employablog

Everyone should work in a restaurant, you learn important things there.  As someone recently pointed out *probably Joel* struggle is more interesting.  It’s better to write about, it’s better to read about and hell, it’s perspective.  So, delving into my recent food service experience, in the first of many parts, I’m going to tell you about Jesus.

Jesus, pronounced “Hey, soos!,” stands just over five feet tall, and he does not have an easy life.  He works over 60 hours a week, often 18-hour shifts just to scrape by doing the shit work at my restaurant.  He walked to the border with his friend Felix, also a dishwasher (and also very, very small) over the course of a few weeks.  They were starving, but they made it.  And then they came to the United States.  Felix has a bit of a harder time than Jesus because apart from the blessed name, he also speaks an indigenous language, being fluent in neither English nor Spanish.

Jesus wears a red Yankees cap to work every day, and has a smile that stretches all across his face.  He has a slightly high pitched face, and really, is just an adorable little guy.  But he is 43-years old, and does not have an easy life.  He has children back in Mexico.  Once I wrote a script in English for him to go and buy an international phone card at the bodega, during which I realized, that I can write better in Spanish than he can.  Not as a matter of pride nor showmanship, but this poor guy never got a decent go, even in his native country.

Today Jesus showed up in his red cap, as always, but he was also wearing a smart button-down short sleeve shirt, with good pastels and stripes.

“Que guapo!” I told him, to which Jesus told me that today was an important day.  I knew, because yesterday, he opened his wallet and showed me a tiny scrap of paper with a name and a number: Elena, and we’ll go 555 … from there.

“Ella habla Español y Inglés, y solo cuesta trienta dolares,” Jesus me dijo.

“She speaks Spanish and English and only costs 30 dollars,” Jesus told me.

And even though era comprando amor para una noche, Jesus still dressed like it was his first date, and confessed to be just as nervous as he left work to go meet Mary Magdalene.

This entry was posted on Friday, November 17th, 2006 at 1:04 am and is filed under Research. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.