of canning people, thus saving my master money. Every day I'd wake up,
lounge around in bed for a while, come in to work—where service was
already on automatic full swing—and look around for someone to fire. I
had, really, no other responsibility. Supplies were ordered by a steward.
The cooks served the food, the same way they'd always done. Expediting
was done by committee (although I did it now and then). I scheduled,
hired and fired, and as we were greatly overstaffed, it was mostly the
latter.
But I was not happy in my work.
Every day, having to look in some desperate cookie's eyes and tell him
"No más trabajo aquí . . ." was taking a toll. Especially when they'd ask
why. White boys were no problem; I could bang those goofballs out all
day. They knew anyway, they'd been expecting it, amazed that they
hadn't been canned earlier. But the Mexicans and Ecuadorians and
Salvadorians and Latinos, who'd look at me with moist eyes as they
realized that there'd be no check next week or the week after—when they
asked that terrible question, "Porqué? Why, Chef? No work for me?" as
if maybe they'd heard wrong—this was really grinding me down, tearing
at what was left of my conscience. Every day, I'd stay in bed later and
later, paralyzed with guilt and self-loathing, hoping that if I stayed in
bed a little later, showed up a little later, maybe, just maybe, it would be
me that got fired this time—that I wouldn't have to do this anymore, that
this whole terrible business would end.
It didn't. Things only got worse. Pleased by my cost-cutting, the Shadow
and his minions urged me on to even greater efforts. When I finally had
to start messing around with some loyalists' schedules, giving them split
shifts for no additional money, and I saw the terrible look of betrayal in
their eyes—guys who'd come up with me, some Egyptian cooks I'd
trained from dishwasher—I could take no more. One day I simply turned
to the GM and said, "I quit," and it was over.