Episode 68: Tim talks about his time running food in Boston and describes the thickening of his accent to ingratiate himself with the locals.
~
The building housing the restaurant I worked at was previously a saddle and bridle store, they also sold other leather goods having to do with horses, whatever other leather goods there are to do with horses, but only saddle and bridle made it into the store’s name. Apparently it took until 2013 for the owner of said saddle and bridle store to realize that most people had given up trotting about on something that shits in favor of an unfeeling machine. What took the owner so long to accept societies change in preference, I’m not sure. Maybe he or she never went outside or even glanced outside, instead just toiling away in blissful ignorance. Or maybe the owner was in denial. “People like horses,” perhaps the owner said. “They might not know it, but they do, they like horses. It won’t be long now before they realize they can’t have a relationship with their car they way they can with a horse, and they’ll want to return to horses. Just you wait. Then we’ll be back in business. Then everyone will need saddles again. Saddles and bridles and other leather goods pertaining to horses.”
For simplicities sake, let’s say the restaurant I ended up working in, the restaurant that took over the building from the saddle and bridle store, that also sold other leather goods pertaining to horses, let’s call this restaurant The Taproom. This is not the name, of course, but I don’t want anything coming back to bite me.
Management of The Taproom conducted open interviews in an Irish Pub, as the building The Taproom would be located in had not yet finished its transformation. Turns out hundreds of years of bridle making creates quite a mess. The open interviews were advertised on Craigslist, which of course brought the creme de la creme of the Boston area to the specified location. I stood in line with a whole bunch of other schmucks who also had such little offer society that the only way they could get an interview was when the hiring process didn’t have a strainer to deter the worst of the dregs. Some of the applicants got drunk while waiting for their turn conversing with potential future bosses. Surprisingly these fine fellows did not end up employed.
~
If you enjoy westerns like True Grit or The Ballad of Buster Scruggs, check out Tim’s western novel, Dust, available on Amazon in eBook form in addition to being read on the podcast.
For more, visit timdrugan.com.