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I got the job without even trying. Within hours of submitting an online application, I had an interview with a man named Ray.
He was the second Ray I’d ever met, and together the two Rays formed a Ray archetype in my mind: awkward in appearance but earnest in heart. Both of the Rays were all length and no width. And both wore baggy button-down shirts tucked into slacks that hung on their tiny hips with the aid of a belt.
The first Ray was dressed this way because he was a kid in a private school with a strict dress code. The second Ray was dressed this way because he was the manager of an Applebee’s.
Second Ray sat across from me at a high-top table, slouching over the paperwork he had printed out from my online application. It was an afternoon in the late spring, and the sun tried its best to bring some cheer into the outdated dining room. It snuck through dusty windows, highlighting Second Ray’s lilac shirt against the patterned carpet.
Even as I confessed that I’d never waited tables before, I could sense that this job was mine if I wanted it. Second Ray worked his way through the interview questions with a touch of urgency, and received all of my answers with detachment. He didn’t care that I had no experience. He had no follow up questions after I over-justified my decision to return to my hometown rather than attend my second year of college in Cincinnati. Every time he acknowledged a response, his hunched spine bounced in a sort of full-body bop-nod that I came to recognize as characteristically Second Ray.
By the end of the interview, I was laying out my availability and making plans to buy black slacks and a matching button-down.
In every job I’ve ever had I have been wary of fully committing. I fear that in going all in I’ll lose the ability to someday pull back out. That my identity will become too deeply entwined with my source of income, and I’ll never be able to redefine it if I want to. I’ve always kept one foot out the door, and as such that foot has never been properly dressed for a slippery work environment.
Spending $60 on non-slip shoes was not how I felt like celebrating my newfound independence. I was a 19 year old trying to pay my own rent, not an adult trying to set myself up for success.
Ahead of my first shift, I made stops at Goodwill and Walmart looking for the necessary black pieces for my uniform. I managed to find workable slacks and button-downs, and purchased a $10 pair of black garden clogs from Walmart.
Sartorial standards at this particular Applebee’s were not high. Many of my new co-workers wore baggy shirts that plumed out of the top of their pants like a black parachute. Those that made practical shoe decisions (everyone but me) were getting their arch support from hideous, ill-proportioned sneakers. This was before the dawn of stylish non-slip options. And before the clunkiness of a dad sneaker had been appropriated by the fashion-forward.
Had the non-slip landscape been different, maybe I would have invested. As it were, I spent every shift at risk of breaking my bones. Baskets of half-price appetizers stacked up one arm, and a side salad in my other hand, I would skid across the wet tiles in the kitchen, miraculously remaining upright every time. This practice paid off later when I joined a roller derby team.
Working at Applebee’s taught me balance—but only the physical kind. Work-life, not so much. The corporate overloads implemented their petty rules with no concern for employee well-being. We had to clock out to eat, but we had to close all of our tables to clock out, but we could only close off our section if a manager declared it slow enough. If you went by the books, the process of eating a meal in the middle of a double shift was so clumsy and impractical that it never happened. I took to hoarding snacks in my apron, which earned me the nickname “Squirrel.”
As my first summer at Applebee’s came to a close, we were asked to attend a mandatory servers meeting at which I received some devastating news: the 2009 football season was about to begin. We’d be showing all the games in the dining room. All of the servers would have to wear football jerseys on the weekends.
Once again I strongly resisted spending any money on a piece of unattractive work uniform. While my co-workers clocked in wearing properly sized jerseys from their favorite teams, I worked my first NFL weekend in a large Bengals jersey that hit me mid-thigh. It was the cheapest jersey that my mother could find, because I put up such a fuss about it that she ran out to T.J. Maxx on my behalf and bought it for me.
I’m as proud of that detail as I was of the jersey itself. I’d wait to put it on until I was within the dimly lit walls of Applebee’s. The whole getup was absurd. The proportions of my giant jersey juxtaposed clownishly with my too-short pants and my clumpy clogs. My black apron, bulging with snacks, accentuated my waistline within the jersey swathe.
I was #84. This number belonged to T.J. Houshmandzadeh, a wide receiver who played for the Bengals between 2001 and 2008. I didn’t care.
You know who did care about my expired jersey? Lots of football fans, many of them dining and drinking at their neighborhood Applebee’s. At least once or twice a shift, a man would say to me disapprovingly, “You know he don’t play for the Bengals anymore?” And he would scrunch up his face like he smelled something bad, or shake his head in disgusted disbelief as though I were the problem with America.
Working at Applebee’s taught me that if you want to learn about football, you can just put on a jersey and wait for men to tell you things. I received lots of information about how the Bengals were doing that season, and about this player in particular.
Day one of wearing the jersey, I learned that his nickname is “Housh.” By the second weekend of football season, half of my co-workers were calling me “Housh,” too. One bro-ey guy in particular started it. He’d stand there in his Dallas Cowboys uniform, holding out a plate of food for me to run. “Here ya go, Housh, table 23,” he’d say, smirking like a cheap knock-off Matthew McConaughey.
In the dizzying bustle of the florescent-lit kitchen, I kind of liked it.
Nothing dignified could ever happen in this particular work uniform. And when something embarrassing happened while wearing it, the uniform made it worse. It added an air of demeaning absurdity to every shift.
One afternoon, I arrived at my dinner shift to find a new manager holding a staff meeting. She had us all stand in a line and examined our appearances. Were we fit to do right by the Applebee’s name and reputation?
She was happy with the jerseys, the faded black pants, the gelled hairs. But when she saw my fingernails and the remains of a long-chipped, dark purple manicure, she was aghast. She sent me off to Target to buy nail polish remover before I was allowed to start my shift. Something about old nail polish really disrupted the aesthetic of the football uniforms for her.
When Second Ray pulled me aside for a six-month check-in, I was wearing my Housh jersey. He sat me down at the same high top where we’d had our interview earlier in the year. This time, his shirt was a pastel orange and had a red stain (Ketchup? Thousand island?) on the sleeve. We both sat hunched in our ill-fitting clothes while Lady Antebellum played over the speakers.
He asked me how it had been going and did his full-body bop-nod of encouragement. “Seems like you’re getting the hang of it,” he said, bouncing up and down. “The only note I have is just,” he paused. “You don’t seem to have a lot of personality.” He landed into a moment of hunched stasis. His big eyes looked at me, #84. “Just try to amp that up a little bit,” he said, and walked away from the high top table.
When I got home from work that night, I lingered in the car, thinking about Second Ray and his condiment stain, about the state of my nails, the size of my jersey, and the overall impression I must be making on the hungry people of Springfield, Ohio.
Inside, I threw my jersey onto a dirty pile of laundry, and for the first time I wondered about Houshmandzadeh. What would he think about me sliding around the Applebee’s kitchen dressed like his past? Would he find it offensive, the way Second Ray did, when I listed out the drink options with zero enthusiasm for the flavored lemonades and Coors Light special?
As a player, Houshmandzadeh has been called both under- and overrated. As a Housh, I could relate. Everyone has their own narrative. One person’s enthusiastic server is another’s overbearing waitress. What was the point of trying to find a one-size-fits-all personality in a world of critics? The best I could do was don my jersey as needed and fumble my way through the night, weekend after weekend, until a better offer came along.