Death ~ Near Death ~ Living.

One day at the one (Thai) restaurant where I work now:

1) During lunch shift on a day when I work a double, my one (newer) (taller) (Thai) coworker says that she woke up that morning to news that a friend of hers from dance circles died, back in (Thailand). He was a heavy smoker and had Covid over a year ago, and then this week he was coughing so bad all the time that he couldn't even sleep for two days, so he went to the ER, and then the ICU, and then he was dead.

He was thirty-five.

A relative of hers recently found out, too, that they had late-stage stomach cancer, and within three or four months they were gone.

"You just never know how much time you have left," I was like, and she agreed.

"You never know," she was like.

2) As I leave the restaurant after lunch -- the cook made a special homemade (Thai) chicken soup with like an udon noodle that was quite tasty, although I didn't fully appreciate it because I was underdosed on my allergy medication and my eyes were itchy and red beyond belief -- anyhow, as I was leaving the restaurant after lunch, I step out into the bikelane and am eyeing traffic in both directions to see when I can dash across the street without having to walk up to the crosswalk, when suddenly I see flying in from my right someone moving at high speed on an e-bike, just careening up the bike lane in the wrong direction, although they suddenly veer when they're like four feet from me, a sudden motion that just startles me and makes me jump.

"Hey, watch out, you're going the wrong way!", I yell at him, this (short) (fat) man in the work t-shirt of a local shawarma restaurant.

"You need to look in both directions!", he yells back over his shoulder at me, as he continues at high speed the wrong way up the bikelane, taking a long, wide curve onto the wrong side of the street, as he moves into and through the major intersection up ahead of him.

3) During dinner shift on that day when I work a double, I mention to my one (newer) (taller) (Thai) coworker that my muscles really ache that day, maybe from my home-weightlifting routine that I did the day before, but maybe also from my allergies, because allergies can give you symptoms like you're sick, and she says no, the problem is that I don't eat enough protein.

And, she happens to be ordering protein shake supplements online from a store with good product and cheap prices, and we negotiate and she orders a big batch for me, since I had been thinking that I needed something like this anyways, lately, as the "next step" in self-improvement.

Overheard conversation about tipping...

...at the one (Thai) restaurant where I work now:

When four (male) (young grad-student age) (South Asian from South Asia) students have finished their meals and I brought out their individual bills and I'm clearing dishes, just as I start to move away from the table, the one asks the others how much do you tip again, ten percent, and another one of them says immediately and very sharply, "No! If you tip less than ten percent, people will think you're cheap."

. . .

(What's interesting to me is that the end-result is the culturally pro-social behavior of a proper tip, but the underlying logic is very different. The rationales could have been, "No, the culture here is minimum fifteen percent," or, "It's fifteen percent minimum, that's really part of their wages," but, instead, the rationale is self-focused, about your image among people of another culture...  So, it's like ultimately selfish logic has this side-effect of seemingly pro-social behavior....  I don't think you'd see that logic cited among people born and raised in the United States, like maybe a college freshman who doesn't eat out with their family and just doesn't know, if they asked friends, if any rationale was mentioned in the response, it would almost certainly be a different rationale than that, that you'd look cheap...  It's a very telling exchange, about a culture's prioritization of image and self over concern for others, or at least one major cultural logic that's operative among that culture...  My one [Chinese from China] coworker once talked with a former [Indian] roommate about stuff like this, and he said that the guy kept saying to him that it's all about personal power and jockeying for power and proving power in everyday situations, so it seems like here tipping properly is part of image maintenance, perhaps versus low/no tip towards people who are disposable to you, in a different application of the power/hierarchy logic to the concrete situation of leaving a gratuity.)

Two apartment changes...

...at my one little cottage, in the college town that I now live in:

1) I remembered the existence of an over-the-door chrome clothing-hook rack that I think I bought from Target years ago, and was keeping in the basement. I brought it out and now have it on the bathroom door, to hang clothes there when I'm not done wearing them, since my apartment really doesn't have any closet space to speak of, and I just need more stuff like that.

2) The two new circuit-breaker electrical outlets in the kitchen each have a small green light on them that is always lit when the outlet is working correctly, and so at night when other lights are off there's just these two new dots there on the wall now, and it's rather disconcerting.

Story of a popcorn machine.

For several months now, the popcorn machine at the local music bar has been broken, and everyone misses it.

