesmerised by the mention of Michelin, imagining she was the second coming of Christ. If either of them had any experience being on the floor in a hatted restaurant as busy as Area, they’d know it’s not a good fit.

From a waiter’s perspective, it’s maddening to have to work with these insufferable road-blocks, who stand around smiling benignly at guests while we sweat like Trojans.

Georgina spoke-up in her defense.

(Georgie) ‘You know this place is intimidating. You know it takes a while to settle in.’

Sweet Charity didn’t hang around to find out. She was smart enough to know what Roadsey and the overpaid Talent Acquisition team did not.

It’s Friday night again. We brace for chaos, but the lead-in was less than ideal. Charity had been in the kitchen for lunch service, so nothing got done and it was a shitfight to get it prepared for dinner. Three of us – Jess, Nick and I, all worked flat-out to get the kitchen ready in time.

There’s a brief pause in which to catch our collective breath, featuring another dispiriting briefing from our G.M. Roadsey’s addresses were deteriorating both in rhetoric-quality and comedic value, due to his unchecked frustrations around the fact that he knew that we knew his endeavours were hopeless and he wasn’t smart enough to turn things around.

(Roadsey) ‘Leave your negativity at the door. Don’t bring it to work. If you’re having problems, come and talk to us.’

If I’m having problems - which is highly likely - you’re the last person I’ll be talking to.

(Charlie, aside to me) ‘I’m usually positive until I get to work. That’s where the negativity starts.’

(Me) ‘Get this: I came in an hour early today to do my tips test and Mooney yelled at me! He said I had to ring ahead and make an appointment!’

(Charlie) ‘Speaking of tips, have you noticed whenever Roadsey isn’t here to do them they always go up?’

(Me) ‘A leopard doesn’t change it’s spots, Chicco.’

Pre-theatre was gargantuan. We knew this was coming, we could see it on the bookings.

But you can’t always see crazy coming.

Elouise and I were on the run sheet as waiters in Section 3, but we didn’t have any pre-theatre bookings, so we ran around helping out where we could. It was mental; there were Americans everywhere demanding extra special treatment, Charlie had turned erratic…and then Constantino showed up.

(Stupid American) ‘Do we both have to order exactly the same thing?’

(Me) ‘No, you don’t. Any allergies?’

(Stupid American) ‘Grass.’

(Me) ‘Excuse me?’

(Stupid American) ‘I have hay fever.’

There’s a table of five of them on 14. They’re doing degustation. I bring out the fifth snapper and sides to complete the table. Place the fish down, then the two side dishes in the center of the table. Before I have a chance to gather myself to announce the food, I’m interrupted.

(American woman) ‘Are there any bones in this?’

(Me) ‘No madam, it’s a fillet.’

(American man) ‘Scuse me, can we get some cutlery for the sides?’

(Me) ‘I have them right here sir.’

Do you think we don’t know what we’re doing? Do you think that every night we serve side dishes to guests and it hasn’t occurred to us to bring service cutlery with us to the table, until you came into our lives and passive-aggressively pointed out the error of our ways?

A table of eight in the front room, up the back near the wine wall. They’re Aussies, but no less annoying. 

I’ve just finished placing amuse bouche down, and I’m standing next to the silly pompous man at the head of the table. He’s behaviour is all exaggerated nonchalance, like he dines in a restaurant of Area’s calibre every day, like he was born at the head of a table, for christ’s sake.

But, something tells me he’s having himself on.

He holds the closed wine list up dismissively, and without looking at me flicks it backwards over his shoulder while he gives an order: ‘And a bottle of the Lake’s Folly Cabernet.’ Like I’m his wine-waiter or something. 

(Me) ‘Certainly sir’

Knowing we have several, I turn to the waiter’s station behind to locate the page, before returning with the list open to the Cabernets.

(Me) ‘Lakes Folly Cabernet: we have several sir, which one are you after? They start at $210 and head north.’

(Pompous) ‘Cabernet? NO! It must have been a blend I was looking at.’

He takes back the opened list.

I’ve deliberately positioned myself between the man and his daughter, to rub her nose in her father’s pretentiousness.

(Pompous, to daughter) ‘These are all too expensive.’

This is the same guy who’s been crowing about how he bought a place ‘just over there’ (waving the back of his hand towards Kirribilli) for ‘300K’ a few years back.’

I handball the problem to Johnny, as this is definitely way above my pay-grade.

Later as I’m passing, I check on Respak to see what the old-fart selected. A bottle of Rusden Ripper Creek for $80. Function wine. Nice choice!

Not that there’s anything wrong with ordering an $80 bottle of wine, just maybe SHUT THE FUCK UP about how you made a million bucks from dumb luck in real estate, carrying on like a tycoon, waving your wine list around like it’s your birth-right.

Dickhead.

Oh look! Here comes the man who doesn’t think twice about dropping $34,000 on a single bottle of wine! Constant Dingo has entered the building with his company for the evening on his arm, greeting everyone as he passes.

(Dingo, to Suzi Pants across the bar) ‘Look at her and I’ll SCRATCH YOUR EYES OUT!’

(To Carlo) ‘Touch her & I’ll CUT YOUR FUCKING BALLS OFF!’

Nick is standing at Waiters Station 1 trying to Google him as he approaches. Dingo gives him the finger as he walks past: ‘You’ll never find me you FUCK!!’

(Denis) ‘What would you like this evening, Sir Theo?’

(Dingo) ‘I’d like to fuck her, and I’d like to fuck her....’

Ah, the joys of waiting tables…

Service churns on, becomes a blur. Every now and then the brain fixates on small details, attempting to lock onto familiarity, clutching at the last vestiges of sanity. I overhear Chantelle speaking fluent French to a table about dingoes. I hope she isn’t attempting to explain Constant Dingo to them. My brain dies a little. I think I oversee Sir Theo punch his escort in the face across the table. Really? Later, I watch Chantelle explain dishes at Sir Theo’s table. He then grabs her arse, drooling, ‘Good arse, good tips.’

Is this the final descent into madness?

Saturday, setting up the restaurant with Kirsten and Jess. From the front room I notice Pete turn up for his 10am start. Next moment he’s gone again.

This is directly followed by an interrogation by Jess.

(Me) ‘A few of us had a couple of drinks last night, but we disbanded at a reason-able hour. He mentioned his early start time.’

This was a true statement, all that I’d been party to.

It was not my place to recount his boastful braggadocio, stories of post-Ship escapades, staggering to The Paragon then The Orient, before eventually arriving home, incapable of operating the code on the back door, falling over into the garden, followed by clumsy attempts to breach the front door, prior to being bailed-up by his flat-mate, who mistook him for a burglar.

Unfamiliar surroundings was a semi-plausible excuse: at the time, he was renting a room from Big Tim in an attempt to save money. But the misfortunes didn’t end there. Pete turned up another time with his face smashed in, looking like he’d participated in – and lost - a fight. He made up some bullshit about getting in between Tim’s dog Frankie and a possum.

Nobody bought it.

He was sent home and told not to come back until his face looked respectable, which took about a week and a half.

The company had walked-back it’s earlier decision not to hold a Christmas party. This was just as well for morale, which was in the toilet. 

However, gone were the days when this would consist of an intimate gathering in a nice venue for Area staff. To make things more economical, the party would incorporate all establishments under the Hollotel banner, which in a way was appropriate, given how Area was devolving into an overpriced steak-house more aligned with the majority pub portfolio.

Tweedle-dumb and Tweedle-dee, the self-appointed brains-trust, had decided that the restaurant’s older, monied clientele was not the future of Area. The future, Jerkwood explained, was the young crowd.

Right.

Convince me the fashion-slaves, the influencers, the Balenciaga-wearing, young crowd who dine once, never to be seen again, because they’re after the hottest new place-to-be-seen, is the future for Area. Show me evidence: a well-considered business plan in support of this, consideration of risk assessment, a cost benefit analysis, KPIs, your presentation to the Board perhaps? Convince me this isn’t a half-baked hunch you’ve pulled out of your arse whilst swilling badly-made pet-nat wines.

That you didn’t pay for.

Please, try to convince me that the hipsters will come in and spend the sort of money Constant Dingo or Mr Reeve or Pimley does on a bottle of wine.

Do these two idiots actually have the authority to make that call?

They carry on as though they do.

In the past, a cockamamie idea like that would have had to pass the litmus-test of King Solomon, Mr Meringue and the Operations Manager, at the very least.

Now, King Solomon has handed over to his entitled kids, Meringue didn’t seem all that involved or interested, which leaves the Ops Manager, the Restaurant Manager and the Head Somm running amok in the henhouse.

Amateur-hour was sanctioned by utter lack of interest.

That year, the staff party was scheduled for the same day as the new menu tasting. That meant an all-day event, where staff would turn up to the restaurant at 10am for tasting, before regrouping later that afternoon – a recipe for disaster for people whose primary pastime is drinking.

There was some trepidation around how this was likely to pan out.

We take our seats at the long table for the tasting. I sit next to Denis, Elouise sits opposite, Johnny comes and takes a seat next to me. I break out in a sweat, sensing my hyper-awareness and anxiety dial-up a notch.

We’re supposed to be here familiarising ourselves with Jason’s new menu, but we carry-on like we’re Terry Durack and Jill Dupleix. I don’t like the tortellini. Denis and I both agree the pasta’s too thick. Jess says, ‘I like it al dente!’, defending her boyfriend, which is admirable.

But no, it’s too thick.

There’s something not right about the Murray Cod dish. It’s not balanced. The saffron broth is bland. Johnny and Georgie agree it’s not seasoned correctly.

Denis casually reminds me how I got emotional getting home from the staff party last year. This instantly gives me the shits: he doesn’t know the extent of the trouble I went to trying to get paralytic Pete home safely. The Uber I called refused to pick him up outside the venue, so I virtually carried him to Oxford St, where no cab would stop for us. I only managed to get a taxi because a kind nurse from St Vincent’s helped me jag a ride.

Which begged the question; why did we tolerate his behaviour? Why did I continue to cover for him? It wasn’t only me, it was the managers as well.

Charlie quietly tells me he doesn’t think he’ll see me later at the party. It’s anomalous for Van Oppen, who’s a reliably enthusiastic fixture at such events, and a little disappointing. Andy the pastry chef once told me there’s only two reasons he attends staff parties: to see how drunk I get, and to see Charlie dancing.

Perhaps it was a rare example of a smart decision. Speaking for myself, staff parties had ceased to be an innocent, enjoyable opportunity to let off steam, as I had an oversupply of of built-up resentment bubbling beneath the surface. Knowing I had the potential to erupt intensified the pressure. It wasn’t a good attitude for socialising or diplomacy.

Terry, Elouise and I walk back to Circular Quay after the tasting. Pete and Ricky make a bee-line for the Ship Inn. I peel off for the busses, to head home and try to have a nap before the evening’s festivities.

The venue that year was the Clovelly Hotel. I take a taxi and arrive on time. Elouise, Pete and Ricky turn up shortly after. They’ve been at the Ship Inn all day. Write-offs. I hang out with Kirsten, Tommy and Francois in the ground-level beer garden out the back.

As the sun sets and the light fades, a stretch limmo pulls up out the front, all strobing gaudy underglow neon. Making the gangsta entrance is Brad and Chantelle, and if memory serves me, Marco and Mauro.

Excellent, now I’ve got something worthwhile to focus on.

The chefs had made the most of their day, with considerably more flair than the Ship Inn crew. They’d been out for lunch together somewhere fancy, prior to pulling off this stunt. Chantelle’s appearance was magnificent: up there with Sandy in the final act of Grease.

But staff parties for the innocent can be just as fraught as for the jaded. Where I was charged with apprehension, Chantelle was all self-awareness and nervous energy. Add to that all the free alcohol you can consume, and you can guess the rest.

Only that wouldn’t be as much fun.

We’ve all been there: you find yourself aboard a steam train of intoxication fueled by heightened emotions, and the brakes aren’t working. Drinking water  makes no difference, and it’s too late for a line of coke to straighten you out. This is the death spiral, there’s no coming out of it nicely.

The highlight of the evening (for everyone who was not Chantelle) was Chantelle barfing in front of Mr Meringue. With this involuntary act, she instantly achieved the status of legend, not that she felt like it at the time.

Brad, gentleman that he is, took her home in a taxi to her parents – 40.1km away in Castle Hill. His dilemma was at that point he’d never actually met Chantelle’s parents, and this was not the appropriate time, place or circumstance. 

So while the taxi waited, Brad walked her up to her front door, helped her open the door, saw that she made it safely through the door, and closed the door behind her, before he heard the distinct and pronounced THUD! of Chantelle collapsing inside.

He then took the same taxi (who’d waited with the meter running) another 34.5km back to Darlinghurst, to the Kings Cross Hotel, to where the remnants of the staff party had relocated.

I managed to give the slip to an attractive black man with whom I’d been cutting up the dancefloor and scored a ride in a car going back into the city, crammed in with Chowie and a bunch of others. We were amongst the first to arrive, and we had the entire venue at our disposal. But after checking out each of the empty floors, I decided I’d had enough for one day and headed home.

By all reports, the party rebooted and before long was back in full swing. At the time, Karen lived in the apartment block adjacent to the KX Hotel. Although she hadn’t been at either party, she heard the hubbub when the circus came to town. At one point, aroused by a commotion on the street below, she looked over her balcony and was surprised to see someone rolling down the hill.

We survived another staff party, and Chantelle received a standing ovation from the entire brigade on her next appearance in the Area kitchen.

 Winding down service on another crazy-busy night. Polishing cutlery in the kitchen, doing the rounds, taking silverware back to the stations. Several stainless steel martini olive needles ended up in the kitchen wash-up by mistake, so I run them back to the bar.

(Me at the coffee machine) ‘How’s your night been Ricky?’

(Ricky, deadpan) ‘Fəən-təstic.’

(Me) ‘Where would you like these?’ (showing him the needles)

(Ricky) ‘In my eyeball.’

Jess approaches.

(Jess) ‘Roadsie wants a sit-down with you. Section Three’

(Me) ‘What have I done now?’

(Jess) ‘He’s having one with everyone.’

He starts with broad brushstrokes.

(Roads) ‘How are you feeling about everything?’

Keep things positive.

(Me) ‘Good. The crew are great. I really enjoy working with them.’

(Roads) ‘What about Joel?’

That escalated quickly.

(Me) ‘What about Joel?’

(Roads) ‘He sat you down last week.’ 

(Me) ‘He did.’

(Roads) ‘How did that go?’

(Me) ‘Not well. He just wanted to hard-ball me.’

(Roads) ‘I saw you that day. You were flustered and apologetic. And then I sat him down two days later for the same thing. I said, “It’s not on!”’

Well I did not know that.

Then he brought up Saturday night in the office: my spat with Jerkwood.

(Me) ‘Yes, yes, I’m sorry. Tired. Emotional. I was in the wrong.’

(Roads) “There are people here looking to be future leaders!’

Because they’re definitely not current leaders.

Then he started indulging his own grizzle.

‘I should only be on the floor 30% of the time. Currently I’m on the floor 80%! That’s going to change.’

Maybe he thought he’d earned some trust by throwing Joel under the bus, because then he couldn’t help himself mentioning Nick’s comment.

Lately we’d be in briefing and there was always some discussion over points of service. Roadsey kept bringing in new, stupid ways of doing things, like folding napkins – nothing important – and it wasn’t being well-received by the experienced staff. Last Saturday night, we’re standing in briefing ready to get bent over, Roadsey’s fussing over some silly detail, there’s discussion about why it’s a bad idea and a flummoxed Roadsey loses it.

(Roads) ‘Look, I’m telling you: this the way we’re doing it from now on, end of discussion! Why does there have to be resistance to what I say?’

(Nick) ‘Because you’ve come into a top university, and you’re treating us like a kindergarten.’

Fucking perrrrfect!

Extra points for referencing Roadsey’s background in children’s education.

Dim-witted Roadsey just didn’t get it. He was down in the office one night, verbalizing his frustrations to his ‘future leaders’.

(Roads) ‘I don’t see what’s so different between Brisbane and Sydney. It’s the same sport!’

(Johnny) ‘Yeah but it’s a different league.’

Roadsey’s feelings got hurt, but he managed to brush it all off and remain extremely mediocre.

(Roads to me) ‘I’ll follow-up, sort this out with Joel.’

I really wish you wouldn’t. I didn’t want this issue bouncing back and forth with follow-ups to follow-ups in the new, inefficient Area manner.

But that’s of course what happened.

There wasn’t time for another drawn-out sit-down, thank fuck. Instead it came at the end of a very long day, standing at Reception while Joel cashed-up. There were still guests leaving the restaurant.

(Joel) ‘Stelvin told me I said something that you didn’t like. I don’t remember saying it. I apologise.’

Well that was deeply unsatisfying.

(Joel) ‘I do remember saying to Mooney afterwards “I don’t think that went very well. I don’t know whether I communicated what I wanted to communicate.” And then I didn’t think any more of it.’

Good to know.

‘I listen, I learn. I have a lot to learn as a manager. If I say something to you in the middle of service you don’t like, you can come up to me in the middle of service and tell me.’

Epic follow-up failure. This guy actually is as stupid as he looks.

It wasn’t long before the management team had congealed to resemble the following.

