Dishwasher at Greta's Cafe

Greta's cafe was where the cool kids worked. Getting a job there then, would surely be a ticket into coolness, wouldn't it?

I applied, got hired, and awaited my coolness, but first I had to learn to make an espresso drink. Gretta's was a quality joint. The coffee shop portion carried espresso drinks that an italian would actually recognize, and a great selection of pastries which were baked on site. Greta's also had lunch featuring the best salads in town, sandwiches, fresh baked quiche andd pate'.

I worked at the coffee shop counter, and had to be at work at five am to have the doors open by six. Coffee drinks were served in glass mugs and we took great pride in being able to layer the espresso, so it floated on top of the steamed milk and below the foam. I would start each morning with a triple espresso, necessary as I had previously been unaware of five a.m.'s existence, having dismissed it as something I hallucinated when I stayed up too late.

I was usually off by noon, two at the latest, and so I had my whole day ahead of me.

I worked along side Shaunie and Megan at the front counter. They were both insane. I'm sure Greta hired them for their quirky fashion sense and undeniable cool factor. Shaunie made and sold hats and Megan, well she just acted nuts, but she was insanely cute. I enjoyed working with them for the first few weeks as I learned the ropes, but then I notice we started falling behind. Customers would get irate and then we'd get irate and work wouldn't be much fun. I suggested that Shaunie man the register, since it was the easiest task and she was a moron. I figured Megan could fetch pastries and I, being the fastest would work the espresso machine. This system proved too complicated however and one of the two cool kids would always forget what they were doing and we'd get backed up again. So, I'd lose my cool and give the girls an intelligence evaluation. This would get me reprimanded, and since this would threaten my place amongst the cool kids I asked to be transfered to another station. The lunch prep area, where they made the salads, quiche, etc. was reserved for Greta's pets. The mostly female prep staff worked like a well oiled machine. If they bickered they kept it amongst themselves. There only a couple of positions in the bakery and these were held firmly by folks who took their baking seriously. Not a lot of turn over there. So, I became the dishwasher.

It was maybe a week after becoming the dishwasher that I was happened upon by the local alternative paper doing a man on the street story about worst dates. Well, I had a doozey of a date story for them and so they ran it along side my smiling face, my plasic brown guiness apron showing proudly and the words, "Keith Lowell Jensen- Dishwasher." The folks at John Q's started showing up at Greta's to congratulate me on the success of my movie, the one I'd quit John Q's to go and make.

The other dishwasher was Mike. He showed me the ropes. It took him about an hour to teach me how to use the washer, and a couple of days to show me where to stash beer in the walk in, how to suck the nitrous out of the whipped cream, how to smoke out in the walk in freezer, etc. Mike was fired on three seperate occasions while I worked there. And he was always hired back in a higher position. It was a most bizarre way to climb the ladder of success.

The waiters would come in early and help prep salads. I relished having the chance to hang out with the waiters. They were older guys an I viewed them as mentors. John McCrea fronted his band Cake, Steve Jacobs had his art, and had recently gotten a few of his illustration published, and Tony was just really smart and equally nice. We'd all take turns playing music and so I got turned on to Tom Waits, The Pogues, XTC, and countless other amazing musicians. And the guys were patient with my Beastie Boys, De La Soul and Nirvana.

John McCrea was at the sink next to the dishwasher cleaning spinach and I had Nirvana blasting. I asked him what he thought and rather than a musical critique I got a manifesto.

"Nirvana is pretending to be rebelious. They're loud, but loud's become the norm. They smash their instruments but that's not an original sentiment. It's tired. And what does it say? It says 'look, we have money to burn. We can smash our equipment and we'll just get new equipment.' You know what would really be radical? It would be truly radical if they took their expensive guiatars and drums and monitors and at the end of every show they donated them to some school that can't afford to have a musical progam. What they're doing now is just typical consumer culture excess. Spending for status."

Well, I loved Nirvana, I still do, but he was right. He was absolutely right, and this talk along with future talks with John, Steve and Tony got me excited about saying something orginal with art and about trying to be more of a critical thinker.

John was also a role model in that he had a stronger work ethic than anyone I'd ever seen where his band was concerned. John worked the lunch shift at grettas, and then left to cover the town in flyers and handbills for Cake's shows. When Cake didn't have a show booked John covered the town in flyers and handbills that just said Cake. His handbills all featured the original art that now decorates his band's albums. Evenings were spent rehearsing, recording, or designing more original art. I imagine somewhere in there he must have found time to write music, but I can't imagine when. It's not surprise to me that Cake made it big, and it's no surprise that so many other Sacramento bands begrudge them their success, but I can't think of anyone who worked harder for it than John McCrea.

I started my own band around this time, Vincent's Other Ear and John actually came out and saw us. We were a crappy genre hopping band, going from rock to rap to country, well not country, but only because the bass player wouldn't allow it. John couldn't have like the music but he noted that the we seemed very sincere and that the lyrics seemed to be about 'important things.' I was so nervous performing in front of the Greta's cool kids that at one point I was talking into the microphone stand, giving my best between song banter while holding the mic at my waist. Despite this embarassing moment the between song banter was probably the best thing about my role in Vincent's. I'd gone to the local food closet and discovered they were giving the homeless Milliary M.R.E.s (Meal Read to Eat). We opened one onstage and dared audience members to sample the orange toothpaste that was being passed off as potatoes au grautin or the rock hard brownie that we could not break in half no matter how we tried.

