It’s Sunday night. Which for those of you who work with me, you know it’s our Friday. Two much needed days off.

As with any employee, at any job, we strive for Friday’s to be easy.

Which is why we were all excited when we got to work today. A modest amount of reservations for the evening. But all but six were in the first turn. Six of them were at 7:00.

Dang. If this holds true we should be locking the doors around 9:15.

Fuck yeah!

I ask the chef about this just before we open the doors. He says we take walkins and reservations till 8:00. Then we’ll call it a night.

The night goes super smooth. Easy. Just as we wanted it.

7:00 comes and goes. All the reservations are seated. We are all in. (Lingo meaning all the reservations are seated. We’ll often say all in 12 open. Which means reservations are seated with 12 people who need to order).

Smooth sailing.

The phone rings.

It’s 7:15.

Something told me to let it go to voicemail.

My integrity said pick it up.

And so I did.

Hi thank you for calling. How can I help you?

Jeff. Jeff. Is that you?

Yes. This is he. How can I help you?

Hi this is Jason. Any chance we can get in at 7:45 tonight.

I take the deepest of breaths. And say………..yes. We can do that.

Fuck. Fuck. Fuck.

I know who he is. He’s known for sitting forever.

Fuck.

Then the phone rings again.

It’s Jason asking to make it 5 people instead.

Fuck.

I change the reservation.

Then I strategize about where to seat them.

I ultimately decide to seat them in the main dining room so they’d be aware that we were empty. So maybe, just maybe they wouldn’t stay forever.

7:45 comes and goes. No Jason.

He finally arrives at 7:50.

I say he, because he’s alone.

He’s seated.

And we wait. And wait. And wait.

The rest of him family arrives ar 8:10. 25 minutes late. Only 4 people though.

The first thing his wife does is request to move to the private dining room.

Fuck. Fuck. Fuck.

They order a bunch of appetizers but want to wait on entrees. Our chef is not having this. By now our fire is 70% out.

We get the entree order.

Six entrees. There’s only four of them. Why you ask? Because two orders are to go. He knows we don’t do take out.

The food finally hits the table. And they eat.

Four minutes after finishing the kids are picked up by the grandparents and now it’s just Jason and his wife.

It’s 9:15.

And now.

We wait.

And wait we did.

They finally left around 10:30. They were the only two guests in the building for way more than an hour.

Seriously.

We were all just waiting.

I sent the dishwasher home at 10:00.

So here’s my question:

How does one become this selfish? So selfish that only your time is important? Is it because he’s rich and can buy our servitude? He’s a regular. But not a regular regular. Not like Kristen, Mel, Tim, Brian who all have standing reservations. All of these people come in once a week if not more. One of them has eaten at our restaurant more than 200 times since February. He’s a regular regular. I can set my watch by how long he’ll be in the restaurant

Jason is maybe a couple of times a month.

I digress.

I’d never ever walk into a restaurant at closing time. Especially if it’s empty.

I’d never sit for 90 minutes after everyone leaves.

I’m the one who will pee his pants before I disturb my neighbor on a plane to go to the restroom.

I’m the opposite of Jason. To my detriment. I’ll suffer to keep from being a burden to someone.

So teach me how to be selfish. Teach me to be rich with my bank account.