Jess was now the only Front of House manager left who knew ‘Old Area’. She’d worked under a team that commanded respect in the traditional sense: earned and reciprocated. Before the closure, Jess was learning every aspect of how the Beast ran. Amongst other things, she’d come to learn a remark like Carlo’s, ‘I miss the days when Jess was the biggest donkey around here’, was intended with deference and love.

Now she, like the rest of us, was hobbled. She towed the line under her new superiors, but her sympathies were divided. They hadn’t been completely successful reprogramming her.

Because she knew the Old Way.

It was further complicated for Jess because she was involved with Head Chef Jason. Earnest, Canadian Jason had evolved the kitchen towards greener practices, banning single-use plastics, installing an ozone machine to clean surfaces without the use of chemicals and reducing waste, whilst banging out Area-quality food. 

Clearly there’d been conversations between the new leaders prior to regrouping that cohesion under management was not negotiable, and there would have been much hand-wringing about how they’d deal with the many strong personalities with strong opinions returning to the restaurant. So the primary subtext now was adherence to the New Order, and it was disseminated passive-aggressively by our insecure, inexperienced, inept bosses.

Next, there was young Robbie; inoffensive, ineffective. A bit of a ‘rabbit in the headlights’.

Mooney was an interesting one. Hospitality thoroughbred, worked everywhere including the fabled Level 41. Wicked sense of humour but could turn in an instant and excoriate on par with Windey – only there was no follow-up Clayton’s apology. I thought for a moment Mooney might be on our side – based on his private remark to me after my dressing-down by Joel – but I was wrong. Mooney was on his own side. I did not find cause to be disappointed in this revelation, nor did it make me like Mooney less. Rather, it was a valuable lesson.

It showed me that self-interest was now the order of the day at Area, radiating like plutonium from the upper echelons of Front-of-House management. If you were clever – or even, like Joel, if you weren’t - you were in it for yourself. 

Roads and bum-chum Jerkwood were snowflakes; they were there purely to rort the system.

Of course they didn’t want us talking. But it was too late for that.

I’d happened to have a couple of illuminating conversations – way back - with Area’s head bean-counter. I only met him a couple of times, South American, nice fellow. It was some time after they’d foisted the compromise agreement upon us – I seem to remember we were sat next to one another over a lunch, maybe the 2015 staff Christmas lunch.

He’d already handed in his resignation, so he was going for broke, telling me he didn’t like the direction the business was headed, with particularly negative implications for the staff. I love a bit of intel from a different department about which I’d otherwise know nothing, but what he told me was alarming. He’d been up to Area Brisbane working on their accounts, and discovered Roads was siphoning money.

When he reported what he’d found, it was promptly covered up.

By the group Operations Manager.

The same group Operations Manager who’d helped cover-up Paulie the drunken somalian.

It’s one thing covering up the Head Somelier’s drinking problem because you can’t be bothered replacing him, but what’s the motivation for covering up criminal behavior?

Unless you happen to benefit from it…

The old Area staff knew this already – it’s impossible to keep gossip like that under wraps – but we were now flagged as upstarts and troublemakers. The stupid thing was, we cared about the company, because the company had always done right by us. In a universe of restaurants who underpay staff, it means everything to know that our employer had endeavored to operate transparently and follow best practice, but this had ceased to be the case. Over time, the company’s integrity had been chipped away by a procession of questionable hires, until we’d arrived at this point where there were no degrees of separation between us and the people screwing us, sans prophylactics. All they cared about was not being found out for the pretenders they were.

I remember one afternoon Kortney in the office came up to reception. She was telling Kirsten and Ash – the door bitches - about Roadsey’s flip-out when her phone lit up displaying the name ‘Queen Area’.

(Roadsey) ‘WHO’S THAT!’ You’re NOT to take that call! What does he WANT? WHY is he calling you?’

Easy on the paranoia Roadsey, it’s just Brett ringing for a chat.

But everyone knows Windey has the highest-quality dirt on everyone in the industry, combined with anamnesis par excellence. Roadsey was right to be worried by the proximity of people like Brett and Denis because they were the keepers of all knowledge back to the very genesis of Area. 

(Denis) ‘Take Area Brisbane. Great location there on the river. They made it into a steak house. Now, Brisbane has plenty of very good steak houses. What Brisbane didn’t have was a fine-diner, they wanted a “little bit of Melbourne or Sydney”. And what they got was a dumbed-down version of fine dining.’

‘How did that happen? Well Madeline and Ben went up to open Area Brisbane. He cheated on her with a waitress – shagged her on one of the tables apparently. After Madeline left, Hasslehoff became G.M. That’s where the cabal started - they were all mates. Roadsie was a kitchen hand, a food runner. Jerkwood was a bar-back.’

‘But P.S. used to hang out with them when he was up in Brisbane.’

‘Back in those days, Chowie was in line to get Group Ops Manager, but at the 11th hour, Hasslehoff got the job over him. Chowie got looked-over. Hasslehoff came down here to Sydney, but from the get-go he had a problem with us: he thought we were all vindictive and rude.’

‘Back in Brisbane, Roads and Jerkwood convinced P.S. that Hasselhoff was doing a great job, and then, like cane toads, they all came marching down to Sydney. We got Roadsey because he was cheap.’

‘’Effectively, they succeeded in bringing a dumbed-down Area Brisbane to Sydney.’

I recalled wistfully thinking back to days at the Gallery. ‘I want to be busy,’ I remember thinking,  but now there’s no downtime, no breathing space at all. OK, so it’s Christmas, the lousiest time of the year, but before, we didn’t used to be open Saturday and Sunday lunches. We’re being pushed harder and harder, and then we have to go to the pub and binge-drink and binge-whynge. It would be more bearable having someone in your life to go home to, to have another option.

Or maybe not.

There’s a bunch of us down at the Ship one night; Pete, Johnny, Billy, Lucio, Shawnice, Gaille, Elouise, Fabi, Frankie and Brad. Most everyone seems to be settling in for a session, when Fabi announces he’s got to go home and pacify his angry missus.

‘’Av angry sex with ‘er!’ Hollers Elouise.

Johnny, Billy and I give each other ‘I’m-not-in-the-mood-for-this’ looks, before excusing ourselves and walking down the road to The Grand, so we can be bleak and depressed in a dark, dingy pub together, but Johnny and I can’t help ourselves and soon we’re having a non-productive grizzle-fest about work; the recent tips-talk, the Christmas party being cancelled, how shit the managers are etc.

Billy – never a fan of talking shop – finishes his beer.

(Billy) ‘I’m gonna love you and leave you, I’m on an 8:30’

After Billy’s departure, Johnny and I make like homing-pigeons, hop in a cab and head for the Strawberry Hills, which is heaving.

Before not very long, a couple of young ladies walk into the bar, one of them looking very familiar. Chantelle and her friend have been out to dinner together and they’ve ended up…here?

I must say, she's a fast learner.

The alternate universe that is the Strawbs revolves in all it’s chaotic glory around us, while Chantelle grills me on the availability of any suitable male colleagues. Slim-pickings, I inform her, but she’s looking for quality and there might just be one appropriate candidate…

Fun memories like this were rare at the time and getting rarer. Mostly I recall feeling heavy with despair, desperately wanting a way out. Sanity became eel-like – slippery and hard to contain.

Loathe to do myself any favours (like not going to the pub for once, getting good quality rest etc) I was held together by a safety-net of patient people. It was Jess I sought time and again for support and sage advice. She somehow understood how distressed I was with things generally and her acceptance and admirable stoicism in the face of our collective shithouse situation demonstrated a way through.

Jess encouraged me to get out on the floor.

(Jess) ’You’ll be great. You know the food better than anyone here. You’ll be busy, more involved and I think you’ll find your worries will dissipate.’

That Summer the weather was an abominable 39 degree minimum every day. I got terribly sick but,(remember this is pre-Covid) like an imbecile, I turned up to work on New Year’s Eve, even though what little voice I had left made me sound like a drag queen.

Pre-Covid, you would never dare call in sick on New Years Eve, it didn’t matter if you were dead. The mentality was seriously twisted – even if you were sick you came to work, because you didn’t want to let the team down, and you didn’t want to be seen as a sook. Unless you had ‘leavers’ (aka leavers attitude) and thus didn’t give a shit what anyone thought, because you weren’t going to be around for much longer anyway.

And fuck you all.

Part of me showed up for my shift to make it clear beyond any doubt that I was genuinely unwell, but the fucked-in-the-head part of me really did want to work, and I offered to do shit-kicking back of house work all night, because I just felt lost. I had no one to spend the evening with and no idea what to do with myself.

It still hadn’t occurred to me to go home, go to bed and look after myself.

I hung around for a few hours and helped set the restaurant, before Mooney came and gave me some tickets to walk down to Concierge at The Four Seasons for a couple of guests, just to get rid of me. While walking through the city, it finally dawned on me what a gift it was to avoid having to deal with service on one of the worst nights of the year.

It's early New Year 2017 and all the days and nights are bleeding into one another with monotonous sameness, but two things stood out that blistering hot January.

Chantelle began attending the pub accompanied by young Brad. This was a pleasing development, one I liked to think I might have played a small role in. Of course she’d had to move fast, owing to the proximity of Gaille’s ostentatious – but probably not direct - competition.

And then there was the shocking – yet barely surprising – news that the weekend’s cash-up money had gone missing.

And the last person to see it was Joel.

Kirsten told me when I arrived to work one afternoon, briefing me crisis-style, as we walked together through the bar towards the coffee machine.

(Kirsten) ‘Kortney discovered it. She opened the safe in the morning and it was $6,000 short. She totally freaked out. She and Roadsey went over the security footage. The last thing you see is Joel going out the back of the bar and down the spiral stairs carrying the bag.’

‘Apparently, he ‘borrowed’ the takings, intending on doubling them at the Casino.’

(Me) ‘Will there be repercussions?’

(Kirsten) ‘Probably not. He’s got a rich family.’

The meeting I had on Friday 4 November, with Stelvin Roads was illuminating. I put forth my credentials and expressed my willingness to step-up into the assistant manager role. Roads shut the idea down immediately, saying all management positions had been filled, but I would nevertheless be useful. 

I do not have have a crystal ball, but a strong sense of prescience helped me conclude there was not and never would be a place for me in management at Area. For a brief moment, my mind’s eye saw directly into his underdeveloped prefrontal cortex, and I saw what he was thinking: my place was firmly in the kitchen as staff trainer, although I would not be officially acknowledged or paid as such.

Despite my suspicions that the new G.M. was not acting transparently and I was being exploited, I nevertheless naively but optimistically chose to put my faith in the Area process. I pledged my loyalty, and agreed to sign-on full-time.

Thus began life under the boot of our new masters, and my internal struggle commenced - outwardly coming to terms with all that was new, including a 27-year old General Manager with zero G.M. experience, while internally my gut instincts were deeply unsettled.

Back at the gallery in between infuriating customers, Mil and I talked about salaries. 

(Me) ’So this woman on Table 11 arcs-up about her coffee; “In Adelaide where I’m from, a macchiato lungo is two shots, filled to the brim with milk” and I tell her, “well in Italy, where it comes from, a macchiato lungo is two shots of coffee with a spot of milk: Macchiato meaning stained, not filled up to the brim.”’

‘So how do you know what everyone else is earning?’

(Mil) ‘I just asked them.’

(Me) ‘I’ve never even thought about this shit. Hey, have you emailed through your availability yet?’

Pause.

(Me) ‘You’re not coming back, are you?’

(Mil) ‘I think they made that decision for me.’

Mil didn’t seem to have the desire to muscle his way back into Area as Papa dad, and after I got over the shock and disappointment, I conceded it might not have been worth the struggle for him. 

It was a loss I sorely grieved.

Finally the day arrived - the first of three solid days training. Three whole days where the entire team would get-together under one roof and find out what the fuck was going on. After months of planning, hiring, photocopying, collating and binding, we were about to re-group, meet our new colleagues, and the front-of-house man-children could rate which of the new females they thought were fuckable.

We were each given a tome of a document that - given the look on Jess’ face - had been painstaking to prepare. On the cover was the name of the restaurant in new, bespoke font. We were needlessly walked through the design concept, where it was mansplained for the slow-of-mind that the inspiration came from the sails of the Opera House. Brilliant. No one’s ever thought of that. Money well spent.

Underneath the name of the restaurant was the subheading: ‘Welcome to your new home.’ 

Chilling.

True to the new ethos ushered in by Estelle, the document was a cut-and-paste exercise of epic proportions, arranged by someone who doesn’t understand basic graphic design.

Headshots of honchos were weirdly distorted - faces either widened and smeared across the page or squished into pin-heads. There was a section: ‘Could this be your future path?’ featuring head chef at the Gallery Laura and junior somalian at Area, Alex. My heart sank a little, given my recent meeting with the man in charge of the Monopoly board.

It would not be my future path.

Estelle’s photo was notably try-hard. While everybody else looked ‘normal’, she attempted to channel Elizabeth Hurley in Austin Powers, holding up two shiny pineapple cocktail vessels in front of her chest whilst biting her lower lip suggestively. 

Clown. 

One that gives you nightmares.

The rest of the document was a mix of motivational nonsense (‘nothing is impossible’, ‘Life is short. Work somewhere awesome’) and their compliance framework, which puzzlingly included a dot point stating ‘compliant and magical….’

Uh, guys, these words don’t go together…

Or maybe they do, when it comes to making money disappear, poof, like magic.

The majority of the compliance section centred around how, as employees, we weren’t to turn up to work intoxicated and bullying wouldn’t be tolerated.

The thing about risk management is that planners need to be imaginative, think outside their usual scope or sphere of experience to plan for the unexpected, rather than focus on the known quantities - things that have already happened.

It must be said the three-day event was quite an extravaganza. Like the top-dog’s trip to Singapore, no expense was spared. It was held at Opera Point Events, on the Northern forecourt of the Opera House. It was an all-singing, all-dancing spectacular, complete with humiliating team-bonding exercises like ‘pass the carrot’, ‘would you rather’, ‘two truths and a lie’, cocktail-making demonstrations, food and wine-tasting, introductions, presentations...

I basically fell asleep between COO Justine Baker’s blindingly brilliant opening speech - genuinely motivating, about as distant as you could get from the disingenuous drivel on display elsewhere - and the excellent closing presentation given by Denis on ‘Buying Time’, a proper worthwhile take-away that continues to serve me well. 

They distinguished themselves by being authentic.

The rest of the time I spent with Kirsten, analysing everyone.

The dynamics within the chef group had changed. Like Mil and I, they’d gone to spend time in other restaurants, forging new bonds. Kazu spent time working at the Bridge Room and Sixpenny while Jason staged overseas and at Victoria’s Brae. Now here they were regrouping, knitting themselves back into a team under head chef Jason.

Amongst the various flocks and groups gathered about at break-time was a gaggle of young ladies who’d found one another and were enthusiastically socialising. Effervescent, attractive, good energy.

There was the weird creepy manager who looked like he had face palsy, trying to get cachet with front-of-house lads - Nick, Carlo, Pete and Johnny.

(Joel) ‘Check it out boys, look what I got you.’ gesturing in the direction of the new females.

Super creepy, definitely not to be trusted.

There was Jess, looking pensive and ever-so-slightly miserable. In my imagination her eyes were saying, ‘They’ve got me captive. Help!’

Then there was another lady who’d brought a broadsheet newspaper she’d take out and read on her break, and she looked as nonplussed as Kirst and I felt.

One of us.

There were a couple of other assorted odds and sods - a huge, rotund Greek guy named Costa who inexplicably wore ladies reading glasses, and a bloke named Reza. Somebody mentioned he was the guy who'd been in an emotionally abusive relationship with the very strange Mel 2, the reason she ended up with Gabor. It’s disturbing the effects some people can have over one another. 

Costa and Reza were thick as thieves. They knew each other - and Mooney - from working at Quay.

We had a cocktail demonstration, presented - not by Area’s loyal hardworking barman Gunzan, but by yet another over-paid blow-in, a highly abnormal New Zealander named Jeremy who bore a striking resemblance to Tarantino, which added to the confusion, whilst simultaneously explaining his pronounced spectrum-disorder. This guy had the most chaotic aura of all, and definitely came from the same land of droids as David Zincalume, Estelle et al.

I hoped there’d be an opportunity for us all to go to Opera Bar to get to know one another properly, with alcohol, but this opportunity did not arise. At the end of the training, the casuals got to leave and the full-timers had to head down into the bowels of the Opera House and polish endless thousands of glasses, which were being washed in OPE dishwashers, then trollied back up the road to the restaurant.

Opening day was fast approaching, they needed people at the restaurant until 1, 2am, to take delivery of the new furniture, assemble it and put it into place. We worked long weeks - tired, dirty, exhausted. It was a push we were familiar with. You do what you have to do to get the job done. But despite the rich, warm, earthy Livissianis interiors, the gorgeous plush furniture, the dazzling Tracey Deep and Christian Thompson artworks, there was a decided lack of dazzle from the dreary dictators.  

I’d been 'promoted’ to ‘head of kitchen’, or something like that, which I’m guessing was supposed to keep me happy but instead I found insulting. It was a critical role in terms of training floor staff, but it also felt like I’d be stuck there forever. No matter, one must smile and not complain. This is the new Area way (as dictated by our overlords)

‘This is fucking bullshit!’ 