Like, everyone used to eat free popcorn when they went there.

One night I was talking with the one bartender, a (hipster-ish) (brown-haired) (bearded) (white) guy with a bowl haircut, and he said that they got it fixed once but then it broke down again and now it's in the basement, and he doesn't know if it's ever coming back.

Like, the heating mechanism went and it was taking like 45 minutes to pop just one popper of popcorn, whereas before it would take 5 minutes, and you'd keep dumping it in and do other stuff and then dumping it in again, making multiple batches until the popcorn maker was finally full.

"But isn't a little popcorn better than no popcorn?", I was like.

"I'm not so sure about that," he was like, and he said that some days they'd fill it up at 2pm, and by 5pm it'd be gone, the popcorn went so fast.

He also said that some days people would come in and just get a plastic cup of water from the cooler they have set out and they'd pick up a basket of popcorn, too, and then they'd go out to the music tent to listen to music there without buying anything to drink at all.

"That's some bullshit," I was like, and I said that they should at least say something about how they're not drinking that day to the bartender and slip a tip, and he didn't disagree, but he also said that the bar at that point was losing money on that, and it just wasn't cool.

He also said that he had heard that some (older) patron who always comes in for jazz music was telling people that he was sad, because that popcorn was his dinner at least three nights a week.

"And I'm not sure that's the healthiest thing," he was like. "I mean, at that point, man, if that's what you're really doing, just let me know, I'll buy you a sandwich."

Addendum.

When I've spoken about my job at the one (Thai) restaurant where I work now to my one (art school) colleague who wears (women's) clothes and my one friend who dates drummers, I point out how disagreements get handled and stuff gets smoothed over, even if there's a disagreement with the boss.

Like, there's correction, but also understanding that I'm a good employee and do my job, and everything is fine, which is simply not the case with higher education.

"You produce value, and they know it," my one (art school) colleague was like,

And, my one friend who dates drummers pointed out that it's the opposite of higher education teaching and research jobs, where output and results are nebulous and can be twisted so people who are in power who dislike you can smear you and take away your job under false pretenses, even if you're a stellar teacher and researcher.

"Yeah, this is like actual work," my one (art school) colleague was like.

Got chewed out at work.

A few months ago I got chewed out at the one (Thai) restaurant where I work now, at the end of an overall very slow weekday dinner shift...

It was hitting like 9:30pm or a hair after, and it had been a slow night and the restaurant was empty, and suddenly a group of like four (South Asian from South Asia) (grad student-types) barrel through the door and ask if we're still open, and we say yes, and they immediately start being like "ahhh!" in relief and they all start saying that they had been googling everywhere and looking for someplace that was still open for dinner, and they were lucky that they had found us.

And, I say that we are, but it's already too late to order this or order that for dine-in, like curry is impossible -- preparation times for some dishes are quite long! -- and plus, I know how this works, that type of group wants a long sit-down meal with chatting over food at this time of night like we're some kind of elevated late night vegetarian diner, not a "quick bite out" thing like other youthful groups that come through late at night, so you risk them keeping the restaurant open for 45 minutes past normal close, for just one table of four people.

So, I clarify on that, that if they're looking for a normal leisurely dinner, it's already too late, and, the (Thai) (wife) owner comes up behind me, and she says that the full menu is available, and so we go to seat them, and then we talk, and she says full menu is available, and I can't quite remember the full conversation we have at that point, but the gist is that we're open but they shouldn't stay too long, and so when I go to check on them, I reiterate in so many words that we're open and they can order whatever is on the menu, but it's not the type of meal where they can expect a long normal meal together like usual, where you sit around and chat around food forever.

(That's really the issue -- they think that if they come before the restaurant closes, that means the restaurant stays open for them, like it makes it a "normal time of day" meal at the restaurant.)

So, they end up leaving, and then the (Thai) (wife) owner disappears, and then the (Thai) (husband) owner comes out and scolds me for driving customers away when the restaurant is still open.

(Which makes no sense to me -- you're going to waste all that staff money for one table that stays forever?)

But, I ask him what we should tell them, because the group expects a long sit-down dinner, and he says tell them that the kitchen closes at 9:45pm and the restaurant at 10pm, and then they can get boxes, and I say that they wanted a full sit-down dinner and they wanted to stay longer than 10pm, and he says, just tell them that, and at 10pm he can handle it, and if you need to go you can go and he can wait around for them, which is something maybe he just said in the moment, but I had never heard or known before.

