Dishwasher

My first job was washing dishes at the Black Eyed Pea. Naturally, it was hell. If an elite New York restaurant’s kitchen offers the ultimate challenge for an aspiring chef, a south Tulsa cafeteria dish pit is the Thermopylae Hot Gate for a dutiful dishwasher. But, it’s surprising the remarkable wealth of wisdom that can be found in one of the dirtiest, poorest paying jobs in America. Something essential in the crossing of any threshold requires a breaking of the self. Washing dishes became an opportunity to be broken, reborn and ultimately redefined.
Barely fifteen, I will never forget my first Sunday brunch in the dish pit of suburbia. Only a lifetime of childhood labor could’ve prepared me for what was about to come down that chute, which Alejandro—the regular dishwasher had, and I did not. Things started easy enough, some plastic drinking glasses, a bundle of silverware and a few stacks of plates—the calm before the storm. Suddenly, a skyline of plates emerged, followed closely by towers of plastic cups, multiple overflowing bus tubs of assorted dishes—butter laden ramekins, coffee cups stuffed with a hundred napkins each, and a monolith of commercial sized sheet pans from the kitchen caked with burnt residue. Within moments the dish pit became an unrecognizable heap of disaster. Simultaneously, demands began trickling in from all sides like the rain in my childhood tree house. “We gotta clear this dish window!” “We need plates!” “How’s that silver coming?” “Half pans, half pans!” The floor beneath my feet became unfathomable rolling waves of the sea, my thoughts their overwhelming hum.
When you look at that relentless mess in the dish pit one thing becomes irrevocably clear, attitude is absolutely critical. You must turn your face to the mess and accept that it is yours. But, not for too long because it’s not imperative that you take it all in, only, that you choose to believe it is a challenge of which you are capable—even if you don’t feel it. This is faith in its most essential form. Leaving the door open to possibility and telling yourself, ‘somehow there is a way,’ you can move into a vulnerable but open-minded state having a subtle sense that there is nothing to lose and everything to gain. Abandoning judgment and simply focusing on even the smallest vision of success you will begin to organize and prioritize problems in a uniquely effective way.
Given time, humility and the compassionate instruction of Alejandro the dish pit eventually taught me essential and perennial life lessons. First, organization is essential. Systems may vary but some basic concepts prevail. Identifying and ridding your immediate area of distraction is the crucial first step. A little less than half of what comes your way is simply waste—food, drink, straws, and napkins; be prepared for it. Scrape it. Dump it. Sling it—whatever. You will get wet and most likely smell rotten. This post is not for the squeamish. A clearer vision of your solution will emerge from your dish pit having eliminated the misleading and unnecessary. Rinse with absolutely scalding hot water. And, organize. Plates are stacked nearby, silver is tossed in a soaking tub and cups shelved in gridded dish pallet above. When you’ve maxed out the storage capacity for each item, run a load through the machine. For the most part all form of dishes have an appropriate dish pallet into which they are loaded. The machine washes two pallets at a time. And, ideally, it is in constant wash cycle, pausing only to be immediately reloaded with the next two full pallets. As you advance this entire process of organizing your pit becomes a seamless process, scraping with one hand while rinsing with the other.
Additionally, this is the time to be purged of such childlike conceptions as perfection and embrace its adult superior, excellence. Take care of the easy stuff first. You can’t get caught up trying to scrape a burnt pan or commercial mixing bowl the minute it’s dropped in front of you. Some dishes will not come completely clean on your shift or anyone’s shift for that matter. Don’t waste your precious energy. Give everything a good once over with the sprayer and possibly a quick scrub with a metallic scrubber and let the machine do the rest. Submit the stubborn dishes to a good soak. Soaking is a huge revelation in dish washing. Dropping that half pan cemented with peach cobbler into a soaking tub is nearly effortless and yet eloquently effective. Let the detergent do the hard part. Meanwhile, you can gather momentum from tackling a series of easier tasks. By the time the soaking dishes are ready you’ve, cleared out the clutter and established a confident stride. This momentum gives you an edge for unparalleled success.
Although feeling and looking like a castaway of the ocean’s wrath, somehow I survived the storm that Sunday brunch.  I teetered on the brink of quitting, but for reasons I am just beginning to understand, I stuck it out. Perhaps, it was the wisdom I found myself slowly accumulating the sense that this was a model in which to assay life’s challenges. I discovered in a very tangible way the requirement of presence, discipline and instead of demanding immediate answers to hard problems, I could give them over to the unconscious part of my mind and trust in time a solution to present itself. Some problems took years—a lifetime, maybe, to reach their present state and simply need to soak. As I said before there seems to be something essential in the crossing of any threshold which requires a breaking of the self. And, in those moments of chaos a new identity was forged within me. I became a student of life, a problem solver, a dishwasher.