Job 13

Fall 1976 - Winter 1977

Ponderosa Steak House - French fry cook and dishwasher

Now that I was enrolled in college I decided I ought to have a part-time job. The restaurant business, I learned, is about one of the worst places to work, unless you are in a place where you can earn decent tips.

Where previously I had often been left entirely on my own at various construction sites as a sheet metal installer, I now found myself working in a kitchen with a little window into the manager's office so you could be watched. I had to ask permission to go home at the end of the shift. I could understand why they used such methods considering most of my co-workers were 15 or 16 year olds. In many cases apparently, their parents had got them the jobs.

Having already experienced a measure of independence at work in the past I found the Ponderosa experience almost intolerable.

There were a couple of things I really dreaded about the job. Every time a customer, usually a kid, puked in the restaurant, it was my job to go out there in my funny little uniform with a bucket and mop and clean up the mess.

The other thing I hated was having to go out with several co-employees and sing "Happy Birthday" to some snotty faced brat gobbling up cake. Often the birthday songs and puke cleanup involved the same customers. It was one of those times I prayed no one I knew might be dining there at the time.

Thanks to the generous handouts of taxpayer $$$ in those days, I realized by early 1977 that I didn't need the job at Ponderosa. My student loans and grants were more than enough to get me through the year and then some. When I gave my notice the manager tried to talk me out of it!

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last modified:Monday,June 9, 2008 at 04:21