The Shoulds
When I met people at parties or social gatherings, and they discovered that I worked in the family restaurant, one of the many questions they asked, if not the first, was what I did at the café. It was a fair question, because, as the owner's son, I could have done anything. I could have been another busser or runner, possibly a manager, or even the head tequila taster.
On a more serious note, I used to struggle when people asked that question. Contrary to what many might think, working in the family business isn't straightforward. I wasn't the owner or a regular employee. What I did varied. When I was younger and free of grown-up responsibility, my tasks were mostly physical and in the face of customers. As I got older, I gradually took on more administrative duties. And if I may add, administrative work is the pits of restaurant work, the pits of any job, really. More than drinking or smoking or staying out late at night, nothing will age a young soul faster than the tedium of a spreadsheet.
I yearn to be young and spreadsheet-free again. That is, for the most part, because there's one thing I don't miss about being a young owner's son, not even in the slightest. And that's the shoulds.
The staff don't get the shoulds. They have little say in how the business operates. The owner, Mom, had a say in the business, but very few individuals had the cojones to give her the shoulds treatment. As the still-young son of the owner, I was the bouncer who got all the shoulds — shoulds that should have fallen on Mom and the workers landed squarely on me.
Say a customer walks in, grabs a menu and scans it up and down, turns it around and around again, looking for something he can't find. Finally, he looks up at me, "I see chicken enchiladas, but I don't see beef enchiladas."
"We only serve chicken enchiladas and cheese enchiladas."
"No beef enchiladas?" The split on his brow deepens. "What kind of Mexican restaurant is this?"
"Sorry about that. We mostly focus on chicken dishes."
"Y'all should consider serving beef enchiladas, y'all'd make more money." And just like that, I was hit with a should and a would, a classic one-two combination like a prizefighter following his jab with a hook or a cross. One two, jab cross, should, would.
Or the lady asking about menudo. "You don't make menudo?"
"No, we only have caldo de pollo."
"Not even on the weekends?"
"Sorry."
"You should add menudo to your menu. It's hard to find a good menudo around here."
"No mezcal? You'd kill it if you added a mezcal-rita." Should.
"No crunchy tacos?" Another should.
The shoulds don't come from callousness or a place of ill intention. On the contrary, they often come from people who mean well. Which somehow made them worse. As the saying goes, the road to hell is paved with good intentions. And if I may add, a road laid with one should at a time.
From the customer's perspective, giving the shoulds to the owner's son made total sense. However, as the owner's young son, I couldn't act on the shoulds. I lacked the power and authority to execute their suggestions. That's the thing about being the owner's son. Before taking on managerial and administrative duties, the son has to put in his time learning the ropes of the business, bouncing and checking the shoulds at the door. It isn't until much later, if ever, that the owner’s kin is granted the authority to make business decisions. And again, because it begs to be stated once more: if ever.
One night after closing, I went down the street to a beer garden to meet up with some friends. After grabbing a pint at the bar, I went outside to look for them. I saw them across the patio, and I walked towards them. Halfway down, I heard someone call out my name. "Julio." I looked over. It was the young couple from two doors down. They’d just opened a cheese shop and were the newest addition to the corner. I stopped and said hello. As we chatted, one of them said, "Julio, y'all should totally…" something something. I can't remember what the should was, only that there was a should. Immediately after the should was stated, the non-should-er gently reminded the should-er how much they disliked hearing the shoulds from other people. As if to say, "Babe, you shouldn't say should."
To my surprise, these two were founders and owners of a business, yet they also got the shoulds. It wasn't just me. More than likely, Mom and Aunt Bobbie must get the shoulds, too. And back in the day, Papá must have gotten them. However, I think it's safe to assume they didn't get the same concentration of shoulds I did. I say this because as I've gotten older, the shoulds have diminished as if it were indirectly correlated with age. The older you were, the fewer shoulds you received.
I don't miss being bombarded by shoulds. I'll swap them out for the rows and columns of a spreadsheet any day. Take the señora that recently came in. She scanned the menu and asked if we served caldo de res, beef soup. "We only have caldo de pollo. It's really popular, though." She looked at the menu for just a few seconds longer. "I'm really craving caldo de res. I'll come back when I want the pollo." She returned the menu, turned around, and left.
On the surface her action seemed harsh, but not that bad either. Not for an adult, at least. Rejection seems fair and natural, leaps and bounds better than the señora dishing out a should.
