[ tip your server :: slammed! ]

Part III of IV. All names have been changed for privacy.

Serving for a restaurant whose motto claims that the chain is comprised of "breakfast people all day" requires early morning wake-up calls; 6:30 a.m. to be precise. And with the unrelenting, monotonous beeping coming from just three feet away, there was no turning back; no centimeter-wide snooze button to hit multiple times and no "dismiss" option to press on my cell phone's alarm with the assurance that I could muster up the strength to wake up in just five minutes. Just five more minutes of sleep. Yes, that would be ideal.

Nighttime training had quickly turned to breakfast shifts, and with that, early mornings were necessary. My car had broken down a few weeks earlier, so my mom drove me to work: highway travel for seven miles and five or ten minutes through summertime traffic toward the restaurant that I was beginning to claim as my own.

I was learning the MICROS shortcuts for breakfast combinations, but beyond that, I was learning faces and names - of coworkers and of older men who would ask for whole milk, not half-and-half, for their fresh-brewed decaf coffee. I obliged, even though I was dead-tired after another night of only three hours of sleep (it takes me awhile to learn lessons, apparently). "Please people," my training booklets asserted. "Guests first," my managers reminded me. Of course, I'd reply, repeating face-value statements whose authenticity was carried out only through tried-and-true service. Okay, I'd say; I'll apologize when their food is late; I'll thank them and tell them to stop by again. I did, and I meant it - most of the time, anyway.

One morning I arrived at about 8:50 a.m. for my 9 o'clock shift and saw that the restaurant's parking lot was fairly bare: a few cars here and there, several vans with out-of-state license plates whose owners were surely hoping to meet Cedar Point's gate-opening at 9 a.m., stuffed full with blueberry pancakes and sausage links; not having to buy too-expensive fried food at the park at least until early afternoon. Mom had dropped me off near the front of the restaurant; I walked in, gazed around our adjacent country store for a few moments (Halloween items had arrived just days earlier) and found that our front dining room was packed. "Slammed," as the other servers and managers would continue to say all summer. Indeed, we were "slammed."

A tour bus (traveling to - not through - Sandusky, to be sure) had arrived around 8 a.m. The group insisted that their forty-some members sit in the front section: the area farthest away from smoking - and closest to our country store. And, on that day, the front section was the area whose servers included Dawn (the career waitress who aimed higher and higher to live up to satisfy our guests), and Jeremy, who had just completed training in my hire group. Jeremy was my age, but needed more than just a few thousand dollars for tuition - he had medical bills to pay from a recent motorcycle injury, and even more debt to pay back for that same wrecked bike. Jeremy wasn't prepared to handle eight tables at once, or for whole breakfast platters that would be sent back because of French toast that was too crunchy, and eggs too runny (over-easy eggs made at home translate into over-medium in a chain restaurant). With all of his tables "live" and several orders neglected because he hadn't inputted them into the computer system, Jeremy immediately became frustrated, threw down his nametag and his swipe card near the serving station, hopped on his newly-bought motorcycle, and drove off into the freedom he had wanted all along. I could almost hear him accelerating down Route 250, speeding past the mall and all of the competing restaurants, all blurring to his left and to his right.

I had never seen anything quite like his reaction to the busyness and high stress of serving those who rode in that tour bus, who would continue on their day; maybe frustrated with that hour or so, but guests who hadn't been able to hear that this Jeremy - this 20 year-old whose hands and feet couldn't keep up that day - was really trying to succeed there, even if it wasn't his "thing." Those two and three-dollar tips would repay debt, and cover apartment rent away from parents - a sprint away from worry and from pain.

I jumped in early that morning, taking Jeremy's tables and assuring Dawn that she had done well, even if half of the section's tickets had been voided because of complaints.

I jumped in, for another day; another day of serving breakfast even until 2 p.m., of out-of-town guests and of regulars; of "six-tops" and of aiming to please each and every guest, regardless of circumstance or preference. Jeremy hadn't missed the "mark," but he hadn't expected that this would be so much different than anything he had done before, like repairing and selling cars at a local dealership.

Time and time again, I too was as unassuming as Jeremy, blinded by the summer sun coming through slightly-opened curtains and through this 8 to 5 journey of my own.