The Bakers were there much earlier than the waiter staff, and they introduced me to some great music as well. Mostly techno and dance mixes by local djs. Joolie wanted to have a bakery/Cafe of her own one day. She lived upstairs from Gretas and she was serious about her work. My turn to play music came up, and Joolie implored me not to play any hip hop. At the time I detested The Smiths, but Joolie would play them regardless, so... she could endure a bit of hip-hop. I did try though. I played some Urban Dance Squad and I explained to her that they were concious lyrically, and that they had a unique sound as they were an actual band. She rolled her eyes, the beat started and I got to washing the baker's pans. Then the beat abruptly stopped. I looked to the stereo just in time to see Joolie tossing my tape over her shoulder with reckless abandon. It hit the floor and slid under a large freezer.

"That was my personal property. You had no right to do that."

"Oh, well." She was smart enough not to put a tape of her own in harms way and I glared at her in silence. Then I went to Greta.

"Joolie just destroyed something of mine. She should pay for it, and she should be reprimanded." Greta calmed me down, and had Tony fish my tape out from under the cooler. The tape seemed fine. Greta went back into her office with out a word to Joolie. I was furious. I returned to Greta's office.

"What do you need Keith?"

"I need you to tell Joolie that she can't have total disregard for other people's things."

"Joolie. Leave Keith's things alone." Greta yelled to a smirking Joolie. I returned to the dishes. I was not in a state to be handling the sharp knives that I was now loading into the washer. I cooled down eventually, but I never quite forgave Joolie or Greta.

I was getting sick of dishes and I started hinting to Greta that I'd like to wait tables. The waitstaff made good money and had one of the few waiter jobs in town that didn't involve kissing the asses of your customers. In fact part of Greta's Appeal was in the fact that the waiters thought they were cooler than you, and in most cases were correct. It was not realistic to think that I'd be moving away from the dishwasher anytime soon. So, I started to have too much fun. I became a character. I'd scream at folks who left knifes in the soapy tubs of water, I'd spray folks who didn't get away from me when I told them too. I was sure I was adorable, but it was becoming apparent that not everyone agreed.

The one thing thing I was good at was dealing with the homeless who would come around panhandling. I was sympathetic but would just explain to them that they needed to wait until people were done with their lunch before they hit them up so that we had a shot at getting money from them too. Kevin would come around asking for pennies. There were many stories about Kevin. He used to be a math professor, he'd owned a big company, etc. He did seem to have a strong intellect and I guessed that he suffered from some sort of mental illness. Kevin could not be easily talked away.

"Hey Kevin, you know you can't be in front of the building. You have to clear out."

"Yeah Keith okay. You're the good guy. You care about us all. You move us along and make your bosses happy and you're our friend too because you're such a great guy Keith. God bless you." The sarcasm was subtle enough to really sting.

I became even less likely to become a cool kid when, at an unofficial staff party, upstairs at Joolies I palled around with Mike and another screw up named John who was a career student and who had somehow become a waiter. We had too much to drink or maybe it was just enoug. We invented a game involving throwing ourselves down the stairs. Whoever could turn themselves around, stomach to back to stomach, while sliding headfirst, the most times before hitting the bottom was the winner. All three of us were covered in bruises the next day. The thing that baffled me was that these things made me less cool, but Mike and John continued to fit right in.

My girlfriend Christine was very shy socially and I'm sure she was amazingly proud to have escorted me to the party. We were living together and working together at this point, though we rarely interacted at work as she was in the lunch prep crew that kicked so much ass.

Bryna, the blonde that keeps following me from story to story, worked there as well. We were still very close, best friends even. She wore a skirt that she'd made by wrapping a piece of cloth around her waist and fastening it with a safety pin. The image of her, in that, with those legs that went on forever sent me scrambling to the dishwasher where I refused to turn around for quite some time, even after all dishes were done. I can still conjure up that image as if it were yesterday.

Employee's could purchase cold sodas for thirty five cents a pop and so I drank Pepsi's like there was no tommorow and eventualy the wasn't. I'd discovered that pouring most of a can of Pepsi in my enormous mouth and shaking my head back and forth violently would build up enough carbonated pressure that I could launch a geyser of the sickly sweet stuff all over the cieling causing it to rain Pepsi over the dish area. Well, this brought complaints from the bakers, which brought Greta to the dish area, and I swear I had no idea that she was standing behind me, with no umbrella, as the rains began.

Greta didn't say a word. She walked to her office and began crunching numbers. Tony told me that she would probably fire me when the lunch dishes were done. There weren't enough plates and glasses to keep up with the lunch rush, so I had to keep up with demand and it was a hectic, hot, wrinkly skin on my fingers couple of hours. Well forget it. I would beat her to the punch.

I walked into her office and punched out.
"Keith are you sick?" she asked.
"Sick of working." I answered.

Christine suggested I let her pay the bills while I actually work on my painting and, since I rarely finsihed a canvas this seemed like a good idea. Unemployed artist was a job I could handle.

epilogue:
Fast forward ten years. I run into Joolie, not having seen her in the interim. She's ringing up my groceries at a Trader Joes. She recognizes me, and then immediately says "You know, I threw a tape of your under the freezer once." I was amazed! I tried to pretend that I didn't remember. She continued, "I've always felt bad about that. It really was a bitch move. I'm sorry."
That is so cool.

>>>>Go to next job>>Bus Boy at snooty private club>>>>