The Long Road To Woodstock---At The Seattle Olympic Hotel, A New Job
Okay, forget this guy---we've never seen him before. Just imagine someone who looks a little bit like him, but is 25 or 30 years younger. Imagine, moreover, that he is dressed in his work uniform, which probably was black pants and some kind of white shirt. He's been bussing tables all day (from six or seven in the morning to two or three in the afternoon, probably) At the end of his shift, his supervisor comes up to him and says, " Well, the night dishwasher called out. Want to pick up his shift?" Only, I think it was that the day guy never showed up, and they fired him. Or whatever. I don't remember. I just remember that I worked my normal morning shift as a busboy, and then they asked me to stay on and wash dishes. I'd never washed dishes before, but it was money, so I said I would.
Now imagine a little galley affair with a small dishwasher. You have a window where the employees bring their dirties, a sink where you place a plastic tray and the dirties, which you spray-off and push into the dish machine. It wasn't a big conveyor type machine---they had those upstairs in the main kitchen. This was a small machine that washed twenty or so dirty plates at a time.
Now imagine that about where this fellow is standing in the photograph there is a triple sink, and here the pots and pans are stacking up, In fact, imagine that this fellow (that would be me, folks) is so slow, so bad at washing dishes that he never gets around to washing any of the pots and pans (it may be that the morning guy had not shown up, and thus the dishes were backed up from the day-time).
I remember that towards the end of that day, some tattooed sailor fellow, one of the dishwashers from the main kitchen, came down, and said he would take care of the pots and pans. And in about twenty or thirty minutes of frenzied activity, he had washed all of the pots and pans that had been stacking-up all day. I remember that the sailor-fellow was nice about it; he didn't razz me about my pathetic performance, as he would nowadays, in our trashing-talking new & improved universe.
The other thing I remember about that day is that when I got back to my apartment, sweaty and filthy, and took-off my t-shirt, and looked in the mirror, I discovered that my back from side to side and about halfway down, was one enormous pimple. I had been drinking milk all day, and that constellation of pimples, that Milky Way of pimples, was the result. Perhaps it is that that was the beginning of my disenchantment with milk. I have been faithfully unfaithful to milk on a regular basis, ever since.
What I don't remember is whether I actually got a promotion to dishwaher, or whether my dishwasher stint was a one-day affair. The whole of my career at The Seattle Olympic Hotel only lasted eight to ten weeks, so if I did get promoted, it wasn't for long.
The Long Road To Woodstock---At The Seattle Olympic Hotel, A New Job
Okay, forget this guy---we've never seen him before. Just imagine someone who looks a little bit like him, but is 25 or 30 years younger. Imagine, moreover, that he is dressed in his work uniform, which probably was black pants and some kind of white shirt. He's been bussing tables all day (from six or seven in the morning to two or three in the afternoon, probably) At the end of his shift, his supervisor comes up to him and says, " Well, the night dishwasher called out. Want to pick up his shift?" Only, I think it was that the day guy never showed up, and they fired him. Or whatever. I don't remember. I just remember that I worked my normal morning shift as a busboy, and then they asked me to stay on and wash dishes. I'd never washed dishes before, but it was money, so I said I would.
Now imagine a little galley affair with a small dishwasher. You have a window where the employees bring their dirties, a sink where you place a plastic tray and the dirties, which you spray-off and push into the dish machine. It wasn't a big conveyor type machine---they had those upstairs in the main kitchen. This was a small machine that washed twenty or so dirty plates at a time.
Now imagine that about where this fellow is standing in the photograph there is a triple sink, and here the pots and pans are stacking up, In fact, imagine that this fellow (that would be me, folks) is so slow, so bad at washing dishes that he never gets around to washing any of the pots and pans (it may be that the morning guy had not shown up, and thus the dishes were backed up from the day-time).
I remember that towards the end of that day, some tattooed sailor fellow, one of the dishwashers from the main kitchen, came down, and said he would take care of the pots and pans. And in about twenty or thirty minutes of frenzied activity, he had washed all of the pots and pans that had been stacking-up all day. I remember that the sailor-fellow was nice about it; he didn't razz me about my pathetic performance, as he would nowadays, in our trashing-talking new & improved universe.
The other thing I remember about that day is that when I got back to my apartment, sweaty and filthy, and took-off my t-shirt, and looked in the mirror, I discovered that my back from side to side and about halfway down, was one enormous pimple. I had been drinking milk all day, and that constellation of pimples, that Milky Way of pimples, was the result. Perhaps it is that that was the beginning of my disenchantment with milk. I have been faithfully unfaithful to milk on a regular basis, ever since.
What I don't remember is whether I actually got a promotion to dishwaher, or whether my dishwasher stint was a one-day affair. The whole of my career at The Seattle Olympic Hotel only lasted eight to ten weeks, so if I did get promoted, it wasn't for long.