Elouise and I continued to indulge in harmless venting at the credenza at the back of Section Two. As I was a fixture in the kitchen, Elouise was a fixture in Section Two, always paired with Pete as his pacifier, the person least likely to make him cranky.

Venting was something we did as a matter of course to let off steam. It meant nothing. In our hearts, we were still faithful to the belief in Area. But now it was illegal to have any form of dissenting opinion or be negative in any way. It was as though the CCCP has taken over, and Big Brother was watching.

‘WHAT ARE YOU TWO DOING!!’

Joel had sprung us.

‘We’re just having a little whinge. Why?’ 

‘WELL GET BACK TO THE KITCHEN! There’s to be no whinging, no negative talk, or it'll come out of your pay.’

Joel didn’t like me, which was fine.

I despised him.

Subtly but surely, our democratically-run restaurant, where everyone could have a say and talk up the chain of command - at least enough to keep us reasonably content - had been firmly replaced by an oligarchy, ruled by a few, who made it clear they weren’t remotely interested in the input of anyone with prior experience. Where once we held each other to account, now we had to learn our places. It was the mark of unconfident leadership - managers threatened by workers who have more skill, maturity and wisdom than them. We were told we must give the new management team a ‘fair go’, do as we were told, and most importantly never complain.

One positive aspect was the new staff I was training, who were (mostly) lovely.

Karen. She didn’t need to be taught anything - she had more experience than all of us, and had worked at every restaurant in Sydney. Shawnice, a sweet little Nordy who was prone to erupting with bizarre utterances like, ‘Why aye, man!’. Regal, Sardinian Chiara, with her long pendulum ponytail, swinging as she strode confidently through the dining room, and French Gaelle, lively, always smiling, appearing mildly unhinged, displaying her impressive orthodontic work, unashamedly keen to find herself a boyfriend.

My favourite was Chantelle, probably because I saw so much of my past self in the nervous terror she openly displayed in the heat of service. And she made me laugh a lot.

Entering the kitchen one night from the dining room with Turner screaming ‘SERVICE!’ Chantelle appeared before me, taking up my entire field of vision. Eyes wide as dinner plates and wobbly arms flailing, I stopped dead in my tracks before her terrifying impersonation of Kali, the many-armed goddess. She had come out the swing door, into the restaurant - not carrying any plates - just to get my attention, perhaps thinking Turner hadn’t already done so.

‘CHEF’S CALLING SERVICE!’ She frothily screamed at me.

I could not help myself, falling about laughing. The poor, lovely girl was not yet accustomed to the brutality of the kitchen, and I suspect she mistook Chef’s blood-curdling screams as being directed at her personally.

We worked. We worked 67+ hour weeks, week after week. We knitted together the new team into a cohesive fabric, a little more ‘warp’ than ‘weft’. We tried to keep our opinions to ourselves.

We went to the pub.

I was exhausted and unhappy. I turned up late to work, got in trouble.

One night after service I was gravely sat down by Joel and Mooney. Very official: here comes the written warning. Joel attempted to play bad-cop.

Mooney said nothing.

Joel: no signs of intelligent life there. I let him speak his monologue. There was no point saying anything. I had transgressed, I had nothing to defend.

But he was going overboard.

‘WE COULD HAVE HIRED SOMEONE EXTERNALLY FOR YOUR POSITION!’

I shifted in my chair. Ah, so he’s going to threaten me by trying to pretend that I have a ‘position’?

I remained silent, feeling distinctly like I was playing chess with a pigeon.

If that’s your attitude, fuck you.

Afterwards, seething quietly whilst setting Section Three, Mooney approached me.

‘I don’t agree with how he handled that.’ Was all he said. 

Then he walked off, back to reception.

Johnny and I went to the pub - just to mix things up a bit - and I vented. Normally it felt good to bounce things off someone reasonably sane like Johnny, but this time it didn’t. Johnny had just signed his P.R. agreement, committing himself to the company, and he did so primarily because he’d decided this was the group of people he wanted to work with. This same group were now constantly saying how unhappy there were and how shit things had become.

How it might be time to leave.

It’s the Saturday of another busy week - I head into work tired and despondent. I was in a hole I couldn’t climb out of, depressed and exhausted, before something clicked - there are people relying on me. I change my attitude, now purposeful and on a mission.

Elouise and Karen are complaining about management. Shawnice is just complaining, but we get the job done. After work, there are two plastic tubs of ice-cold beers waiting - one for chefs and one for front-of house. It becomes chaotic.

(Gaille, grabbing Pete) ‘Peter! I love you Peter!’

(Pete) ‘Don’t touch me!’

(Gaille) What time do you start on Tuesday? 10? Good, same as me.’

(Pete) ‘Fuck off!’

I go into the office for some tranquility. The J-crew are in there; Jason, Jess, Johnny, Jerkwood. I absorb the chit-chat for a while, but through thickening veils of intoxication, I fail to notice my growing irritation. Suddenly, I explode like a champagne cork, releasing months of various types of frustrations - all directed at Jerkwood - before I call him a smug prick and walk out.

Later at the pub Johnny and Pete are talking about Romain’s farewell dinner on Tuesday night.

(Gaelle) ‘Can I come?’

(Johnny, at his blunt best) ‘It’s a dinner for people who worked with Romain.’

Romain’s departure was another canary who’d carked it in the coal-mine. Join the dots, you start to see a picture - of loyal, hard-working staff consistently being looked-over.

After Paulie the drunken somalian left, Romain stuck around, thinking he could be in line for promotion. He’d been there some years, was honest, loyal and hard working, but he got overlooked for the Head Somm position. Jerkwood got it because he’d gone off and done other things - badly. He manipulated his way into the role; he was besties with the G.M, and excellent at greasing important arse and talking bullshit.

Not to the guests though, it was beneath him to be on the floor.

Denis sums it up like this, ‘Jerkwood disappears off the floor after a couple of hours service and says, “I’ve got to go and do the ordering.” He never has to see service out, never gets subjected to the mental strain of seeing things through until the end.’

‘Dunny was always there. “Hey Matt, we’ve got some customers on the floor" - he knew it was his responsibility - as Head Somm - to go there and speak to them face to face. That’s why he’s so good. He was always the first one there and the last one out.’

But Dunny was convinced Jerkwood had changed his ways.’

‘I’ll never forget years ago, back when Remon went to Bar and Grill and we were chatting one time and he said to me, “We’ve stolen one of your staff members.” and I said, “We gave him away. He was lazy and power-hungry. He disappears off the floor and can’t be found. For hours!” Remon said, “Oh that won’t happen at Bar and Grill. That can’t happen: we’ve got this food and bev manager and he just won’t allow it.”

A few months later we were talking again, and Remon said to me, “But, where does he GO? In the middle of service, he just DISAPPEARS!”

‘Back then he was just a sommelier, a wine waiter, so it’s not like he even had a desk to go and sit behind, and pretend to do the ordering!’

We all knew this, it was why the old staff were unhappy - because we saw the worst possible scenario playing out before our eyes, while at the same time we were being told we must ‘give the new management a fair go’.

I went to Romain’s farewell dinner and apologised for the time I slapped him at a house party (even though he deserved it). We had a weird relationship, but at the end of the day I liked him. He reminded me that 'you are the sum of the five people you spend the most time with.’

‘Thanks, Tony Robbins.’

He was right, nothing would change if I didn’t change this scene.

The structure keeping us contained suddenly vanished. It was like we’d been poured, floundering, out of our little fish-bowl and into an ocean of uncertainty. Ill-equipped, floating in vast space, we had to navigate the process of returning to life without the restaurant. Some of us had forgotten what ‘normal’ looked like.

Shifting gear, slowing down, was profoundly unsettling. We’d been planning this six-to-eight weeks off for years. Now here it was, and nothing made much sense. We were all disposable, dispensable, and this was very much fostered and underwritten by Estelle and the rest of the head-office clowns. The way upper management was behaving, the messages they were disseminating, our jobs were not secure. Working under someone like Estelle was like working for McDonald’s; inauspicious.

There was no loyalty that’s for sure. 

Some of the full-timers took the opportunity to take a break, living off their accrued holiday pay, but us casuals had to find temporary work while the restaurant was closed.

Mil and I had established ourselves as part of the Gallery crew early on, anticipating the closure and subsequent competition for available hours in other venues - one less thing to worry about - but now we began absorbing others into the team.

Gunzan and Suzie came over to work in the bar with J.P. and Mitch. That’s a lot of barmen for a small bar, but cool, OK.

Riccardo - one of the somalians - dunno what he’s going to do, we don’t even do wine service at the Gallery. Then Papa’s recruited a couple of his Portuguese mates, Nico and Vito, not sure why, when there’s not enough work to go around, and it’s not like we’re busy with functions and exhibitions.

I came in for work one Tuesday. The coffee machine’s not working. Lyndon tells me there’s thirty-three booked and ten of us rostered on. Are we fucking serious? I went straight to the shift manager to request to go home. I had better things to do than stand around swinging dick all day.

Daisy was some young girl I hadn’t worked with before who didn’t seem to know her arse from her elbow. She ummed and ahhed for a few minutes before I said ‘I’m going’ and walked out.

That’s when it hit me that something very rotten was afoot.

Up until that point, I’d not been invested in the goings-on at the Gallery because I never intended to stay, but now I was beginning to see how dysfunctional management was. The place was being run by a flock of females: there were so many of them, I didn’t know who was in charge anymore.

There was Phoebee and Kelly and Laura and Rachel and a friend of Rachel’s and Daisy and Anique and Ramona. Quite a lot of managers for a small restaurant. And between them, they couldn’t work out that you didn’t need ten staff for thirty guests.

J.P. brought it up one day in the bar.

(J.P.) ‘People like you and I, we’ve done ourselves over in a way, staying casual. On one hand we’ve got no responsibilities, we can suit ourselves. But now we’ve got dunderheads coming in, telling us what to do, we’re ordered around by kids who have no idea how incompetent they are.’

The core wait staff at the Gallery were still a solid crew; Sammy, Florian, Lisa, Hannah, Anna-Maria and Tamara. But all of us were shaking our heads when the supervisors came in to tell us how to do our jobs.

Saturday, AGNSW is closed due to a power outage. Mil and I walk back through the Domain to the city. 

(Me) ‘Didn’t even manage to get a cup of coffee.’

(Mil) ‘It’ll be like Chernobyl. Years later people will come back and find the group-head still full of coffee grounds.’

(Me) ’Have you noticed this place has become a complete shit-show?’

(Mil) ‘Well yeah. But what in particular?’

(Me) ‘Are you getting enough hours? I mean, there’s a lot of us, and the restaurant isn’t busy enough for the amount of staff on. They haven’t really thought this through have they?’

(Mil) ‘I dunno. Has Rachel spoken to you about our pay?’

(Me) ‘No. Why?’

(Mil) ‘Remember the Compromise Agreement we signed which put us all on the same pay rate?’

(Me) ‘Yeah.’

(Mil) ‘Well these guys aren’t on the same rate as us. We’re on twenty-seven and they’re on nineteen. Rachel told me not to mention it.’

(Me) ‘That’s fucked!’

(Mil) ‘You miss Area, don’t you? You know it’s not going to be the same when we go back.’

(Me) ’I miss professionalism. Management are shapeshifters. I don’t know who's team to be on here. The uncertainty’s giving me the willies.’ 

Flo’s been disciplined for using his phone during service. Afterwards, Chef Laura and Rachel gave us all a talking to. Discipline.

(Laura) ‘I’m not going to have my reputation and the reputation of Matt Meringue detrimised. We’re on 14.5. We’re half a point off a hat!’

The place is run by amateurs and it shows. Chef Laura says she doesn’t want Mr Meringue’s name detrimised. They should be more concerned about front of house management.

But management are buying the kitchen’s loyalty by promising them a bigger cut of tips.

Flo’s been asked to attend a meeting at H.Q. and he’s been told to bring a support person.

That escalated quickly.

Lisa the French girl is his friend, but she didn’t feel confident to go - too intimidating - so I offer to accompany him. I wasn’t sure if I’d be any help, but a part of me wanted to see what H.R. was up to. Something sneaky was going down.

17 September, the same day Brett was having his exit interview in the Oval Office with King Solomon.

(Staffy Maxwell) ‘You’ve exhibited gross misconduct with malicious intent. You clearly don’t understand... You’re in breach of your contract. We’re terminating you effective immediately.’

Woahwoahwoahwoah. WHAT?

That was a stitch-up.

(Mil) ‘You haven’t told anyone here, have you?’

Mil had been talking to Rachel. She was trying to lure him to the Gallery permanently by offering him management.

(Me) ‘I don’t speak to anyone here about that stuff. Why do you ask?’

(Mil) ‘Papa’s been sniffing for info; “Have they put you on a salary? What have they put you on? You’ve told everybody else, why don’t you tell me?”’

Papa was losing his shit, because management were giving him the dick-around badly, telling him they didn’t want him back at Area, and then putting him on the pass and cutting his hours at the Gallery to squeeze him out.

I did a trial at Flying Fish, but Flying Fish seemed fishy. There was someone there who already thought he had the job in the bag. I didn’t want to be coming in over someone’s head.

But maybe I could use it as leverage.

Word is, forty-five of the company’s managers have just gone on a junket to Singapore - $180, 000 on flights and accomodation alone. Not to mention Michelin-starred restaurants, fancy bars and the rest.

They’re so busy patting themselves on the back they’ve forgotten about the people who do the work.

One quiet weekday lunch service, at the Gallery - not many of us rostered on - and Gunzan was working in the bar.

(Gunz) ‘Hey Tash. Guess who our new head sommelier is?’

(Me) ‘I’ve no idea Gunzy. Tell me’

(Gunz) ‘Alex Jerkwood.’

But are you fucking SERIOUS?

I don’t recall who was working the main sections that day but I was in the 90’s. Whoever the manager was told me I’d be looking after the new Area managers. Here I was, I just happened get to be the first to sus-out the new Area management team. I couldn’t believe my luck. I switch all my surveillance equipment on and dial up max settings.

Where’s Mil? This is when you need someone to gossip with…

The first guy turns up early. Tall. Remarkably uninspiring head. Was he suffering post-stroke facial paresis?

Meet Joel.

Joel was Scotty’s ex-flat-mate, owed him a sizeable amount of money when he bailed. Charlie too had tales of ‘loans outstanding’ to this degenerate-gambler-aspirational-dickhead.

Next, Stelvin Roads. Blonde-haired, blue-eyed, tall, solidly built. The new restaurant G.M. Started as a runner at Area Brisbane, rumored to be extra generous when it came to divvying up tips - to himself.

Then the rest of the managers arrived. Jess, pretty-boy Robbie and an older, distinguished, be-speckled gentleman with snow white hair. I recognised him from my trial at Quay in 2010.

That was Mooney.

They greeted one another and settled themselves at the high-table. I made my way around the table pouring water into their glasses, mingling casually, nonchalantly, whilst noting the surveillance sweet-spots.

That’s when I saw the book.

Stelvin had brought with him a copy of Dale Carnegie’s How To Win Friends and Influence People.

Surely this was a joke.

I know it sounds like a joke. But How To Win Friends… is a real book, and even though, at thirty million copies it’s one of the best selling books of all time, it was written in NINETEEN FUCKING THIRTY SIX. So, twenty-seven year old Stelvin Roads shows up to manage a bunch of career hospitality professionals and he’s packing an eighty-year-old self-help book from the era of SIGMUND FUCKING FREUD in his briefcase. 

A book that was both popular in Nazi Germany and recommended by Charles Manson as being helpful in manipulating women into committing murders for him.

This did not bode well.

Estelle-fucking-Reynolds. Honestly, where did they find this collection of donkeys? She told us if we needed anything to ‘reach out’ to her, so I phoned her and told her in no uncertain terms that I intended to go back to Area, and that I’m applying for supervisor. She responds: there are 27 other venues in the company.

You’re not listening, Estelle.

(Me) ‘Due to the uncertainty of what we’re returning to, I believe there are some people considering not returning.’

(Estelle) ‘Who? GIVE ME NAMES!’

(Me) ‘It’s not about names, it’s about uncertainty. I did a trial at Flying Fish on Saturday. They offered me Assistant Venue Manager. I spoke to Rachel at the Gallery. She offered me Assistant Manager. But I want to work at Area.’

(Estelle) ‘There’s a lot of new and exciting people coming on board.’

I’ve already met them.

(Estelle) ‘And there’s exciting training coming up. Lots more details will be released this week.’

Say exciting a few more times. And don’t give me any content whatsoever.

(Estelle) ‘I’m really glad you reached out. If there’s anyone else you think may be feeling disconnected, give them my number. Tell them to call me on my mobile.’

I was embarrassed for this Mickey-Mouse woman.

Insulting, tone deaf nonsense. A pub wench playing dress-ups. Hollowtel had lost the plot. They were trying to appeal to the pub crowd, focusing on young people. They weren’t reading the room. Area was the grown-ups corner, business people, people paying serious money and who wanted to be taken seriously. 

The new crew were high on energy and false enthusiasm.

