Rhythm in Work

A facebook friend just tagged a dead man in one of my photos. I didn't even know of his existence, or that I had "seen" him without really seeing him before. But there he was in my photo-- two of my photos actually--, and now he has passed on after his body was hit by a car a couple days ago. Strange feelings abound. I memorialized a man with my camera. Just coming out of a photography moratorium, I am driven once more to pursue this line of work/art.

Work is wonderful. There are moments when customers get on my nerves, but for the most part, I consider myself lucky to be behind that bar. It's getting busier and busier as the season progresses into winter, so it's good that I am getting better and better at hitting a stride with my regular weekend co-worker. Last week, during a very busy shift, I was facing the machine pulling shots when suddenly I heard a woman's voice behind me say "It's like a ballet!" This made me look up and come out of a "zone" that I hadn't even realized I'd been in until that moment. I saw that we were being watched like performers on a stage by our customers as they waited for their drinks. Apart from the usual compliments about our coffee and service, this had to be my favorite customer comment of all time. Rather than a ballet, working behind the bar when it is super busy can feel like being on a swing. The rhythm of teamwork is tangible. It is the presence of rhythm in a given process that makes it comparable to an art like dance or music.

It occurred to me later that night that the entire process of working behind the bar at LC is a creation from nothing. There was no absolute rule that governed the process of making and serving coffee; no rule that placed one at the register and the other at the machines; no rule that governed how to deal with dirty dishes and spoons; no rule that detailed how the person at the register was supposed to assist the person at the machines and vice versa, and when. And so on. Nothing had to be the way it was, but because of the way the machines and other equipment were set up, and the given roles and the way the roles were trained to interact, a process was created that eventually came to be regarded as a dance by one customer.