Chapter 13
The Restaurant
Carroll surveyed the empty dining room. She didn’t want to think about how bad business was. Instead, she chose to remember the good old days—when the dining room was always packed, when customers would wait an hour for a table, when the owners put employees and quality and customer service before numbers and profit. Unfortunately, those days were gone. The new owners who had bought the place were so focused on, and skilled at, cutting costs that they also cut their profits along the way. Funny, Carroll thought, how businesses that put profits before people wind up losing the people that provide the profits. She longed for the good old days, and when she looked toward the front door and watched people walk into the restaurant, she was reminded of what the good old days were all about.
Josh walked in and spotted Carroll immediately. She had the same fiery red hair and the same rotund figure that revealed she spent too much time in the restaurant. Despite being only 10 years older than Josh, she was one of the best leaders he had ever met.
“Where is everyone?” he asked. “This used to be your busiest time.”
“Don’t get me started,” Carroll said. “New owners. We won’t make it another month.”
Josh sighed in disbelief. Another place in which he had planned to plant the seed was about to become non-existent.
“So . . . how are you doing, stranger?” Carroll asked, as she gave Josh a big hug. “It’s so good to see you. I miss your enthusiasm around here. I think it’s been about five years since you worked here.”
“Yep, five years,” Josh said. He couldn’t believe it had been that long. On one hand, it seemed like yesterday, yet he also felt that a different person had been living his life back then. Had he really followed his college girlfriend to the city where she and her family lived? Had he really waited tables here while pursuing a career in music? Had it really ended so horribly wrong? Perhaps he felt like a different person now because his life had changed so much. Or perhaps the pain of the past made him wish he were a different person.
Josh and his college girlfriend had talked often about their dreams and getting married. They had planned to move to a city where neither of their parents lived to start a life together. But then she’d changed her mind. Pressure from her parents had made her return home, and Josh was faced with a choice. He could go with her or let her go. He knew that long-distance relationships weren’t for him. He hadn’t wanted to move to her hometown, but he’d done it for love. He would do anything for love. When he arrived, he searched for a job in a strange city where he had no money and no family. He had found a job waiting tables at the restaurant where he now stood and had started playing acoustic music at different bars around the city. Although everything seemed to be going okay, he kept getting the feeling that he was supposed to be somewhere else. He begged his girlfriend to leave with him, but she wouldn’t go. Either the pull of her family was too strong or her love for Josh was too weak.
The feeling to leave grew stronger, and one day he told his girlfriend that he was going to leave. They both knew what that meant, because she was unwilling to go and he was unwilling to stay. It was the most painful decision of his life, and he drove 11 straight hours to his parents’ house with a broken heart and an uncertain future. His only consolation was that he got to keep Dharma.
He left his girlfriend, his job waiting tables, and his music career behind. Eventually, after much soul searching, he pursued a career in business and found a great job in the city where he’d always wanted to live and where he still lived. Although he tried to forget the pain of the past, he always remembered the great experiences he had waiting tables—and it was those memories, and Carroll, that brought him back to the restaurant on this day. She had given him a job when he needed it and had taught him everything he knew about customer service. It was there he had learned the art of interacting with customers and developed the confidence to talk to anyone about anything. Most of all, despite the drawback that it was located in same city where his ex-girlfriend resided, the restaurant was a place where he had been happy.
As Carroll and Josh talked about old times and about his current life, the restaurant unexpectedly started to fill up. A popular movie had just premiered at the theater nearby, and it seemed everyone from the movie was coming to the restaurant at once. Knowing she was desperately understaffed to handle a dinner crowd like this, Carroll grew increasingly nervous. She was trying to think of who she could call to come in at a moment’s notice, when Josh volunteered to help out.
“I can’t let you do that,” she said. “You’re big-time now.”
“I don’t mind,” Josh said. “I’d love to help you out. It will do me some good. I just hope I remember everything.”
“It’s like riding a bike. You never forget. Let’s rock and roll!” she said as she grabbed Josh’s arm and they ran to help a staff in the weeds.
Carroll was right. Once he started taking orders, helping out in the kitchen, and serving food, it felt like he’d never left; despite his sore feet at the end of the night, Josh felt great. He loved helping out a friend in need, but most of all, he loved the satisfaction of seeing customers enjoy their meals.
That night as he went to bed in a nearby hotel, with Dharma by his side, he felt better about himself than he had in a long time. He decided he would take Carroll up on her offer. She needed help for a few more days while the newly released movie was still popular and asked if he could be her assistant manager, waiter, kitchen help, and anything else she needed until she could hire a few more people. Why not, he thought? He had plenty of time on his hands, a friend in need, and a desire to serve.