Assuming Rachel was the head honcho at the Gallery, I mentioned to her I’d had the most dissatisfying conversation of my entire life with Estelle. She empathised, adding this bleedingly-obvious observation: ‘the business is so top-heavy right now they’re unable to make any decisions.’ She mentioned there are adds all over Seek. I was surprised, I’d only seen Head Somm and G.M. positions advertised, and they’d evidently been so hard up they’d offered Stelvin and Jerkwood the positions.

So when I got home I checked Seek and there were adds, including one for Assistant Restaurant Manager. Maybe it’s time I stopped complaining about how shit management is, and I put my hand up to be part of the solution.

I decided I’d apply.

I arranged a meeting with the ‘Talent Acquisition Scout’ (eyeroll, what a wank).

Of course, I have to wait until everyone gets back from Singapore.

4 November 2016

8:45 at the Sheaf. I first see Turner out the back. Then Billy on New South Head, followed by François. I head upstairs - Gallina, Jason. Jess. Stelvin Roads. MM comes in & actually says something more than how are you? ‘Are you coming back to Area? Somebody said you were staying at the gallery.’ Nah, too boring. ‘Good. We need you.’

H.R. has cobbled together a leaflet outlining key aspects of the Enterprise Agreement to calm us all down ahead of the upcoming vote, assuring us it needs to pass the ‘BOOT’ test. In other words, staff will be ‘better off overall’ in theory. It’s a fait accompli. Nevertheless, everyone’s got to jump the hoops to satisfy the legal requirements.

I won’t be around to cast my vote, as I’m away on holiday for a whole blessed month.

From this point the corporatisation of the company becomes noticeably more rapacious, at least it seemed that way after my repatriation onto home soil, where I was greeted by email-spam from Estelle-cut-and-paste-Reynolds, declaring how my particular (insert specificity here) expertise would be a perfect fit for (insert affiliated establishment here).

It must have taken her a whole five minutes to compose that email.

There’s a great deal of news to catch up on back at work - all of it unbelievable - but it was going to be a typically frenetic Saturday night and nobody had time to talk. It seemed like a regular Saturday with the usual lead-in; there were a few wine reps in the bar showing their wares to Paulie, while a few of us set-up the restaurant.

The first noticeable difference was that Charlie was missing. Charlie’s mum had passed away while I was gone and he’d flown back to Holland for her funeral.

It always takes a little while to get back into the flow of service when you’ve been out of the loop, even for just a couple of weeks. You’re not quite as switched-on as you know you should be: there are little things your body does that you don’t even consciously register. I was standing at Waiter’s Station One looking out into Nick’s section whilst running a mental scan on myself, taking a breather to recalibrate while watching the insanity of pre-theatre.

Something wasn’t right, there was a beat missing, a piston wasn’t firing, something…

The results of the scan came back. The problem wasn’t internal, it was external.

Just then Josh materialised. I thought perhaps he was going to give me a hard time for standing around, but no: that’s more Windey’s style. I remained anchored in place, and for the briefest discernible moment we both stood watching, mesmerised by exactly the same thing.

Luffy looked squarely at me.

(Josh) ‘Beatoff’s steaming. He can’t even hold himself up.’

We split in different directions; me back to the kitchen, Luffy to fetch the metaphorical vaudeville-hook to drag Paulie off the floor, but not before Paulie managed to pour wine on Table Four.

Literally.

The two guests sat at the table aghast, as their munted sommelier poured wine from one glass to the other, without lifting the neck of the bottle between pours, wantonly sloshing wine all over the table.

I ran the next fire but my mind was askew. Luffy is characteristically unflappable in service, but I couldn’t believe how he’d responded with such casual coolness. He seemed neither shocked nor angry, almost like he’d had a premonition.

Come to think of it, Paul was tasting wine pretty much all day long.

Fuck.

(Me) ‘You’d never believe what just happened in Front Room. Beatoff’s been pulled off the floor.’

(Mil) ‘What, again?’

(Me) ‘What do you mean, “again”?’

I thought Mil must’ve been referring to the time waaay back, when he famously poured degustation matched wines in a similar fashion.

(Me) ‘Do you mean the last time he got suspended? Before you started here?’

Story goes he approached the table suave, charming, reassuring - as per usual. He placed two wine glasses gently down upon the table at the top of each guest’s knife-point. Smiling, he presented the bottle to the guests and with incredible composure spoke flawlessly and with due reverence about the wine. With flair he poured; precisely seventy five millilitres here, and precisely seventy five millilitres there.

Neither pour went into either wine glass.

But that wasn’t the incident Mil was talking about.

(Mil) ‘NO Tash, while you were away! I haven’t had a chance to tell you…’

‘It must have been mid-week or maybe a Sunday, one of those more relaxed nights that it happened. Josh called a few of us into the kitchen and said, “We’ve got a situation. Paulie has to go home.”’

‘I think it was Terry, Dillner, maybe Charlie, maybe Denis, I can’t remember exactly. We followed Josh to the bar. Beatoff was there, wasted. Gunzan had his hand on his shoulder, he was talking to him very calmly.’

‘Gunz said, “Come with me Paul, we’re gonna get you home.”'

‘He was absolutely throttled, couldn’t even walk.’

Gunzan always carries the huge, heavy, full tubs of ice up the narrow spiral staircase for service, now here he was fireman-carrying Paul down the stairs.

(Mil) ‘It was me, Josh and Gunz holding him up at Time-Teq, and I had to stick his finger into the machine to sign him off.’

‘Then Gunzie had to carry him back up the stairs and out through the bar while Josh watched for guests. Gunz and Terry carried him out the front door where we eventually got him in a taxi.’

‘We were still in service, it was around 9:30 or 10:00pm…’

Mil was getting me up to speed in the Section Three back bar. At this point, Papa wandered in.

(Alex) ‘Is Mil telling you about Paulie? Man, he’s off the chain.’

(Me) ‘But Papa, didn’t anything come of that last altercation between you and him?’

(Alex) ‘Yes, Brett reported it. Brett had to include it in the manager’s report, because he was the acting manager that night. I remember he came and asked me, “So, did anything else happen?”'

‘M.D. followed up. He came and saw me and said, “Look, myself and Maxwell, we’d like to have a word with you.”’

‘So I had a sit down with them, Maxwell’s assistant was there as well. That’s when M.D. asked me, “Have you experienced any friction during service?”’

‘I told them what I could remember; that I was just there like usual, then I asked him something - it didn’t have anything to do with service - and he started to swear out of the blue! He was really gone, you could see it in his face. He was agro - nothing to do with service. Just weird, man.’

‘After that meeting he got suspended. He came up to me in Section Three and apologised, “Oh Papa, I’m so sorry about what happened…” But he just couldn’t help himself being a dickhead to the rest of the staff. He’s made Jess cry, he’s made death threats to Roman… I didn’t see that but I heard about it.’

‘One night I was putting away some of the glasses and I asked him, “Where do these glasses go Paulie?” and he screamed at me, “I DON’T DO GLASSES!”

’Another night in the middle of service I was doing Kitchen Table and they ordered a $900 bottle of Chateauneuf du Pape. So I came out to the bar and I asked Johnny to get the wine for me. Johnny said, “Did they ask for this or did you recommend it?” and I was like, “Nah man, they asked for it.”’

‘So Paulie went to the cellar to get it. He came back into K.T. and decanted it on the waiter’s station. Then he poured a third of the bottle into a glass and walked out!’

‘He didn’t come back; he went down to the office or something and just drank it himself!’

(Me) ‘So…how is he still here?’

(Alex) ‘I dunno, man. He had this run-in with Charlie before Charlie left, and Charlie went to H.R. about it. But he’s still on the floor. I think he’s on a good behaviour bond or something.’

Well that seems to be going well…

I’ve never had a problem with Paulie, but that doesn’t mean there isn’t a problem. Whenever I’ve asked Johnny about it he defends him to the hilt, explaining the man has ‘an exceptional palate’.

Oh, riiight.

So this is what I’ve walked back into; the restaurant managers have been hobbled - undermined from above - to the point they can’t effectively perform their duties, because upper-management and H.R. refuse to reign-in a recalcitrant senior sommelier.

Because he’s got a great palate.

His psychotic behaviour has been absorbed into the fabric of service - like spilt wine into a tablecloth - such that it no longer even raises an eyebrow, effectively normalising said behaviour.

I guess that sums the place up in a nutshell.

As I passed the office on the way out the door after service, I was amazed to see Paulie still sitting at his desk in the corner of the room. There were a few other somalians present and Luffy was there as well. In that briefest of glimpses I determined that all was quiet on the Western Front. Nothing to see here.

Surely Beatoff’s due a dressing down after tonight’s behaviour?

But Josh seemed unperturbed. He was sitting next to Johnny in an opposite corner of the room, both looking at something on Johnny’s computer screen.

Nothing made any sense.

I headed for the pub.

At the pub that night I learnt of other developments.

Scotty had been sat down by management and told to look for another job, as there would not be a position for him after the restaurant reopened.

Pete wearing a suit was no longer on the table due to multiple incidents of showing up in no fit state, or not showing up at all. He was lucky to still have a job.

Then Johnny arrives, shaken not stirred. There’s been a massive melee back in the office.

(Johnny) ‘I was showing Josh something on my computer and we were having a bit of a laugh. Then Paulie’s paranoia kicks in: he takes offence, thinking we’re laughing about him, and he starts having a go at Josh. Josh returns fire, “How DARE you…” yaddah yaddah, and then Beatoff gets up out of his chair and really starts mouthing off. And then it’s on! Josh gets up out of his chair and verbally tears Beatoff a new arsehole, and he doesn’t stop until he’s reduced Paulie to a whimpering, quivering, twitching mess back in his chair in the corner.’

And that was the moment the universe as we knew it ended.

Luffy told me what happened next.

A meeting was called the following day. Maxwell, Hasselhoff and Josh were present.

CCTV footage of the argument in the office confirmed Josh’s account of events, but they continued to defend Paulie while simultaneously questioning Josh’s handling of the situation.

(Josh) ‘But I was the one who reported him. It was you guys who swept it under the carpet!’

Both Josh and Brett reported Paulie’s professional misconduct in accordance with best practice protocol, and each time disciplinary action has been stymied further up the management chain.

Luffy smelt a rat.

(Josh) ‘I don’t think we’re making any progress here, so I’d like to suspend this meeting and reconvene in twenty-four hours.’

Josh then contacted a mate in recruitment who advised him on other G.M. roles that were currently available. He picked one and handed in his resignation the following day.

(Josh) ’I was lying in bed one night, stressing about Rochelle, stressing about Paulie, I couldn’t sleep. And my wife just said to me, ‘This job isn’t worth it.’

‘There was more to it, much more. Hasselhoff had become impossible to work with. He was trying to work out an agreement about tips and I wouldn’t budge. M.M. drove up to the restaurant one day to demand why we wouldn’t agree and Brett had to go out and talk to him.’

‘Tips are for floor staff - face to face working with guests. Once you start making excuses and allowances for people things get murky and corrupted. Even that thing where the somms leave the floor early to go and do office work but they still feel entitled to 100% share I don’t completely agree with. Then they whinge when they have to do stocktake which prevents them from being on the floor. So we’ve made allowances, but you have to draw the line.’

‘Another time I lost it with Hasselhoff at a meeting where he lied about fudging Time-Teq. I could see the writing on the wall, it was only going to get worse, so it was time to go.’

It made sense but it still felt like a death in the family.

Luffy called his final ‘KITCHEN CLOSED’ on the night of August 10th.

But it didn’t stop there.

Lines had been drawn, the die was cast. The future of the restaurant in the direction it was going was not one that Windey wanted to be a part of either.

He, too, handed in his resignation.

King Solomon summonsed him for an exit interview.

We ran into each other that morning out the front of H.Q. Brett will tell you I staggered out pissed. Nothing could be further from the truth, but Windey doesn’t let that get in the way of a good story and I’m happy to let him have his fun.

(Brett) ‘Have you ever been into his office? I call it the Oval Office. It’s enormous, it’s got huge doors and a massive oak desk with two chairs on one side and him on the other. I said to him, “I’m not here for an interview, come and sit next to me.”

‘I said, “I’ve served three generations of your family,” and then I had him. But basically I told him that once P.S. left, the generosity vanished from the business.’

‘“I’ve stated my main reason for leaving in my resignation letter, but the second reason doesn’t have anything to do with me. Chow: how long’s he been with the company? It was ten years a few months back, and what did he get? Nothing. It wasn’t even recognised. King Solomon acknowledged that, his words to me were; “Oh my god. We’ve turned into monsters.”’

(Brett) ‘I said, “You’ve always looked after me and you’ve had my loyalty in spades. But everything’s changed.” He offered me a pay rise and I said I don’t need it.'

'Josh is right, it’s just not worth it.’

You think you have some idea what the future has in store, but how quickly that ghastly blue and orange carpet can be pulled out from under you.

On Sunday August 21 2016, the restaurant as we knew it held it’s final service.

The last table came in at nine and we finished service around 10pm. Then began the enormous task of packing everything down; cutlery polished and sorted into cling-filmed milk crates, glassware carefully boxed and stacked ready for storage. Pack-down seemed endless.

Elouise, Teresa and I were still working up the back of Section Three when they called time, around 12:30am. We headed for the Front Room, where Johnny sabraged a bottle of champagne. All the open wines by the glass had to be drunk, no-one was leaving until this was done.

It was a pretty sedate affair to begin with; everyone was exhausted and flat owing to circumstances generally.

Chow, Windey and Jess were there overseeing proceedings. Sitting in the bar lounge with a glass of Champagne I remember feeling traumatised, non-verbal, over-sensitive to all the noise, hubbub and multiple conversations going on.

After another couple of glasses I began feeling better. Brett did the white ninja but Chowie stuck around for a while longer and we took some group photos. 

Jess and Jay tapped out with the other Northern Beaches crew, then Chowie left Johnny in charge - a slightly worrying decision I remember thinking at the time.

In the end we got the job done and all the wines by the glass were taken care of.

The sky was beginning to lighten when we finally locked the doors.

On Monday I sent Pete a text to see if he was still interested in working on his C.V.

‘I’ll get by but thanks for the offer.’

He responds with the same reluctance I noted when I first posed the suggestion.

I wasn’t surprised. It was a clear case of avoidance as protective mechanism. The idea of relying on, or counting on anyone for anything is intolerable to some people.

Tuesday dinner service is uneventful, but worth coming in for the post-work gossip.

There’s an unusually high turnout of chefs at the pub; Billy, Tom and Fabi were there, as was Jack, Tranny, Omar, Marco and Loïc, Chris and Gill from pastry and even Brad and some of the new chefs.

The buzz was over an article that ran in that day’s paper. The headline: ‘Meringue Loses Two Top Chefs.’

Both Richie and Simon Slipper had resigned from MerSol, and that meant a cabinet reshuffle; Tommy had been promoted to head chef at Woollahra, and Turner was taking on Simon’s role as group head chef.

The chefs claim they weren’t forewarned about any of it.

I still hadn’t completely recovered from back in the day when Woollahra first opened and they poached some of my favourite staff. Now here they were, doing it again. It was terrific for Tom. But who’d replace Turner?

The paper said the most likely candidate was the current head chef of our sister restaurant in Brisbane. I hadn’t met him, but from the stories I’d heard he sounded like a dick.

In such moments, transition materialises into something so tangible you could just about smell it or feel it. There was a measure of outrage over the perceived lack of respect shown to the chefs, but mostly just passive acceptance of change as the constant in the equation.

Discussion turned to reminiscence of the old days. The bad old days. Stories of antagonism, conflict and bitter rivalries recanted for the sole purpose of frightening the shit out of the greener recruits. The scary old ‘days of yore’, the way things used to be. When men were men and chefs were cunts. ’You-couldn’t-get-away-with-that-now’, was the implied premise for the benefit of the noobs, although truth be told some incidents had taken place so recently as to be considered current.

Of everything I’d witnessed in that kitchen, many of the most horrifying involved Alexis. Amongst the chefs, she was universally disliked and derided (with the exception of the Asian chefs, who didn’t publicly weigh-in to such matters) and she was particularly reviled by Tommy who, at a moment’s notice, could cite any number of crimes against hospitality - and humanity - that she’d committed.

(Tom) ‘…And the night she tried to send me a garnish straight from the fridge with a little burnt butter. Last docket. What a cunt.’

My enduring memory remains of the time she was cooking on grill. She’s stood, head down, tilting the frypan at forty-five degrees with her left hand whilst spooning clarified butter over a lamb backstrap with her right, seasoning the meat with the saline that spilled freely from her eyes and dribbled pathetically down her cheeks, as Tom delivered a blistering attack directly to her right ear drum, screaming excruciatingly detailed reasons why she was so very shit. The tears dropped from her face into the sizzling butter, spattering the hot oil back out in angry, violent pops.

Although Tom openly despised her (and was very vocal about it) it couldn’t be denied that she was her own worst enemy.

Like the time she suffered a horrific fat burn and she ran screaming, straight to the hand-wash sink to run it under cold water, skin blistering before liquefying right off her arm like melted candle wax.

Mil watched the scene in dismay.

(Mil) ‘It was like being in a combat zone. Everyone was looking on at the carnage and the chefs just had to keep working. She was howling in agony by the sink but we were in the middle of a busy service, so nobody could stop and help. Tom stepped in eventually. Not to help her but to take over her section. I was carrying plates, you just had to walk over the body and keep going.’

