(no subject)

[xiphias]

I had an eight hour shift at the bar tonight, and I was moving the entire time. Every single table in the Grill Bar was packed from 6 to 8 or so. And there were just four of us taking care of the whole room.

And we did it.

When things got really tough, they sent Nelson, a barback who used to own his own restaurant (he intends to open another one someday, but he wants to take a year or so as a barback, basically as a vacation), to help us. Which was a big help: he could reset tables and do all that sort of thing, as well as run things back and forth from the kitchen.

I don't remember much from those hours -- just a sense of constant, purposeful movement. I just remember a feeling of working, "clicking", just working as a team. The waitstaff would yell drink orders to me as they walked past; I'd have five or six glasses set up (you grab the appropriate glass as the order's yelled to you -- that acts as a memory aid: "Hmm. I've got three white wine glasses here, two of them are touching and one's seperate. Thats. . . . two chardonnays and a pino grigio. Then, the two red wine glasses are two merlots, the soda glass is a diet coke, the two highball glasses are a vodka tonic and a scotch and water, and the rocks glass is bourbon on the rocks." Stuff like that), and I'd be able to hand them their drinks just as they came back from where they'd been going.

It was, frankly, beautiful.

Comments

[elynne.livejournal.com]

I love that feeling of being damn good at something, of being smooth and practiced, and (to be all woo-woo about it) centered. That's where I want to be with transcriptioning someday. That's what I'm working towards. Thank you for the reminder of why I do this. :]

[xiphias.livejournal.com]

It's not only the feeling of being damn good. It's also the feeling that everybody you're working with is ALSO damn good, and that you all, as a group, are damn better.

[elynne.livejournal.com]

Hmmm... I have to admit, I can't say I've had that feeling very often. :/ Occasionally, in certain specific cases... rarely on the job. Oddly enough, the only times I can think of were usually extremely short temp assignments, lasting a day or less.

[kightp.livejournal.com]

That's exactly the feeling I get from theater, when it's going really well: An ensemble of people working together seamlessly, taking their cues and running with them.

Wonderful, isn't it?

[goljerp]

Every single table in the Grill Bar was packed from 6 to 8 or so

... and this "never happens", right? :-)

I'm glad that the experience went well... the 'team clicking' feeling is great when it happens.

[ellettra.livejournal.com]

i love that feeling of teamwork when everyone is just "on." it doesn't happen often for me, but when it does, it's poetry in motion.