Familia

At the age of ten I was recruited to be a busboy at my family's first restaurant. Since then restaurant life has meant family to me. 

Three years after leaving the family business I find myself at this current restaurant thinking these people are like my family.  I really do appreciate and have come to care about a few of them very much.  And as crazy as it may sound I believe they care about me too. 

This morning I worked my "real" job where I trained seven new recruits. Part of the training involved welcoming them and telling them that they were now a part of our "family" there.  I've done this same training a dozen times in the past 10 months and I never paused when I read this before. I practically stuttered, because I knew it to not be the truth as I know it could be. 

I enjoy that job. It pays pretty well and the benefits are excellent, but I truly love the people at my "night" job and look forward to seeing them moreso than the people at my day job, and I think it has to do with the fact that I hold more than a couple of them close to my heart. 

And I'll tell you (I've got to learn to write more succinctly, I know), i don't think I'm a very good server. There are co-workers whom I think are as good as me if not better, yet I continually get larger tables and they get smaller ones. I don't understand it, but I accept it and I appreciate it. And I will be the first to tell you I f*ck up every now and again and I admit it to management, yet they continue to not punish me the way they do others.  

For that and for the friendships I've made and for the new family I have I am grateful.