‘I looked over to K.T. - Papa was hosting a group of people in there at the time. Everyone was just staring bug-eyed out the window in disbelief, like they were watching a gory horror film. Then I saw the mechanical blinds come down. Can you imagine, they must have said to Papa, “We don’t want to see this.”’

For my money, the single weirdest thing about Alexis wasn’t that she claimed to be zealously gluten intolerant while sneakily eating bread on the sly, and it wasn’t that one of the chefs allegedly grabbed her crotch to see whether she wasn’t in-fact a he, resulting in a sexual harassment claim, followed shortly thereafter by her departure.

For me, it was her reaction after her final service on her last night.

Such occasions are traditionally marked with an old-school, chef-style rite of passage. It typically involves the brigade ambushing the person in question to douse them in drippings and smear them with mash before hosing them down or something of that nature. Then said chef has a chance to shower and get changed into clean clothes, a group photo’s taken, and together everyone goes off to celebrate with supper and Tsing-Taos at Golden Century.

In Alexis’ case, it was….crickets.

Nothing.

Not a peep.

Allegedly, she wept over the lack of response, because no-one gave a shit enough to mark the occasion.

The chefs were too scared to engage with her, or they couldn’t be bothered or they’d just had enough of her bad energy. She didn’t fit the culture in the kitchen, she never would and trying only made things worse.

But it was bizarre for her to lament the loss of a traditional send-off. If I’d been her, I would’ve been happy to lay some rubber and get the fuck out of there, tout de suite - but I suspect her sadness spoke of something else: grief over wasted opportunity, perhaps.

At this point in the evening, most of the chefs depart, thinning-out the group. The resulting vacuum clears the stage giving others a chance to tell their stories.

Brad’s a relative newcomer. Although he regularly joins us for post-work drinks, he’s low-key, not a big-noter. Still learning, still finding his place. Still deferring to more senior chefs like Tommy, Jay and François.

(Brad) ’Before I started here I had no idea about fine-dining, about anything…I didn’t even know you needed your own knives!’

‘On my first day, Tom said to me, “You’re not going to last six weeks here.” At the end of that night we were down in the change rooms and he said, “You coming to the pub?” So I did. I got shitfaced. I was on a double the next day, on a 7:30am start. I’d had three hours sleep.’

‘As you know, you get straight into prep. Tom came up to me and just started yelling at me, and I’m thinking, “Hold on, what’s this shit? We were out drinking last night, you were there, go easy!” But there’s no understanding, no leeway. No sympathy, that’s for sure!’

‘I was paired-up with Jess at the beginning. She started at the restaurant two years before I did, and she was in the same boat - absolutely no idea about the industry. Back then, there was some rabbit dish on the menu, and François told her it was Siamese cat. I mean, it sounds ridiculous, but knowing Frankie now I can just see it.’

‘So little Jess completely bought the story and was going around telling everyone she was preparing Siamese cat. And of course, that’s not enough for François, he needs to squeeze every last drop out of the situation. She told me he went ‘round to everyone in the kitchen, rubbing it in about how stupid she was. François would make a point of going to every last person in the kitchen to tell them your every mistake. There’s nowhere to hide and he’s merciless!’

After listening to the chefs, Mil gave his perspective.

(Mil) ’There’s always someone wanting you to fail here. ‘You’re brown, you talk different. You’re so lucky to get a break, to be here, earning this money’. And to someone like Luciano, it’s: ‘You’re just a backpacker, you’ll be gone in six months. You don’t deserve this money.’

‘As a new staff member it’s terrifying. You know Elouise is my friend, right? She’ll be out on the floor doing a section and I’ll go and see her to say ‘hi’ but in service it’s just everyone for themselves.’

‘So you go back into the kitchen where you feel like you belong. It’s the only place you feel OK, where people are making a bit of an effort to help you. Cat comes up and says, “I saw you go to table Fifteen… Next time, follow me, bring sides, it’s easy, you don’t have to know the position numbers. And Teresa would ask me, “How are you going?”’

‘You’d talk to Billy and you’d feel accepted for a moment, then Gallina would put you in your place and you’d realise you were wearing the wrong uniform, that you’re standing on the other side of the pass. It’s like being in jail: you’ve constantly got someone’s foot on your head keeping you down and reminding you that you don’t fit in.’

What he said wasn’t directed at me, but the criticism nevertheless stung. I recognised my part in it. I hadn’t realised he had such a difficult time. But it wasn’t just him.

(Me) ‘You’re right: we all want the people who aren’t fast enough to fail - the Gabors, the Mel 2s. Until you realise that someone’s gotta work whenever we need time-off!’

We’re all complicit in this game.

Winter that year was warm and wet. A severe East coast low pressure system in the first week of June brought with it squally, tempestuous conditions. Strong winds lashed the harbour, dumping heavy rain and flooding the city.

The restaurants cloaking system was tested on such occasions. Guests would arrive in a state of shock, their umbrellas in tatters, wire frames utterly destroyed.

A man blows through the heavy glass doors like Shackleton returning to his hut.

(Man) ‘Booking under the name….uhh….four guests (gasping) somebody….three (breathless). One of us…drowned or something, I think.’

François had arranged a heartwarming personal tribute for Tom on his final night. Tommy was way too switched-on to be ambushed in the usual manner, but Frenchie nonetheless managed to get him a good one.

Moments after Josh called ‘KITCHEN CLOSED’ for the night, all the chefs formed a tight phalanx around Tom, making escape impossible. Then, each and every chef reached into their aprons and pulled out an apple.

Yes, an apple.

Tom’s face contorted in horror on account of his pronounced misophobia, anticipating the disgusting, drawn out din of dozens of sets of gnashing teeth biting through skin, sinking into flesh, orchestrated with precision to produce that detestable, shrill-squeaking foam-crunching sound, sharp and loud as a thunder clap.

Pure torture for poor Tom, pure genius from Poulard.

After work, a few of us decide to brave the weather and go to the pub for a few to celebrate Pete’s birthday. We struggled through sideways rain with inside-out umbrellas to get there and when we arrived, we found it closed, leaving no option other than to head to the Strawberry Hills.

The Strawbs was pumping, we had to muscle-in for a spot. Paddy was there as you’d expect, and he gave a vivid description of what’d happened to cause the Ship to shut.

The joint had flooded in a dramatic and unexpected fashion.

(Paddy) ‘There was water gushing in through the roof, through the walls, bubbling up out of the floor… It was like a scene from the Exorcist!’

We settled in with our medicinal beers and got down to light analysis of the new order taking form in the kitchen. I asked Billy what he thought about the new, stressed-out Jay and he countered by asking my impression of the new, stressed-out Frankie. I mentioned to Pete that it’s probably not ideal to have a stressed-out kitchen when you’re the newest waiter on the floor. Ideally you’d like everyone around you to be nice and calm, so that you can be the most stressed-out cunt in the building.

(Me) ‘On that note, you might want to check your angry-face. Whenever the runners bring food to your tables you’ve got a tendency to scowl menacingly.’

(Pete) ‘That’s my thinking face.’

Talk deviates to Pete’s past week’s pre-birthday festivities. Nothing out of the ordinary for him, other than the frequency and intensity over a sustained period. He laments blowing a lot of money. 

(Pete) ‘But it’s my last hurrah before I have to become a responsible adult.’

It sounds promising, but he’s got a talent for saying what he thinks people want to hear. I really hope he follows through with his declaration.

Josh is presenting him with a priceless opportunity to step-up, to become a respected industry professional with appropriate gravitas in a suitably prestigious establishment - which he’s more than capable of doing. It’s the possibility to evolve beyond his current modus operandi as someone who struggles to make it to work most days.

We all want the best for him.

But the sticking point may come down to his ingrained intolerance for accepting assistance, sensing help of any kind as a threat to his independence. 

It’s quarter to five on a Friday evening when I push open the door to the kitchen. Walking through on my way to the change rooms, Mil gives me a cheeky grin.

(Mil) ‘I know what you’re up to Tash.’

(Me) ‘I beg your pardon!’

(Mil) ‘An hour to do kitchen setup every day? [aside quietly] Now I know it only takes fifteen minutes, tops.’

He dervish-dances down the pass, distributing drinking water to every chef’s station. I feel my face flush with embarrassment. I glance quickly around the kitchen - Chef’s not around, but that doesn’t matter. It’s not true - it’s not the full story anyway - but someone’s bound to overhear, misinterpret, gossip.

(Me) ‘Ok, maybe I don’t raise a sweat doing setup, but EVERYTHING gets done properly. Anyway, what the hell have you been doing for the past three quarters of an hour?’

Now I’m sorry I taught him the ‘Bullshit Clean’ - the quick tidy-away at the end of a night to facilitate a fast-track to the pub. ‘Bullshit Clean’ plus a ‘Half-Arsed Set-Up’ is a no-no, destined for disaster.

I emerge nervously back into the kitchen in uniform. Chef’s on. He’s looking over the pass, scrutinising every chef in their respective sections, looking for an excuse to have a go at someone.

Tensely I move past him through the kitchen, silently performing my own mental inventory, making sure all setup tasks have been completed. Chef’s vinegar-water and wiping cloths, check. Waiters cloths, check. Wait…

A masking-tape sign across the bread tray in Mil’s handwriting reads, “Be a tight-arse with the bread.” 

You’re joking. They didn’t order enough bread? For Friday night service?

Unlikely…

In the fraction of a second it takes to realise that Mil’s overlooked some of the bread delivery, (didn’t look hard enough, ergo didn’t cut all the bread, ergo add another fifteen minutes to your setup fantasy-story) Chef’s tuned into my frequency.

Fuming, he goes looking for more uncut loaves.

He finds them.

(Turner, angry) ‘Who set up the kitchen?’

(Mil, guiltily) ‘It was Mike.’

(Turner) ‘Oh that’s handy. Mike sets up the kitchen and then goes home…?’

Mil disappears downstairs like a shot to cut the rest of the bread. Service is busy by this stage. Ben’s yelling a lot.

Luffy comes into the kitchen.

(Josh) ‘Do we have enough runners?’

(Me) ‘Mil’s downstairs cutting bread.’

(Josh) ‘Ben won’t be happy about that.’

(Me) ‘He told him it was Mikey.’

Mil returns, desperately hoping for seamless, invisible absorption back into the flow of service, while silently praying for protection from a skull-shattering bollocking.

Turner’s calling the pass, addressing the wait staff by name. Mil, next cab off the rank, stands obediently to attention, beading with perspiration, waiting for instruction. There’s the briefest discernible pause as Chef glances away from his docket, squaring up the line of runners.

(Turner) ‘Mikey, two bread Thirty Five.'

There’s a massive group of Septics in Sections Two and Three. They’re walking around, standing in the foyer getting in everyone’s way, as though they’re still on board the cruise-ship broadcasting banalities, “TA-MAA-ROW we’re caatchin’ the ferry out to MANLY AYE-LAND”, generally behaving as though the restaurant’s their own private bar, wondering out loud why Caesar salad isn’t on the menu and why we can’t just knock up a blue cheese dressing.

Scotty’s in the back bar, bitching about Rochelle. As I stand there half-listening, I notice the litter of petite-four boards scattered about the benchtops in various stages of consumption. They remind me of the spoils of some cave-dwelling creature; carcasses, skeletons, macabre piles of gnawed bones strewn about…

(Scott) ‘She stockpiles them in here and then comes to eat them when service gets busy. And she wonders why her section goes down! And she thinks she’s the best waiter at Area!’

(Me) ‘Every waiter at Area thinks they’re the best waiter at Area.’

(Scotty) ‘Really?’

(Me) ‘Pfft, Yeah.’

Scott and Rochelle both completely lack the capacity to objectively scrutinise themselves. They both crack the shits about how they’ve been robbed whenever they aren’t allocated to the front room to look after the VIPs, and apparently neither of them has the foggiest idea why.

Scotty could pinpoint exactly why Rochelle was unsuitable, and Rochelle (if she could be distracted from her own raging myopia) could likewise offer legitimate suggestions why Scott was similarly unfit, but it was implausible for either of them to judiciously critique themselves.

To be fair, these two were just the tip of the iceberg. Everyone had a blind spot and the better you know someone the easier it is to see.

You can’t tell someone your unadulterated opinion of them: it’s the new taboo. Very few egos can handle the truth. In a professional context if there’s an issue, most of us just say, ‘That’s above my pay grade’ and walk away. Let management deal with it.

If it’s personal, well that’s a different story.

Elouise and I are in the kitchen polishing cutlery, talking about goodness-knows-what. Out of the blue she says, ‘Ave you ever been to a psychologist? I wonder what they’d say about me.’

(Me) ‘Um…it’s not like getting your palm read.’

We’re all such self-absorbed creatures yet most of us have zero idea about major critical aspects of ourselves. For example, how our subconscious effects our day to day behaviour. I find it incredible we’re made to learn maths, science and literacy, while prosocial skills like human emotional development, conflict resolution and stress management are entirely left to chance.

Little wonder society suffers from mass unconsciousness.

Speaking of unconscionable, Constant Dingo was booked to come in tonight. He’d been in a lot lately and he’d drained our cellar of all our astronomically expensive high-end wines. We haven’t had time to replenish stock, so the sommalians had to do the ring-around before service. Eventually, suitable swill was sourced from Rockpool Bar and Grill.

Constant was in a mood tonight; generally obstreperous and giving off super-weird vibes. At one point he went outside with his escort for a cigarette. They stood a little way from the front door, part way down the ramp. Through the glass doors I watched as he held her by the throat hard up against the wall.

Perhaps it’s a role-play thing.

They returned back to their table where Constant Dingo sulked like a baby and insisted on eating the remainder of his meal with a spoon, before threatening to kill Carlo when he attempted to assist the lady with her jacket as they were leaving.

Running through the bar toward the end of the night, I pass the door to the Kitchen Table and through the glass panel I see Josh having a sit-down with Rochelle. It takes just a fraction of a second to see that Luffy’s really letting her have it. This was a long time coming and frankly I’m surprised it took so long. I thought back to the piles of petite four boards from earlier, and wonder what exactly made him snap.

SATURDAY DINNER SERVICE

The stars are aligned for a good night. I’ll be on the door, which pleases me. I note any anomalies to the regular Saturday front-of-house line-up. Pete’s being trained on the floor by Nick in preparation for his new role as supervisor and Rochelle’s down as a runner on a 7pm start.

I brace for the inevitable whining.

After setting the restaurant and a break at 4pm for staff meal, I cheerily head in to the kitchen to do set up. Little Cat’s arrived at four and is labouring, sawing up the bread. We exchange platitudes.

(Cat) ‘I see you’re in the "chatty role” tonight.’

(Me) ‘I’m on the door if that’s what you mean…’

Man, it doesn’t take much for someone around here to give me the shits.

Out front Brett, Jess and Josh are on - a typical Saturday - but in the kitchen Turner is off, so sous chef François is running the show. It’s his first Saturday night in charge.

Chef Tom’s out front, clearing away staff meal.

(Tom) ‘It’s going to be an interesting night… Do you want to come down to the rape dungeon for a quick fifteen minute rape?’

(Me) ‘I didn’t think we’re allowed to talk about rape any more?’

(Tom) 'Only if its consensual. [pause] What about you Cat? [pause] How was your weekend?’

Pre-theatre went off without a hitch, but every time I was in the kitchen I could sense the extra layer of tension that comes with the blooding of a new sous chef.

I’m at the front door of the restaurant when Rochelle arrives like a thunderclap. She’s desperate to vent her spleen about her sit-down with Luffy. She’s white-hot, and she’s not going to let work get in the way of a well-rehearsed tirade.

(Rochelle) ‘Do you have a moment?’

Trouble is if I give her a moment she takes thirty.

Josh’s presence ought to mean she doesn’t get much chance to complain, but I underestimate her impudence. She corners me at every opportunity.

She starts the moment she arrives in uniform into the kitchen. She knows she’s safe in the kitchen because Turner isn’t around.

(Rochelle) ‘Josh told me last night I’m nothing more than a café waitress! He was so unfair, I don’t know what to do. He accused me of all these things… I can’t believe how he ripped into me. And I’m going through such a hard time with my sister right now…’

Everyone knew something had gone down last night but it wasn’t a shock to anyone except Rochelle. No one knew the details because the details weren’t important. It wasn’t as though some great injustice had occurred. But Rochelle was determined to over-explain her side of the story and I wasn’t going to get through the dot point presentation in under ninety minutes.

In the background I hear François yelling at Fabi.

(François) ‘How long for….that thing I asked you for a minute ago?’

The kitchen’s tense and Turner’s not there to keep the insufferable noise-generators in-check.

(Me) ‘Rochelle, talk to me about it later can you?’

I run back to the front door.

(Rochelle) ‘He said I use my phone during service,’

He’s right. She’s the worst.

(Rochelle) ‘He said I don’t use cloths to carry plates,’

I hadn’t noticed, but he wouldn’t make that up.

(Rochelle) ‘He said he caught me wiping my nose in front of guests,’

That’s disgusting.

These admissions weren’t half the story; she wasn’t painting the full picture at all.

Then she flipped the script and commenced the character assassination.

