This is a rarity. Upon going into work today I'm told to take the day off by the owner, we have 2 new staff members on tryout and there's nothing in the book.
And for the first time in several months I have an extra - unexpected day off.
Too often it's an unexpected day of work, so often, in fact, that it's not even slightly unexpected, plans are not made for days off as too often they disappear.
The other 2 waiters are bitter, the Nephew and G, but it's "too bad so sad" and I merrily make myself an espresso while I wonder how to use this windfall day....
The new waiter, he spots a decanter with a red trace of the weekends excesses on the bottom. He's about 60, he's done it before, somehow I'm not too hopeful, but...
...he spots the decanter and he says - "Shall I clean this?".
Now, 50% of the people we hire would never spot that the decanter was dirty. OF the 50% remaining that spotted the dirty decanter, 25% would pretend to see nothing and so absolve themselves of the responsibility of cleaning it, of the remaining 25% maybe 90% would ask if it needed cleaning, 10% would just take it upon themselves to clean it.
I answer: "No, we prefer to keep it dirty".
He gives me a little look and says "You're being facetious...."
I like that he figured it out. And he could say facetious, we don't get too many waiters with any sort of vocabulary skills. Maybe we'll get along after all.
***
The day, it passes in a thousand little chores I otherwise wouldn't have found time to do. I get the new tires re-torqued, deposit a months worth of cheques in the bank (OUCH! I thought I had more than that....), I go to the thrift shop, take in some new watch finds to be repaired, eat a healthy breakfast, nap, meet an old friend for coffee (4 months since I last found time to meet him), eat dinner, nap again, and now it's time to sit up and return some emails, do some writing. A near perfect day off.