("The idea is to get their money, and then you don't care," my one [Chinese from China] coworker said, after the [Thai] [husband] owner left.)

And, that was that, and after we closed the waitstaff and two young cooks went out to a local bar like we had been planning.

 And, my one (chubby) (Thai) coworker said that I was right with everything, except the boss had cued what I should do and I should have followed her lead immediately.

And, my one (newer) (tall) (Thai) coworker agreed with that, but she also said I saved them, and we would have been there forever.

She commented, too, that she had never seen them before, it's not like these are regular customers, they just googled us last minute and showed up to do whatever they wanted to do and behave however they wanted to behave.

Overall, the takeaway was that we'll do things differently now on different nights, with our rules in place when the owners aren't there, and the owners' rules on the nights when the owners are there, though my two (Thai) coworkers really doubt that the (Thai) (husband) owner will stay and handle a late table like that himself, and clean up the table afterwards and everything.

 My one (chubby) (Thai) coworker also got to reminiscing about one lunch shift, where a (South Asian from South Asia) (grad student-type) group like that came in around that same approximate equivalent time like at 2:30pm and they swore they knew the restaurant closed for the afternoon at 3pm, but they just stayed even after reminders, all the way till like 3:30pm, they just sat there and chatted over uneaten food getting cold without even putting it into the to-go boxes that were brought out, and they basically ate up a huge part of her break on a day when she had to come back for evening shift on a day when she was working a double.

"I told them, and they say they understand, but they just don't care," she was like.

Two tendencies of (South Asian from South Asia) women...

...that I've noticed at the one (Thai) restaurant where I work now:

1) Occasionally I've noticed that there's this type of (South Asian from South Asia) (female) customer, where, you come by the table to check on them like if they're ready to order or to see if their food is okay -- the owners ask that we do that after every course that's served, appetizer and entree and dessert! -- and, the moment you begin speaking, they just slowly turn their head towards you to look at you and they have this look of just complete and utter disdain, like, how could you approach us and begin to speak to us unbidden, and it took me a while to put my finger on it, but I finally realized what that look is, it's the look that someone has when they smell dogshit.

(I wonder if they come from a summoning culture, where you only summon the people who wait on you when they are needed, versus something more pro-active on the server's part...  When I read a website where [Indian] people discuss why [Indian] people can be bad tippers that a[n Indian-American] friend had sent me after discussing that issue, someone on that webpage had made a comment that restaurant culture is different in [India], and people don't expect waiters to be affable and have jokes and conversation with them.)

2) Occasionally I've noticed that there's this type of (South Asian from South Asia) woman who will shut down any server interaction with the table when you first approach the table to check if anyone is ready with any drink or appetizer orders. Like, I had come up to this one (late middle-aged) (South Asian from South Asia) four-top and asked, and the main woman there immediately said no, they did not need anything, they need more time, but this (older) (middle-aged) guy there at the same time is like "thank you" and starts saying he's hungry, look there's this type of dumpling etc. (which is exactly why I ask the question!), and, she just talks over him to me and again is like, no, we do not need anything right now, to the point where I really can't continue being there, and I have to leave the hungry man alone and unaided and somewhat crestfallen. Another time, too, there was a huge reservation for what turned out to be a visiting (South Asian from South Asia) mom with her (South Asian-American) kid and the kid's (mixed) friend group, and I check the one half of the table, and she shuts down the request, but then I go to check the other half -- I don't know what the f*ck is going on, you have to remember, we have shit happen all the time where someone is like diabetic and needs a soda right then or something to eat right then, twice I've actually had diabetic customers faint in the restaurant because they had misestimated their blood sugar and food wait-times -- and so I ask out loud, "Okay, are we all okay down here as well, no drink or appetizer order?", and, she just flashes me this glare, like, why was I still asking, she had already said no. I mean, sure, she was probably paying from all appearances, but what if someone was undercaffeinated and needed a tea right then, why shouldn't we check, I shouldn't pre-judge the group and who's in charge, I should ask everyone equally, just like how I never pre-judge who will pay from any random couple where there's one check for both of them, and I place the bill in the middle of them, and not towards whoever I suspect to be paying.

(I wonder if they come from a culture, where there's a household order and the woman acts as authoritative hostess, in managing help and orchestrating such occasions like large meals, and so you step on their toes by not having all service channeled through them.)