(Rochelle) ‘One afternoon I was setting up the front room. It was me, Josh and Nick. They were talking about footy, and I thought, “Well, I think I’d like to share a bit of myself right now,” so I started telling them a story about me and Jan [the Eastern-bloc fiancé’] and Josh just said, “I’m not interested”. Just like that. He just shut me down!’

We’ve all thought it.

(Rochelle) ‘I’ve heard him talk to his wife on the phone. He’s horrible to her! You wouldn’t even recognise it was Josh’

(Me) 'But that’s got nothing to do with you Rochelle.’

Unless it’s because of the stress of having to deal with you.

(Rochelle) ‘This place is such a boy’s club. Brett’s always been on my side. I’m going to talk to him to get his point of view.’

Everyone has dualities within them - aspects or tendencies that can present as positive or negative, depending on our awareness of them. Rochelle had this jaw-dropping self-belief that ran roughshod over any possibility of seeing the tiniest skerrick of deficiency in herself. It was really something to witness - awesome and terrifying at the same time.

So Rochelle hatched a plan to play the managers off against one another, good-cop, bad-cop style. That left me free to do my job for the rest of the evening without the need to invest so much time avoiding her.

At one point I ducked into the back bar, where Papa was venting to Mil about Beatoff.

(Alex) ‘He was fucking rude, man! I asked him, “How was your day?” He just started screaming and swearing at me!’

Sometimes I also fee like screaming indiscriminately at Papa. Like when he orders petite fours and then disappears over the horizon, never to be seen again.

But that would be wrong, so I don’t.

(Alex) ‘I don’t know what’s wrong with him, it’s like he’s got an angel on one shoulder and a devil on the other! He can be so smooth, he seems like such a gentleman, and you can ask him something - it doesn’t even have to be about work and he just loses it! You never know which way he’s going to go!’

Papa’s right. It was the same thing I witnessed between Beatoff and Johnny not long ago, only Johnny covered it up. That’s the sommalians protecting each other…

Later after work at the pub I’m talking to Pete.

(Me) ‘How was it in Front Room with Nick?’

(Pete) ‘Yeah it was good. Bit to learn. Gotta get my C.V. in order so I can officially apply for the position.’

(Me) ‘I can give you a hand with that. If there’s one thing I can do it’s knock up a C.V. We can do it Monday if you like.’

Pete seems reluctant.

(Pete) ‘I don’t want to be spending twelve hours at the pub…’

(Me) ‘You won’t be. I’m not Johnny.’

(Pete) ‘Well I’ll have to sling you $50 then.’

(Me) ‘No need.’

(Pete, changing the subject) ‘What’s going on between Jess and Jay?’

I’m surprised. Some things you assume are common knowledge even though they’re not spoken about.

(Me) ‘They’re a thing. Thought you knew. It’s been going on for nearly a year.’

SUNDAY

Sunday Rochelle's in the kitchen again. Windy’s flying solo, the only manager on, with Kirsten and I backing him up on the door.

Rochelle arrives just as service begins and she demands an audience immediately with Brett in the K.T, leaving us down a manager for the first twenty minutes of service. Johnny, out Front Right, has to keep leaving his section to help at reception.

Commencement of service is chaos.

Rochelle emerges afterwards into the kitchen teary-eyed and asks, ‘Have you got a minute?’

Naturally Brett backed Luffy one hundred percent.

In her effort to illicit sympathy and paint herself the victim, she’d neglected to tell the full story - or even acknowledge - that she was putting her sister’s dramas before work and the guests by running off the floor every few minutes to check her phone.

Furthermore she’d been slagging-off Jess to whoever would listen and even to whoever wouldn’t listen…god knows why, maybe she thought she’d drag the entire stage-set down with her on the way out.

Not only is she unprofessional, she’s mentally unstable, although this doesn't come as a surprise.

She tendered her resignation but the the complaining didn’t quit until the managers stopped rostering her on.

Sure it was a boys club.

Her mistake was trying to play their game.

It's early in the week and we’ve all been called in for another menu tasting. The food seems lacklustre; half a burrata here, bit of white bean puree there, tough steak. The standout’s the mushroom dish, with a mushroom tea poured tableside. Overall, there didn’t appear to be a lot of love in the new menu.

After tasting, we’re asked to hang around for a talk with H.R. about the impending workplace bargaining agreement. We clear the plates from the table and go and hang out in our cliques.

Down in the prep kitchen, Mil entertains Zoe, Andy and I with tales from his weekend.

(Mil) ‘Andy gave me the recipe for his dulce de lece and porcini mushroom tart, so on Sunday I took my son’s pram out to buy the ingredients. I bought two dozen eggs, two kilos of butter and several kilos of flour, tucked it into the pram and covered it with a blanket.

‘It wasn’t until I got home I realised Andy hadn’t scaled back the recipe for domestic purposes… Just as well I had the pram with me!’

I have a mental image of a newborn squirming under commercial quantities of flour and eggs.

(Mil) ‘No, I didn’t take Marcel! I think I’m going to pimp it. The pram, that is. Strip lighting underneath, spoiler, sound system…’

Zoe looks at him like he’s lost his mind.

‘It’s a traditional Lebanese thing.’ I explain.

We reconvene in Section Two with Maxwell, head of H.R. The accounts department are putting things in place prior to the closure and subsequent reboot of the restaurant. It’s the first time we’ve had the opportunity (since I’d been there) to sit down and collectively compare rates of pay and levels of expertise.

I’m a bit naive when it comes to this stuff, confident the company does the right thing by their employees. If they aren’t, you pick up the vibe around the traps. I’d rarely ever checked my payslip for discrepancies between hours worked and hours paid, and I didn’t sweat the details of whether or not the time I clocked off was rounded up or down - I was just happy to get the hell out of there and down to the pub at the end of any given night. The simple fact the restaurant retained so many long-term employees - Brett, Chowie, Kirsten, Terry, Denis to name a few - spoke strongly in favour of a fair workplace. Besides, there were savvy operators like Charlie who’d rigorously double check their wages.

There weren’t many mistakes.

I didn’t know what to expect at the meeting. I hadn’t done any background research, I suppose I was there as an interested observer.

Maxwell seemed offhand and a trifle wishy-washy.

She started by announcing that the hospitality industry is currently under close scrutiny due to the recent finding by the Fair Work Ombudsman of underpayment to the employees of George Calombaris’ MAdE Establishment Group. For this reason, MerSol wanted to make sure they’re paying staff ‘above award and ahead of industry standard’.

(Maxwell) ‘So, as waiters, you’re all on Level 2, as opposed to food runners, who are on Level 1.’

(Me) ‘I don’t think that’s right…’

(Terry) ‘What if we’re supervising a function? What if we’re supervising staff? What if we’re training staff?’

(Elouise) ‘What if i’m in a waiting role one day and I’m a food runner another day?’

(Maxwell) ‘Of course, naturally you’d all be on the same level.’

(Terry) ‘We should all be on Level 3. In fact, it says here, under the Hospitality Industry Award clause 22.1 of Part Two: Types of Employment and Classifications:

‘An employer must pay an employee (other than an employee within the Food and beverage attendants grade 2 or 3 classification level), who performs for 2 or more hours on any particular day, duties of a classification higher than the employee’s ordinary classification, the minimum hourly rate specified in column 4 of Table 3 for that higher classification for the whole of that day.’

(Maxwell) ’Ah yes, I’d say then you’re all on Level 3.’

She’s bluffy and blustery. She’s meant to have a reputation as a hard nut - maybe she is, compared to Stacey. But she also seems like a bit of a twit. Perhaps it’s an H.R. thing. It looks as though she’s come to the meeting less prepared than I have.

Thank goodness for Terry, otherwise we’d appear half-arsed and ambivalent.

Kirsten suggests bringing someone independent in to wage-bargain on our behalf.

Chowie looks worried.

We’ll be given the opportunity to vote for or against the workplace bargaining agreement in the coming weeks. Terry and Charlie are fired up and leave vowing to make phone calls to the Fair Work Ombudsman.

That unsettling feeling was back. There was a tightening of the air as vibrations of the future rushed at us like a train coming down the line, like Saturday night service.

Saturdays begin deceptively civilised.

Nine forty am, walk through the front door. There’s no-one in the foyer but you can hear activity in the kitchen: chefs prepping for the busiest service of the week. Stroll through the bar, sunlight streaming in through North-East facing windows, reflecting off polished red-ironbark floorboards, brass and glass bar tables. There’s an ethereal, timeless quality to these moments.

Drop your bag on a bar chair and make a bee-line for the coffee machine.

(Me) ‘Morning Paulie.’

(Paul) ‘Morning Tash, how are you?’

Saturday morning small-talk; the upcoming renovations, Windey.

(Paul) ‘Brett loves getting everyone in a flap. He wants everyone to know when he’s getting fingered. But if he’s getting fingered it’s a safe bet we’re all getting fingered!’

Having recently attained certification as an Advanced Sommelier, Beatoff was now balls-deep studying for the next and final level in the Court of Master Sommeliers.

At the time there were only two accredited Master Somms in Australia. It’s a notoriously difficult qualification to earn, requiring unflinching focus, dedication, dollars and countless hours of tasting to learn everything you can cram into a cranium about jesus juice. It requires such total commitment, even if it were possible to recall every detail of every drop you ever drank it wouldn’t be enough. Rigorous rote learning drills and every mnemonic technique known to man must also be deployed.

I have no idea whether Paul and I had anything in common beyond wine worship, but he knew that I was also studying. The stakes for him were far greater - by contrast, I was undertaking an impossible-to-fail bachelor’s degree - yet he took the time to ask if I had any useful study tips.

Put on the spot, all I could come up with was, ‘There’s no better way to prove your understanding of a subject than by explaining it to other people.’

I’m sure it wasn’t what he was after, but it was a good example of Paul’s smooth interpersonal skills. Warm and amicable, he didn’t put himself above anyone and he was capable of making you feel valued and worthy.

Kirsten arrives. We haven’t had a chance to debrief since the menu tasting mid-week. She makes herself a Chinese tea and we chat at reception.

(Kirsten) ‘What do you think of Pete in a suit?’

She’s referring to a proposal put forth by Josh to train him up as a supervisor. Give him some responsibility, see how he handles it. 

(Me) ‘Could work. Have to wait and see.’

‘So whadaya think’s going on with this new menu? I remember when fine dining was all about showing-off ‘luxe’ produce. Now it’s about…what, price-gouging?'

(Kirsten) ‘Oh it’s profit-margin driven for sure. It’s Chef’s response to upper management. I think it’s all about volume too.'

Jess has arrived. Scotty, who’s been in Section Three ironing his shirt, walks past.

(Jess) ‘Morning Scott. Is that a beaver?’

She’s referring to the logo on Scott’s T-shirt.

(Jess, innocently) ‘I’d like to see a beaver.’

(Scotty, bawdily) ‘I’D like to see a beaver TOO!’

Kirsten and I look at one another, both of us wearing expressions of abject disgust as Scotty’s stink-bomb of bad-taste wafts past.

Is that supposed to be amusing? Hot?

(Me, to Kirsten) ‘What’s wrong with him? A few nights ago we’re down the Ship, the boys were ogling women loudly, as they do. In an attempt to fit in, Scotty flops this out [cue cheesy Canadian accent]: ‘If you’ve got it, FLAUNT IT!’ But he doesn’t stop there. He then declares: ‘I’m thinking of making a plinth for my BALLS!’

‘As if working with feeble-minded dick-obsessed pre-teenage males isn’t bad enough… We sit at the pub over a beer and I’ve asked him about his family and he’s talked to me at length about them, and he’s never once asked me about mine, or anything about me for that matter. He never asks “How was your weekend?” It’s always all. about. him.’

(Kirst) ‘He never even bothers to acknowledge you until you say “hello” to him first.’

(Me) ‘Exactly. And when he does deign to talk to you it’s in that detestable, patronising fashion…'

(Kirst) ‘The other night I texted him to see if he wanted to come over to my place for a drink. He was at the Pyrmont Bridge Hotel. He replied: “I don’t want to pay for a taxi to Bondi Junction. Think I’ll go to Stiletto’s instead.’

(Me) ‘On, nice; can’t afford a cab, can afford a brothel.’

‘Here this’ll make you laugh, I was down the Crix the other night. I was upstairs reading, enjoying a cider when this bunch of hipsters came in and sat on the couch behind me. I was casually eavesdropping: this chick was having a whinge about something, when all of a sudden I realised she was talking about the restaurant, about Scotty in particular. She goes, “It was that same waiter at Area serving us, he’s really sleazy, I was just like; 'don't touch me', and the way he was looking at me, it made me feel disgusting. But Area’s like that: really pretentious. And I was really drunk… I just want to get some scissors & snip it off! Who does he think he is, Salvador-fucking-Dali? I mean, how could he ever get a girlfriend with that thing?”’

Luffy calls us together before dinner service.

(Josh) ‘I’ve asked you all here because we need to address the culture of ‘Bar 97.'

Oh this’ll be good. He was the one who started it.

(Josh) ‘Now, I know we all like to have a look when we see a good-looking man or woman. But please, I don’t want to receive a complaint letter about this. You can’t be dropping everything you’re doing to have a perv, or audibly commenting on somebody’s physical features.’

One of the fringe-benefits of working in a special occasion, fine-dining, destination restaurant is that you get to see fancy people and their fancy bling - it’s ringside entertainment for front-of-house staff.

While it’s natural to look; it’s not cool to gawk.

Voyeurism demands delicate discretion. Enjoy the spectacle with the same reverence you might employ at the Louvre, say. You can still make smutty remarks in the Louvre that don’t impact the enjoyment of others.

But big dicks with big mouths are too high on testosterone to understand. Their brand of toxic masculinity is best demonstrated loudly in groups, so they start in the safety of the bar before creeping out onto the dining room floor and before you know it the atmosphere is less ‘fine-dining’ and more ‘Deniliquin BnS’.

Josh instigated Bar 97, but he’s got the wit and decorum to play for laughs without causing offence. Voila, dumb and dumber see tacit approval to talk about plinths for balls. Sure that happened at the pub, but the boundary between gutter talk at the pub and on the floor was becoming blurrier by the day.

Anyway, thank god head office didn’t send some nauseating H.R. banana to deliver the dictum.

It’s a fact that on any given Saturday night, the representation of serious diners drops drastically. You’re left with a dining room full of dilettantes and dopes who know and care little about food and are there with the express purpose of showing-off on social media.

I just sat a very fancy young Asian couple on Seventeen. She’s got bright-blue flying saucers for eyes - she’s wearing contacts that make her appear as though she’s swallowed a sack full of MDMA - and she speaks with a ridiculous squeaky cartoon voice. Asian Barbie with Marilyn Manson highlights.

Recovering my composure after gazing upon her fractured identity, I turn my attention to the bloke. In contrast, he appears normal on the surface. I scan him - well groomed, stylish - OUTRAGEOUSLY oversized bling bling Balenciaga sneakers. To match, I assume, the forest-sized bouquet of long-stemmed red roses they brought with them.

My brain’s struggling to adjust to the scale and perspective in the frame. I feel weird like Alice in Wonderland on L.S.D, with things morphing unnaturally, growing and shrinking all over the place before my eyes.

They insist the roses be placed on the table, blooms facing them. It’s effectively a thicket hedge - there’s no room for anything else - behind which they fawn over one another sickeningly.

A short while later I’m asked to take bread to tables Sixteen and Seventeen.

I shoot out of the kitchen and make a beeline for seventeen. My weird Asian couple are heavily involved in staging an elaborate selfie - infinity background of roses, hands held in the foreground accentuating a massive glittering diamond ring. For a moment I consider surreptitiously sliding the butter dish onto the table in between them, mid happy-moment.

I’ll give them a minute. I’ll bread Sixteen in the meantime.

The two tables are separated by a column.

I nearly drop my bread and butters. No shit, I’m seeing double. Identical Asian couple, identical blurry background bouquet, bling bling Balenciaga bling bling diamond ring, exactly the same angle-lighting-smile-delirious-happy-moment selfie.

Weird coincidence? Not really, just another Saturday night at the restaurant.

Table Twenty’s doing à la carte. I’m running mash and salads to their table, following the waiters bearing mains.

(Me, announcing to the table) ’Sides to share with your meals: mixed leaf salads and some truffled mashed potato.…’

(Lady, rudely) ‘Are you bringing any vegetables?’

(Me, sarcastically) ‘Why yes madam, I’m placing them on the table as we speak!’

I turn on my heel and march off to the waiter’s station. Beatoff’s standing there, handsomely gazing over the floor. He’s convenient, not too busy, and he seems receptive, so I vent.

(Me) ‘Some people are fucked, hey?’

(Paul) ‘Table twenty? I was putting their drinks on the table and cover four barks, ‘STRAW!!’ at me.’

‘They booked for six but only five showed up. We seated them and as I took one setting away she goes, ‘I would have EXPECTED our table to be READY!’

(Me) ‘Charming. Oh no, is that Pimley on Five?.’

(Paul) ‘Yes it is. [camp impersonation] Entertain my palate, daaarling!’

Pimley’s an interesting fellow. Highly respected in the finance world, he came to the restaurant a couple of times a year, when he was guest lecturing at Macquarie Bank. He mostly dined solo whenever he was in town.

(Tom, calling the pass) ‘Tashie, can I get you to take one salmon to the lonely man on Table Five?’

