I was hungry. Very hungry.
So I started the sometimes long and arduous process of deciding what I wanted to eat.
Sure that there was nothing in my fridge or pantry that would satisfy my hunger, I hopped in my care and went to a neighborhood called Westport.
Westport has all sorts of food. It’s got chains and pubs and family restaurants and even a food truck or two. There had to be something there that would catch my eye.
After circling the place a couple times, my stomach finally made a decision: Chinese food.
I had never been inside this particular restaurant before. It was small. Family-owned. The type of place that sold cans of soda and bottles of water out of a mini-fridge by the front counter for $2. You’d have to walk past the front counter and down a hallway to reach the seating.
There was nobody at the front counter when I walked in.
I could hear voices speaking in Mandarin down the hall, and I heard pots and pans clanking together in the kitchen. I wondered how long I’d have to wait.
My stomach was getting impatient.
That’s when I met him.
Just as I was about to walk out, he scurried down the hallway and slid behind the front counter.
There was a woman in line in front of me.
“How may I help you?” he asked her. She needed more “red” sauce. He dropped a small handful of sweet and sour sauce into her hand, flashed her a faint smile, and sent her on her way.
I was next.
“How may I help you?” he asked me. He moved at a thousand miles an hour. Everything he did was swift and precise. And I was moving at a much slower pace than he was.
I needed a second to look over the menu.
While I was looking over the menu, another lady walked in to pick up an order. She was on the phone. He didn’t mind. He rung her up in less than 10 seconds. His fingers flew across the keyboard that tallied up her total. He wrote down some notes on a manual receipt for his books. He typed things and wrote things and tore things.
And he didn’t mess up, not even once.
He attacked his work.
I couldn’t help but notice how he approached his work.
He attacked it. He took each movement seriously, from tearing off the paper tickets to laying the pen down for you to sign the receipt. He did everything passionately.
It was inspiring.
This guy runs a hole-in-the-wall Chinese restaurant as if his life depended on each meal. Maybe it did. I couldn’t help but be motivated to do the same with my work.
A little woman slipped out from the kitchen and slid some new food onto the front counter. The man double-checked the food inside, matched it up to the order tickets, then taped the ticket to the outside of the bag.
He spun around to me and tied the handles of the plastic bag into a perfect bow.
“Have a great day, and see us again!” he said.
He flashed his faint smile, then scurried off the same way he scurried in.
“I will,” I said. And I meant it.
That’s what a great work ethic can do to customers.
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Photo: Flickr/Gabriel Saldana