All I Have to Give

Chapter 6

The smell of fresh Thai food filled the restaurant and Rachel stared blankly at the training video in the training room. She let out a long yawn at the tedious repetition of the company's waitressing etiquette. Most of what she was viewing seemed like common sense. After all her years of working in the food industry, she had pretty much encountered every possible scenario. She didn't see the purpose of having to watch this video. Rachel frowned as she leaned back in her chair, tapping her foot on the floor as she partially paid attention to the video while the other half of her brain became fixated with the random bump of melted plastic on the table. She nonchalantly slid her finger over the bump, tilting her head back to the TV as the training spokeswoman began to explain the importance of smiling while serving.

"No shit, Sherlock," she mumbled as she drew her attention back on the bump on the table, scratching at it a little harder.

Chuckling at the bad acting on the video, Rachel looked over her shoulder as the sound of the door opening grabbed her attention away from the TV screen. She shyly smiled as a tall, slender, brunette woman walked into the room. The woman returned the smile and placed her hands on her hips, chuckling at the video.

"Aren't these fun?" she joked.

"A blast," Rachel replied with a sarcastic snort. "How old are these things anyway? They're so corny."

"Judging by the random black lines flashing across the screen, I'm gonna say they're from the 70's."

"They need to create new ones," Rachel said with a laugh.

The woman nodded in agreement, smiling warmly at Rachel. "I'm Sarah," she said as she extended her hand out to her.

"Rachel," she replied as shook her hand.

"Nice to meet you," Sarah said sweetly. "As much fun are these things are, I'm sure you've seen enough of this crap," she said as she turned it off. "Ready for some real training?"

"Definitely," Rachel said as she stood up, smoothing the wrinkles out of her black slacks.

"Follow me. I'll show you around," Sarah said as she led her out of the room and into the kitchen. "This is the kitchen area. You'll very rarely be back here but once in a while you'll need to grab something for the dining area or a customer with a special request. You'll learn your way around here as time goes on," she stated as she waved her arms in the area. "Let's move to the dining area."

Rachel followed behind Sarah and tugged on her white shirt, assuring that it was on straight. Sarah stopped to pick up a big, gray, plastic container. She turned around and placed it on top of a table. Rachel glanced inside the container and saw that it had four compartments. One for forks, knives, and spoons. The last compartment was filled with napkins.

"Every day when you clock on, you'll come over here and grab this container. You'll start your shift by setting up silverware," she said as she laid out some silverware and napkins. "It's really simple. You just put the knife, fork, and spoon together and wrap the napkin tightly around them. You'll put one of these paper napkin rings around it and set it aside," she said as she demonstrated on the bundle in her hand, securing the paper napkin ring in place.

"Sounds easy enough," Rachel nodded confiendely.

"It's pretty simple," Sarah said with a smile. "Sometimes it's tedious work, but it sure makes the time go by faster when you're here before 9:00, which is when we open. We do this three times a day. Before opening, after lunch, and again before we close. The best time to do this at night is around 7:00, after the dinner rush," Sarah said as she set the silverware down. "We can finish this later. I have a whole container already prepared for the dinner rush," she continued as she turned around in the direction of the tables. "Okay, so let me show you your training zone before we continue with the silverware.