(Me) ‘He’s not lonely: he’s got a book!’

(Billy) ‘Legend.’

We got talking one night about the Fagles translation of Homer’s Odyssey, which he happened to be reading, and from that time on we’d chat about literature.

He’d told me he purchased Princeton’s complete collection of Shakespeare when they transitioned to digital. He said that when the university realised they’d sold their precious collection to a banker, they were horrified.

As a runner, you don’t typically get the opportunity to develop relationships with the guests in the same way waiters and sommalians do, so it was nice - if a bit weird - to have this experience. The main problem with this is that being a runner requires you to be in a specific headspace. If you were a racehorse, you’d be wearing blinkers, ear socks and a nose roll. You’re narrowly focused on your tasks, to the point of being reduced to an automaton like Teresa, until you manage to gain the mastery to develop wider perspective.

So some nights you’re up for the chat, but other times the chat was an unwelcome schism from your concentration.

On the whole, it was panning out to be an uneventful Saturday night.

But the night’s never over ’til it’s over.

Just at the point where the heightened frenzy was beginning to level-out, I was heading back into the kitchen from the direction of Reception when I heard an almighty commotion from down the corridor, near the wine station at the rear of Section Two.

Johnny was there with Beatoff, and Beatoff was going off his brain, screaming at Johnny.

My prefrontal cortex lit up, searching for for an interpretation to what’s playing out before me. Contextually, it didn’t fit. Paul had been particularly genial that evening, and Johnny didn’t fuck up. He was a consummate professional on the floor. I couldn’t imagine what’d happened to elicit this bundle-drop.

It was worse than the worst of Chef ’s sprays in the kitchen mid-service.

It was worse than Tommy flaying unfortunate chefs in the prep-kitchen before service.

It came from beyond the seven circles of hell. Untrammelled roaring, echoes of a shadow of sub-humanity, ranting borne from deep within the chambers of a disturbed mind, the waiter’s station, Bedlam.

For the briefest flicker of a moment, I wondered if it was really happening. And then I quietly disappeared into the kitchen.

Someone will make a remark, I thought. Even if nobody else saw what went down, whoever was at reception must have heard the hubbub. Surely the guests on Thirty Six will have to complain.

But no one said a word about it.

I asked Johnny about it later at the pub, he said it was nothing.

It was as if it didn’t happen.

And then I began to question the veracity of what I’d seen.

Was I gaslighting myself now?

GALLERY

Under Estelle’s stewardship, working at the Gallery hadn’t just ceased to be fun, it was torture. As far as I could see, not only did she not have our backs, she was doing a grade A shit-job of managing the place.

There’s 135 booked. J.P - generally mild-mannered and even-tempered - is prepping the bar. I sense he’s in a terrible mood, anticipating the horrible lunch ahead. I open the dishwasher and begin polishing wine glasses when I notice the jagged shards of a broken Shiraz glass. I’m loath to bother him, but I can’t locate the trashed glass box.

(Me) ‘James, do we have a receptacle for busted glasses?’

(James) ‘I’ll take care of it.’

Walks around for a bit. Can’t find it either.

(James) ‘I’ll be back in a minute…just popping down to the office to GLASS ESTELLE IN THE FACE…’

Briefing.

Nina’s phoned: she’s running late. Estelle’s allocated her to look after a group in the 90’s with a collective menu as well as serve the Communal Bar. I can tell you right now that’s not going to work. Sure, the group booking isn’t due ’til 12:30pm, but Comm bar’s specifically for walk-ins - they’re already massing at the entrance with their noses pressed up against the glass. Why in god’s name wouldn’t you allocate a waiter who’s right here, right now?

Oh that’s right, I’m not the manager.

Amanda and I are on the pass running food. Good, I won’t have to deal with the inevitable complaints.

Estelle opens the doors, still no Nina. There’s a tsunami of walk-ins, all heading for Comm Bar. I seat three couples and Patrick another three or four instantaneously, still no waiter in the section. One of the pairs of people I seated wants to order immediately - at least they begin asking questions about the menu as a way of engaging my time - so I thought, ‘Fuck it, Amanda can run food, I’m going to take orders’, otherwise everything’s going down big-time. I start taking orders willy-nilly; because we’re getting swamped, it’s impossible to attend to people strictly in the order they’ve been seated.

It was like field triage.

Step one, assess physiology. Who’s ready to order and isn’t going to dick me around with stupid questions, dietary requirements and general fussiness? 86; they’re kindly, simple, uncomplicated - two risottos. Good start. I proceed to 84. I’d seated both 86 and 82 before these guys, so 82 are definitely going to get their noses out of joint. Step two, anatomy of the injury. I can see out of my peripheral vision the heads of the two ladies on 82 bobbing back and forth like a couple of barnyard chickens: very distracting, as it’s designed to be. I’ve given 84 the jump because 82’s guaranteed to slow me down. I’ll deal with 82’s grievance once I have 84’s order.

84’s done, I greet 82 warmly and take their vital signs, rapidly identifying which of the two ladies has got the shits more. Step three, mechanism of injury; has the victim been involved in a fall, automobile / pedestrian / bicycle crash that might involve a higher risk of injury that’s less obvious, meriting further evaluation? The older lady wants crispy chilli chicken - simple - the other one’s the problem. She’s referring to the older lady as ‘mother’, but she’s in her late 60’s.

I’ve got a positive I.D. on the fusspot.

She’s worked herself into a lather over not getting served first but when I ask her what she wants, she hasn’t decided. She’s a gluten-free attention seeker.

Step four, special patient or system considerations.

(Lady) ‘Are the hand-cut chips gluten free? And the sauce? Oh wonderful, because so often it’s not possible to get truely gluten free.’ Yes yes yes, let’s move on.

We run out of cutlery mid service. Food’s coming out of the kitchen as though from the barrel of a gatling-gun, but not one member of staff is free to polish or restock anything, aaand Amanda’s taking food to the wrong tables.

Estelle’s demanding Florian set Table 12 for seven people. He stands resigned, quietly explaining,

‘She’s always asking for numbers on tables we just can’t do. I say OK. It won’t work. It’s shit. It will be funny, but it won’t work.’

When the guests arrive, the organiser of the event is patently unimpressed, making a face-pulling fuss over the position of the head on the table, placed so as to a) make the most of the spectacular view and b) be out of the way of service. When asked how she’d prefer to have the table organised, she helpfully looks in the opposite direction whilst muttering inaudibly.

My next shift at the Gallery is not dissimilar. Estelle’s on the door, there’s 134 booked, including a large group of 22. When they arrive they decide they don’t want the banquette, which they’d requested and which was set for them. They wanted the Comm Bar, which already had 4 - 6 groups of 2’s and 3’s.

Are you serious? I mean, come on. Just have a look and think to yourself, ‘Is that a practical suggestion I’m making?’. Do you seriously think we’re going to relocate 4 - 6 groups of people who are already dining?

Estelle offers them the 90’s, adding that they’ll be squashed in like sardines. Ideally, the 90’s suits groups up to sixteen. Doesn’t matter, they want the 90’s. Then they stand around in everyone’s way while we set it up for them.

I was dedicated runner that day. James was waiter on Comm Bar and that got out of control pretty quickly. I helped him when I could but it was mental.

Second sitting: Estelle has people standing around waiting as tables are cleared and reset. There’s no side plates polished and no clean cutlery. I was dropping food on tables and then running from one waiter’s station to the next to the next in search of napkins, side plates, glasses. I was polishing cutlery to order. It was a joke. A not very funny joke.

At one point I thought, ‘It’d be quicker to mine the raw materials, fashion it into stainless steel knives and forks and have them delivered to the restaurant as needed.

I drop coffees to a table.

(Lady) ’These coffees took ages!’

(Me) ‘I’m sorry madam, we’re very busy right now.’

(Lady) ‘Those people got their coffees before us!’

(Me) ‘I’m sorry madam, we’re extremely busy.’ (Thinking to self ‘Could you please HAVE A FREEKING LOOK AROUND! …What is it you want from me?)

It’s validation of course. She wants to be heard. But so do I goddamn it, and we all need to move on. Quickly. I had eight different people asking me to do eight different things. I ran the coffees as soon as they were up on the pass - it wasn’t like they’d been sitting there getting cold.

Her lovely sons try gently to take the sharp edges off their prickly mother. Shaking their heads, they attempt to deescalate things. ‘Mum, come on…’

Is hospitality the only industry in which the customer expects everything to miraculously happen instantaneously, free from the constraints of the laws of time, physics and the material world? Engage a plumber, a builder, a mechanic, and people aren’t the least bit surprised when things take more time (and cost more money) than they’d initially anticipated. ‘Oh yeah, it’s gonna be a big job, and I’ve got a lot on at the moment.’

Sure, happy to wait.

But in a restaurant, rare is the guest who considers the bigger-picture, or the context around them.

'The staff are clearly stressed to the point of nervous breakdown, the kitchen’s barely coping, but I’m still going to get sniffy about my stupid coffee’.

It’s perfectly legit to get upset if the establishment you happen to be in is dead quiet and staff are standing around socialising, ignoring your requests for attention. But why bust people’s balls when they’re very clearly flat out?

It was dreadful back then at the Gallery. I was embarrassed, and felt bad for the guests. It made me hate Estelle even more. It’s her role to be the smoother-overer, she’s the bloody manager; limit walk-ins, block-out bookings, roster more front-of-house staff on or at least be there for the wait-staff so they can do their job to the best of their abilities under the impossible circumstances.

The amount and dollar value of gift-vouchers that were being handed out to disgruntled patrons at the Gallery in an attempt to soothe and placate them - lure them back after their traumatic dining experiences - was flabbergasting. But why upset guests in the first place? It’s disrespectful to their time and money to treat them like cattle in a feed lot. Why was MerSol backing someone who was gleefully running the place into the ground so that her KPI’s looked stunning? She might have appeared amazing on paper but in real life she was ‘singlehandedly trashing the reputation of the brand’ as Windey was fond of saying. Were the powers-that-be that far out of touch, or could they not be bothered finding out the real story?

Either way, it felt like things were going down the dunny.

You wouldn’t have thought that one letter could make so much difference, but after the departure of P.S. and the subsequent restructure from MerSul to MerSol, change was bound to happen. It reminded me of the time a small village took over the entire Western world only to eventually collapse under the weight of it’s own massive arrogance. I was getting an uncanny sense I’d been zapped into a parallel reality and was living a small scale, modern day version of the decline and fall of the Roman Empire.

Anyway, being in the shit at the Gallery is a lot harder than being in the shit at the restaurant.

RESTAURANT

I arrive at the restaurant between service and walk through the bar, where Luke’s standing on the padded bench seat staring out the window, Bar 97-ing a passing female.

(Jess, on her way to reception) ‘A bit of subtlety wouldn’t go astray.’

(Luke) ‘What’s the boyfriend going to do, write a complaint letter? “I was walking past your restaurant and one of your wine-waiters was ogling my girlfriend’s breasts”. BOOM! Give the man a $300 voucher!’

Yeah, pretty much.

Last night, the answer to one of the Great Mysteries of the Universe was revealed to me during the change-over between pre-theatre and à la carte.

I was in the kitchen with Teresa, Mil and Papa.

Reading the allocations to find out who you’re working with is like looking into a crystal ball; it gives you an indication of how things are likely to play out over the course of the evening, or at least what the mood will be like in your section. As with life, you try focusing on the positives whilst mitigating the negatives.

I was always happy to have Mil around, so that was a plus for me. Papa would get cranky about being ‘dropped’ to the kitchen, but once he gets over himself he’s fine and works every bit as hard as anyone else. Teresa’s just a fact of life, like death and taxes.

But tonight Papa was in lively form from the get-go. He’d just discovered that Mil worked at the Italian Village at the Rocks, as had he some years prior. The shared experience had the Portugeezer all excited, and as Mil cut bread and Papa polished cutlery, Papa interrogated him methodically about people he might know.

(Mil) ‘No Papa, I don’t know the guy. That was before my time.’

I heard Mil say this several times, but Papa wasn’t fazed.

(Mil) ‘Papa you worked there in the ’80’s! I was working there last year. I’m not going to know any of these people.’

Brett enters the kitchen.

(Brett) ‘Mil! Are you cutting today’s bread or yesterdays?’

(Mil) ‘Today’s’

(Brett) ‘Are you sure? I don’t want to get a complaint letter from the homeless guy!’

Ah yes, the cross-legged Buddhist who lived under the bridge. Windey often mentioned he’d take leftover bread for him.

One night I happened to be walking up Macquarie Street as Brett drove past. I was perfectly positioned to watch a loaf of bread wrapped in cling-film torpedoed from the moving vehicle in the direction of the homeless guy. I’m sure the bridge-dweller was less concerned about the freshness of the bread and more concerned about why some fellow was constantly trying to assault him with a loaf of rye and caraway sourdough.

Pre-theatre came and went without incident. There were only four tables due in at 7:00pm, so we could afford to catch our collective breaths before changing gears and cruising into a smooth dinner service.

But Teresa didn’t change gear, she kept the revs up. Running around in a panic, she took a million trays of butter out of the fridge, as though it was a Saturday night.

It was Sunday.

I thought she was being over the top, so I took all but one tray back to the fridge. The run sheet was pinned up on the lift room door as it is every night, and the figures were there for all to see.

Nonetheless, the next time I looked there’d be a teetering tower of trays warming themselves in the ambient heat of the kitchen.

So I’d put them back in the fridge again.

Generally I couldn’t be bothered communicating with actual words about silly matters like this - I preferred to ride the current rather than muster the force to swim against it - but the butter arm-wrestle was getting out of control.

(Me) ‘Teresa, what’s going on?’

(Teresa) ‘There’s a heap of tables coming in at 7:00 and 7:15.’

(Me) ‘There’s only four tables coming in at 7:00. Look,’

Together we went over to the run sheet.

(Teresa) ‘It’s all out of order.’

She was referring to the guests' time of arrival, which does happen when Windey prints the run sheet out and he’s got Resdiary set to alphabetical order.

But this wasn’t the case: guests had been listed in order of their times of arrival.

She pointed to all the 7:15pm tables.

(Me) ‘Teresa, you’re looking at the out-by times!’

Lordy, she’d only been working there seven years…

To be fair, we all make mistakes.

Windey screams at me mid-service, ‘NATASHA! RESETS!’ I hear ‘receipts’, and go off to do the rounds of the waiters stations, wondering, ‘why the hell does he want receipts now?’

‘That’s all I could find.’ I say, returning to reception with three slips of paper.

(Brett) ‘I CAN’T BELIEVE YOU - WHAT’S WRONG WITH YOU! I can’t BELIEVE I have to tell you EVERY NIGHT!’

Every night! Granted, every night there is something. Perhaps if Windey communicated in a calmer, more controlled fashion we wouldn’t have so many misunderstandings. If he didn’t bark all his orders maybe the emotional temperature wouldn’t be so high.

I felt myself boiling, tipping over into anger, but backed off, and I sensed him do the same, possibly because he’s been in trouble from higher-up over this very issue lately. Before long I’m back to normal, smiling my fake hospitality-smile while Brett gives me good-natured shit.

À la carte was just picking up momentum when a striking older gentleman arrived. He looked like he must have been someone, although I’d never seen him before. In such circumstances I’d look to Kirsten to see if she betrayed any signs of recognition or familiarity, indicating whether he was a regular, but on this occasion I couldn’t read her.

Thuggish and unattractive in every way, he had a massive melon head, a big, splayed, rounded nose and curly hair, but he donned a fine silk scarf and was otherwise impeccably dressed. Hanging off his arm was an impossibly beautiful woman - tall, tanned, stunning golden tresses, shimmering bronze dress dripping off a flawless frame, dizzyingly high metallic heels, moving like a thoroughbred. Looking at her was like staring at the sun.

Everyone who happened to be in the foyer froze to watch the spectacle.

(Mil aside to Chowie) ‘Who’s this guy?’

(Chowie) ‘Dunno mate, but whoever ‘e is, he can afford a solid gold prostitute.’

It was Constant Dingo. He never failed to come in with the most expensive escorts that fraudulent money could buy. Chowie said he was some sort of businessman; often he came in accompanied by the Prime Minister of PNG. They always drank outrageously expensive wines.

Of course they did: they weren’t paying for them.

Windey nearly gifted me a 9:30pm finish before dashing my hopes and changing his mind.

(Brett) ‘I need you to put tomorrow night’s function in place in Section Three. It’s for a Chinese Chairman. One long table. Forty-two people.’

Bloody hell, that’s a big table.

Luciano came in to give me a hand, Johnny walks through for a fag.

(Johnny) ‘You coming for a beer?’

(Me) ‘No.’

(Johnny) ‘Why’re you being so shit?’

(Me) ‘OK, maybe just one.’

Mil and Michela are also sent in to help.

(Mil) ‘Just in place?’

(Me) ‘Nah, we’re fully setting now. The sniffer dogs are coming through so it has to be ‘as-is’.’

Windey strides in and addresses me.

(Brett, fluttering eyelashes) ‘You know how you really love me? Can you work tomorrow night? It’ll be a late start. 6:30 or 7pm. It’ll be good money, they’re drinking good wines.’

Yeah sure.

