Keeping it Real in the Workplace

Waiting strikes me as one of the better films of the last few years. I like it because it’s witty without being pretentious, and while one might say that it makes some fairly serious social commentary, it does so without taking itself too seriously.

The film’s “wit” of course, comes mostly from Ryan Reynolds of all people in his role as Monty. As the protagonist of sorts, Monty gets to take Mitch the trainee around the restaurant and explain the workings of the place to him with some degree of style. The highlight of this throughout the film has to be the so-called “penis-showing game.”

The object of the game, of course, if for a male employee of the restaurant to whip it out at some random time and get the other guys to look at it. Then, he gets to call the other guys “fags” and literally kick their asses with his foot. There are all kinds of bizarre positions and side-rules as well, but I don’t want to sit here retelling the story. The point is twofold. First, from an outside point of view, this peculiar game happens behind the scenes at this completely normal seeming box-store chain restaurant. Hence, there might be life, excitement, and creativity somewhere in suburban strip malls. To me, this is both an inspiring and an amusing thought, as I generally consider such places the hubs of consumerist depravity and fakeness. Second, from an inside point of view, the “penis-showing game” provides the employees with a bit of something beyond the mundane routines involved in the running of a chain restaurant. It gives them something to strive for, something challenging, in an otherwise mind-rotting work environment. And, of course, it’s funny as hell.

But beyond the “penis-showing game,” I note the slightest hint of Fight Club at work here. When an obnoxious woman gives one of the waitresses a hard time, the whole kitchen staff conspires in an oddly militaristic and dark fashion to add some disgusting things to her food. And when he delivers the soiled food, which is dressed up on the plate to look good, Monty says something like, “Don’t fuck with people who handle your food.” I’m reminded of the infamous bathroom scene in Fight Club where Tyler Durden threatens the politician about his proposed crackdown on the new sort of crime that people have noticed. He says things along the lines of, “We cook your food; we take out your garbage, we guard you while you sleep; do not fuck with us.” Both films, in this sense, are getting at the same thing, but I think that Waiting’s take is a bit more realistic and believable than what happens in Fight Club, even if it might not be quite as appealing.

Those two films, Fight Club and Waiting, are big-time factors behind why I treat wait staff at restaurants with as much respect as possible and why I tip 20%. Films that can influence people to behave in better ways are good, right? Or are they disturbing in that regard? I do have a certain innate respect for people in the service industry, even if I only dabbled in it myself for a total of something like six months over the course of two summers when I fried chicken. Well, and then there was the landscaping beyond that. But at any rate, I find many people in that industry to be pretty interesting. I know some of you have decent wait staff stories…

Brian the Chicken Fryer?

On Sunday, I played Risk, the classic game of world domination. JJ, Megan, Mariah and I sat on a blanket in the park and let the sun warm our bodies as we slaughtered hordes of imaginary millions for our own amusement. A puppy someone else brought bounded around awkwardly nearby as its owner seemed to take pleasure in sharing with it what must have been one of its first park experiences. Even more nearby, a large group of twentysomethings arranged a first-rate picnic. They had a little hibachi, coolers, multifarious blankets, and more importantly, several kites, including a pink Barbie kite, which they proceeded to lodge in a tree, one of barky those millions that line the aesthetically pleasing modern shore of Lake Michigan north of Chicago. But why would I tell you people all of that? This doesn’t seem like that kind of blog, does it? Of course it doesn’t. And isn’t. But think about those twentysomethings. Think about the four of us, and think about the puppy’s owner. Does the fact that one of the twentysomethings is about to move to Nashville for his residency matter? Do we need to know that he’s in med school? Do you need to know that I teach English? Much like Martin Blank, “I don’t think necessarily what a person does for a living reflects who he is.”

Like Martin Blank, Tyler Durden in Fight Club holds a system of belief that doesn’t associate vocation with identity in the sense that most Americans do. Tyler Durden doesn’t care if you’re a waiter, an auto mechanic, janitor, a junior associate manager, or an accountant. That makes no difference to him. What matters instead is how effectively you can battle against the system in order to break free of it. By the end of the film, Tyler doesn’t pay big-time rent. He doesn’t own a car. He doesn’t want digital cable, or a clever end table in the shape of a yin-yang. Instead, he’s destroyed credit card companies and set the credit record back to zero. He’s managed to extort a year’s salary out of a despicable automobile company. He’s destroyed a number of those horrid chain retailers that make our landscape so disgustingly uniform that an intelligent person might no longer be able to tell whether he or she were in the suburbs of Seattle, Austin, or Newark. Our hero, Durden’s transcended the work week and made something interesting of himself. He is not Tyler Durden the waiter or Tyler Durden the Soapmaker.

I can only hope that in my future as an attorney, people will know me as Brian, not as Brian the Lawyer, and that at present, people know me as Brian, not as Brian the Disgruntled English Instructor. At the same time, how could our occupations, those things with which we spend exponentially more hours than we do with each other each week, not affect our identities? If I go to law school and spend 60 hours a week studying law, how do I avoid becoming Brian the Law Student? How much do you consider your identities to include your vocations? Does this bother you?