Billy, Johnny and I walk down to the Quay. Billy departs at the station. Johnny and I discuss the function as we head over to the Ship. It’s a big deal, there’ll be Secret Service everywhere. It was a last-minute thing, the wines are being freighted up from Melbourne.

When we arrive at the Ship, Papa and Mil are already there having a beer. I can’t believe it, Papa’s still talking about Italian Village.

Someone mentions ghosts.

(Me) ‘There were ghosts?’

(Papa) ‘Yeah, but Mil says, ‘Even the ghosts are dead from your time mate, they’re all different now.

To cross the bridge or burn it?

I posted the question long ago, in the days before memes.

Hippie responded.

‘Burn them and they'll just pop up again. Gotta cross ‘em Tash.’

There’s a buzz in the air when I arrive in the kitchen tonight. A function for fifty’s being set in Section 3, and Turner’s made staffies; pork and fennel sausage rolls, minty mushy peas and cheesy baked potatoes. It looks delicious, and he’s pretty proud of himself. I run downstairs to get changed.

Anticipation turns to disappointment: when I come back up to the kitchen, the general consensus is that the proof of the pudding is sub-par. Billy, who’s dabbling in vegetarianism, has been seduced into eating a sausage roll by Chef but regrets it on first bite.

(Josh) ’They’re not the ‘Brad Pitt’ of sausage rolls.’

(Me) ‘How do you figure?’

(Josh) ‘If, as a male, you had to have sex with a guy, it would have to be Brad Pitt. Now, these sausage rolls aren’t worth losing your virginity to.’

I dumped my peas. They were grey-brown and lifeless. Jack saw me. He concurred.

(Jack) ‘They’re meant to be mushy but we didn’t have enough time.’

On paper, I was in the kitchen with Alex, Luciano, Teresa and Mil but that’s not how things pan out.

I’m getting the kitchen ready and Mil’s telling me the story of the night he first met Pete and Johnny.

(Mil) ‘It was a Monday night at the Strawberry Hills Hotel. Everyone was smashed…’

(Me) ‘You’ve told me this story five times already. I’m starting to think you might be romantically involved…’

(Mil, starting the story again with a dreamy overlay) ‘I remember the first time I met Pete. Witney Houston was playing. He was wearing a blue shirt. He said, “Hi. My name’s Peter. My friends name is Johnny.” I couldn’t understand a word Johnny said…’

Brett enters the kitchen.

‘Natasha! I’m taking Mil.’ (Pause) ‘What’s wrong?’

I look over to see Mil’s stricken face.

(Me) ‘He gets separation anxiety when you take him away from me.’

(Brett) ‘Too bad. I need him to help out in the function.’

Mil was still finding his way. Most people saw him as an anomaly who wouldn’t last long. At that time and in that place, he was a canvas onto which people projected their ideas; to Brett he was the Lebanese boyfriend he’d never have, to Nick he was the wog-boy who didn’t deserve full tips, and so on. He worked diligently to establish a place for himself at the restaurant.

I was particularly fond of Mil’s quick wit and humble approach. Where waiters strutted around with massive egos, faking it, Mil would simply ask advice. ‘How do you open a bottle of Champagne?’ ‘Really? Don’t you know?’ ‘Well yes I do, but how do you open it?’ He was genuinely interested, and curious to hear other people’s ideas and opinions. This is a rare quality: most people simply want their own beliefs confirmed. He went beyond himself, gathered knowledge, and became better for it.

To be sure, he was an odd fit. It was a little-known fact that he’d been recommended for the job by an already established waiter - an English girl named Eloise. She’d worked there for some time, but up ’til then she’d very much flown under the radar.

So now with Mil in the function we’re down one runner. And Denis is in Section 2 by himself with no sommelier. He’s only supposed to have half a dozen tables but the entire section fills up with walk-ins, so management take Alex out of the kitchen to help him.

Kazu was calling the pass.

‘Kazu likes to push it.’ Jack tells me later at the pub. ‘We’ll have the function plates up on the pass and he’ll say, “Go on tables 16, 4, 32.” and we’ll be like… okaaayyyy….’

Function was fucking everyone around. The first course was oysters and the people with seafood allergies were getting Autumn salads. The plate-stacker was bought up in the lift with the already plated-up oysters wrapped around with cling-film. It hadn’t been loaded properly and some of them hit the deck. Then people in the function started to say stupid stuff like,

‘I don’t want oysters, can I have that avocado salad instead?’

Billy’s response when I told him:

‘Sure! If you bring your own avocado…’

Then, plating up mains on function, Fabi drops a tray of seven John Dories. Billy’s already taken the meat out of the oven.

We got rolled.

By some miracle I got let out at 11pm. Billy had only just enquired ‘How long?’ There were set-ups in 2 and 3. ‘An hour, at least.’ Just as I was running around trying to avoid Teresa, Jess comes up and tells me to sign off.

Fuck yeah!

Eloise - who’d also been on a double - was in the change room, so we proposed going for a beer. Billy’s at the bar when we arrive, he buys the first round. Jack arrived with Fabi. Nick and Scotty were walking past, Eloise called out to them - Billy and I slapped her on the arm. Bloody rookie… Billy departed, others came and went. Pete and Scotty went for a slap. I was left with Fabi and El. El bought bad pizza (who puts duck on pizza?)

Finally Johnny appears, he ought to be the last person arriving post-work. There’s a small shift in the group dynamic, a barely discernible change comes over Eloise. Pete emerges from the gaming room.

(Eloise) ‘OW ARE YA P.C? I call ‘im P.C, instead of P.G! P.C: Pe’er COOUNT. Cos ‘he’s soouch a COOUNT!’

Yeah, I got it the first time.

I was bristling - not because she was insulting Pete, he didn’t seem to care. El was coming out of her shell, and that involved being a trifle annoyingly raucous. Like Billy, I preferred my vibe a little more chill after work.

There was something else bothering me. Pete was giving me the cold shoulder for no discernible reason. I racked my brain wondering what I’d done to annoy him and couldn’t think of anything, but there was very definitely something amiss.

While I’d become Pete’s latent, unacknowledged target, there was someone else at the time who he’d mock openly. He’d eeyore whenever Jess was around, connoting incompetence.

(Jess, looking hurt) ‘Are you suggesting that I’m a donkey?’

Naturally, ‘the boy’s club’ found this terribly amusing, in fact it was Josh who’d helped Pete perfect the bray, with the suggestion of a little whistle at the end for comedic effect.

I’d been doing some light reading - Germaine Greer - and I reasoned if I could discuss it with anyone at work it’d have to be Kirst.

(Me) ‘Have you read The Female Eunich?’

(Kirsten) ‘Maybe. Maybe I studied it at uni. Maybe I came across it when I was teaching, after uni. We probably translated it into German. We translated a lot of films but that was easier because you got to see the actor and get a sense of what they were saying…’

She concluded she’d most probably come across it studying German.

This wasn’t the response I’d expected. Did she think I’d said “The Female Munich?”

Then she answered my initial question with a question of her own.

(Kirsten) ‘Who wrote it?’

It’s the start of a new week, the beginning of another cycle. It seems like a quiet night but often they’re much more brutal than busy nights, because you don’t have the full compliment of staff on. ‘Quiet’ nights are rostered accordingly, and then someone calls in sick.

Scott hadn’t shown up. Apparently he’d called but whoever took the message didn’t pass it on.

There was a function in Section Three, but whoever set it only did half the job, so I was running around moving furniture ten minutes before my shift in a shirt soaked with sweat. Then I had to set up the kitchen.

Ninety-seven booked, thirty à la carte, three runners; Mil, Gabor and me. Again, 'Café Denis’ was in Section Two, which meant three runners would dwindle to two. Gabor was nominated to go out on the floor. Lovely fellow, but he’s slow and his awareness is narrow. He has a tendency to go missing for long periods of time, and like Denis, he loves a chat.

This doesn’t bode well.

Back in the kitchen, service is erratic, swinging between moments of inertia and utter mayhem. The changeover from pre-theatre to à la carte is particularly tense, with Windey stressed to the max.

Every time I move people from the bar to a table under Brett’s instruction, I’m pre-emptively wincing at the inevitable bollocking I’ll receive in the not too distant future. What about? It’s different and random every time. I move Bar 91 - a table of four - to table 9. ‘MENUS ARE DOWN!’ He hollers.

Pete’s making the drinks they’d ordered whilst they were waiting at Bar 91. He seemed suddenly, magically, to be in a terrible mood. He’s by himself in the bar.

So I seat them at Table 9, order water for their table, transfer their drinks over, return to the bar. Their drinks aren’t ready, so I run the water. I return to the bar to get their drinks.

(Brett) ‘NATASHA! YOU SAT TABLE 9! WHERE’S THEIR WINE LIST?’

(Me) ‘Their drinks have just hit the table, like, two seconds ago. I don’t think they’re ordering wine just yet.’

Jesus, there’s really no need for this level of panic.

Jess asks me to go and help Pete in the bar. Don’t tell me he’s going under making one lychee iced tea? Sure, the kitchen’s under control for now, although the function shouldn’t be far off, so when Kazu starts screaming ‘SAA-VICE!’ I’ll down polishing cloths and run some food.

Windey passes in front of the bar.

(Brett) ‘Why are you helping him? I don’t like him. I want him to do it all himself.’

(Me) ‘Well I’d rather be in here than being yelled at by Turner in the kitchen and you on the floor.’

I polish a rack of glasses but it doesn’t look like Pete’s too badly in the shit. Kazu starts yelling. I crack the door to the kitchen and stick my head in, there’s no one around. Someone comes in, I go back to polishing.

‘SAA-VICE! SAA-VICE! SAAA-VICE!!!’

Kazu sounds like he’s being murdered. Where is everyone? I go into the kitchen.

(Kazu) ‘Bread function prease.’

Jess sweeps into the kitchen, tells me to get back to the bar and starts filling bread baskets. But Gabor’s just finished breading the function. He’s trying to be helpful but without effective communication he’s just wasted three people’s time.

I return to the bar but Pete’s cranky and rude. OK, polish your own damn glasses then.

Back in the kitchen I’m getting irritated by every thing. Why is everything so inefficient? Everyone’s annoying me. I’m standing in the kitchen wrestling with plastic cutlery drawers that have been stacked incorrectly when I find myself yelling rhetorical questions, Brett Windy-style,

‘Right! So who needs a lesson in how to stack things properly? This happens every night!’

It’s the one-percenters, the tiny, seemingly insignificant things. You put things in order to make life easier for everyone, and you hope that others follow your example, or at least work it out for themselves. You try to instil the importance of doing things the ‘right’ way, because when they’re not done, time gets wasted. By and large, many people just don’t get it. So you finally lose your shit, and when you look up everyone’s staring at you chucking a tantrum - Charlie, Mil, Gabor, Billy, Turner.

That was meant to be a semi-private rant.

There’s only two post-theatre tables booked. Butters are low, and Rochelle comes and hooks into the last one. Really? The sight of the dirty plate where she’s wiped a bread roll through enrages me.

(Me) ‘ROCHELLE! Don’t take the last butter without replacing it! Such a Teresa thing to do…’

If I hadn’t seen her do it I’d be again left powerless against an invisible army of inconsiderate incompetents who make my working life difficult on a daily basis. Running around after cunts all the time, trying to get people to be considerate and do the right thing…

Rochelle gets two more butters out of the fridge.

Eventually the last table comes in. ‘Two bread on Table 5!’

There’s no butter out. Someone else has eaten the last of the butters. I can’t fucking believe it. I totally lose it. Billy’s watching, Kazu and Jay are standing near the butter fridge looking on and smiling.

I’m livid.

I go out onto the floor with bread for the last table and on the way back to the kitchen I vent to Rochelle. It obviously wasn’t her, but I’m so frustrated I don’t know where to turn. She tells me, ‘I think it was Jay.’

I march back into the kitchen and up to Jay on larder and let him have it.

(Me) ‘That goes for you too!’

(Jay) ‘Tash, it wasn’t me. I don’t even eat bread!’

(Me) ‘It’s not fucking fair Jay. How would you feel if I ate your mise-en-plus?’

(Jay) ‘You do anyway.’

(Me) ‘That’s a fucking lie!’

We yell back and forth for a bit. I go back out on the floor and ask Chicco, ‘Do you know who ate my last butter?’ I know it wasn’t him, Charlie always does the right thing and lets me know.

Rochelle eventually tells me it was Jess. Yeah, that makes sense. Why didn’t you tell me that in the first place? I’m walking around the restaurant barely keeping it together, brimming with utter frustration while presenting guests their food.

Eventually I simmer down and realise how ridiculous I’ve been. I go and apologise to Jay. I’m still pretty annoyed at Gabor, at Micheala for being a lazy bitch last night, at life in general. At the end of service, Jay calls me over and pushes a bowl of burrata over the pass at me.

I burst into tears.

Working consistently at this level of stress creates chronic sympathetic nervous system activation that takes considerable skill to regulate. Not only did I lack this skill, I had no awareness of it’s existence and no idea I needed it. People in our line of work frequently become highly reactive, irritable and hyper-vigilant in an effort to simply exist, in an environment in which our vagus nerve is constantly jangling, telling us we’re unsafe and under threat.

A lack of understanding of how to self-regulate is the reason why self-medicating to the point of numbness is famously pervasive in hospitality.

(Brett) ‘Has your boyfriend learnt his lesson?’

(Josh) ‘Does your boyfriend ever tell you why he’s in such a dreadful mood all the time?’

Twice in two weeks, the managers have referred to Pete as ‘my boyfriend’. I don’t know where they’re getting their intel - Kirsten’s the most likely source - but he’s not my boyfriend, and I never confirmed nor denied anything of the sort.

Brett was referring to a few weeks ago, when Pete fell over at my house, split his head open on the concrete floor and ended up getting metal staples in his head at St Vincent’s hospital.

That’s when things were going well…

Since then, He’s been weird and distant with me and more generally cranky at work…

Something had been going on, although it was indefinable. We were friends. At times, friends with benefits. Convenient. Unofficial, unclear, uncertain.

When times were good, he’d come over and stay, we’d listen to music and dance around stupidly whilst watching the sky lighten through the blinds, then spend the following day drinking tea on my couch. Everything was easy, and it seemed like a good thing.

Sabotage always followed the nice times. I witnessed it enough to realise it was pattern-forming. Each time it caused me anguish, and each time friends advised me not to have anything more to do with him.

But it wasn’t that simple.

First and foremost we worked together, we drank together, and we shared the same mates. I wasn’t going to be squeezed out of my own social circle. If he was going to behave unpleasantly towards me it would be my responsibility to manage the situation to a level I could tolerate.

I didn’t always succeed.

Meeting the problem head on wasn’t really an option, he was mercurial and evasive at the best of times and when he closed off, that was it: the drawbridge came up, it was watertight, there was no way in.

What had I done wrong? I thought we were friends? I wanted to be friends. El could call him a cunt and he was very obviously friends with her; I did my best to be a real friend and he was indifferent to me. In the absence of certainty, ego stepped in and made it all about me.

But the subconscious spoke more quietly; ‘It’s not about you at all’.

Although the situation was incredibly hurtful, I sensed there was something deeper going on. Where Scotty had an insatiable desire to be right, I had an unquenchable appetite to understand the unfathomable. I watched and listened, gathering data to add to the compost heap inside my head.

Not blessed with lightning synapses, I imagine my brain operates in much the same way as an organic scraps bin. Information goes in, mingles with all the other crap in there, settles, breaks down and cooks away slowly: a biological computer with no ‘off’ switch. That’s not to say it’s a benign process; it may indeed work at a glacial pace, but it does so with glacial force. Building up extreme inner-core forces, the heat and pressure occasionally produce a valuable by-product; a beautiful, shining diamond of enlightenment.

I began noticing all this behavioural scrutiny had an unexpected side effect: my exploration did a sharp u-turn, and the focus turned back on itself.

If I was to be honest, I was familiar with this conduct. It was me as a thirteen year old girl; zero self-mastery and a complete lack of skills in wielding awkward emotions, wedded to stubborn denial.

But that emotional awkwardness wasn’t relegated to the far-distant past.

I, too, had big problems dealing with certain people at work. Scotty for one: I’d had enough of his corny shit. And Susie Pants I couldn’t cope with either. He seemed like a sleazy weirdo, but he wouldn’t have been the only one. Teresa and I were still suspicious of one another - a hangover from the Ping Pong days. I had an irrational dislike of the Bangla-dishies, although that might have had something to do with the way they loudly smashed and banged crockery in my earhole all night every night. To all of these souls I gave a very wide berth. I wasn’t actively harassing them - like most people, I’d rather avoid open aggression - but I can hold a grudge like you wouldn’t believe.

I began to suspect that my current behaviour could come across as immature and very average.

And another thing; why was it that Kirsten was apparently incapable of saying ‘I don’t know’?

And why did I have such high tolerance for blokes who treated me poorly?

Well in this case, I was getting something of value out of it.

Painful though it was, the situation was pushing me to face my demons. In a manner of speaking, Pete furnished me with a kind of Aegis, the reflective shield coated in adamantine in which I could glimpse my Medusa.

Simultaneously, this dynamic opened my eyes to look with greater compassion on the condition not only of somebody I cared about - despite how sketchy he could be towards me - but of everyone whose lives I encountered through the course of any given day.