Seedling 2: Good Luck
Mike’s email arrived before I’d even gotten back to the flat. Confirmation, arrival time, duration, what to bring(“don’t forget your passport”), and another mention of the “uniform” with assurance that he had just been in a meeting that day where they’d “discussed the issue”. I guess at this point I figured there might be something I was missing, something worth researching.
A quick internet search, images. Didn’t take long - Seedling was getting a good bit of press. The uniform? OK, It was odd. Stripey sailor shirts, a white button-up jacket with mandarin collar and white drawstring trousers. Needless to say, I had a few concerns about my ability to keep it clean when opening red wine all night, but could it really be worse than the red-striped bookie shirt, braces and twenty-one items of flair I had to wear at T.G.I. Friday’s? I looked like a rodeo clown and smelled like mozzarella sticks. Again, like I said, there was little I wouldn’t do and little you could do to me that I couldn’t weather. No worries, Mike.
Thursday was bright, sunny and crisp, and I rolled up to Seedling with a spring in my step and unbridled optimism. The painted lady at reception offered to call Mike to collect me, but Hannah, a lovely blonde Brit with a wide smile said she’d bring me through. She was wearing a rather dour, forest green skirt and matching shirt – I didn’t know what it meant, but she wasn’t a waiter and not part of reception. The top was fitted with gold zippers running up each side of the torso, tight, bowed short sleeves and a v-neck front. The skirt, flared just below the knees. Hannah was bare-legged down to chunky, black parochial shoes. It was somewhere between school marm and Amish, but if anyone could make it work, it would have to be Hannah. She was a trim and shapely girl, and bounced along, confident in her skin.
As we moved through the dining room, Hannah pointed out different staff – literally, pointing at them while they carried out opening duties – and said each of their names.
Pointing – “Marcos”
Pointing – “Natalia”
Pointing – “Vera”
Pointing – “Vassily”
Hannah didn’t pause, just kept on smiling and trotting on with a bit of a cant, almost as if she had been an athlete or a show pony, or both. I nodded and smiled with each “introduction”, but by the time we got to the kitchen line it was all a blur. ‘Course, this being the kitchen, they didn’t give a fuck who I was, anyways.
At this first exit it became apparent why an escort was needed. Each door between each department was secured by a fob and could only be activated by Seedling employees outfitted with photo ID cards.
This door by the pass opened onto a massive spiral staircase that linked internal floors. You instantly knew it was the equivalent of a “freight lift” by the general disrepair and lack of foot traffic. Hannah skipped down the two flights and two landings that brought us to the level directly below the dining room. She fobbed us in and delivered me outside a glass-fronted office.
“So, you have wardrobes, here, but these are for management. Up these steps, lockers, and ladies and mens changing rooms, toilets, as you do. Let me just see...”
She opened the glass door and peeked in - as if you couldn’t already see through glass, in the first place. Mike was chatting with an older woman and Hannah seemed nervous at the idea of interrupting. Mike slowly spun his chair in her direction, his head arriving last, still engaged with the older woman. When he looked at Hannah she said “there is a Paul here for his trial”. Mike nodded and Hannah stepped back out.
“I’ve got to go upstairs and look at the linen counts, but Mike will be right with you. Really nice meeting you!”
I half expected her to point at my forehead when she said ‘you’, but instead she did this vaguely Japanese style nod or bow and then fobbed herself back out into the echoing stairwell.
Alone in the hallway, I was feeling quite out of place. There was a prep kitchen to the left, fob-secured, of course. Tinny music poured out of a little boombox, and that was reassuring. That’s stock restaurant grade ambience. And then a few employees started racing in, placing their hands on a scannable time clock and looking nervously at their watches. They nodded at me quizzically as they went up to the locker area and began chatting away in Italian, maybe about the gym, flexing, comparing abs. I mean, I’m guessing the gym. Right?
I then caught Mike out of the corner of my eye. He’d stood and was waving me into the office. The older woman had rolled her chair back to a far corner and was hammering out some sort of deal over the phone. It sounds stupid, now, but I was nervous about going in. I didn’t even feel like I was allowed in. It was all a new build, yes, but it was about as sleek and decked out as any restaurant I’d ever seen. Actually, take that back – I had never, ever seen a restaurant office space this large, fitted and stylish. Never.
“OK,” Mike began. “Just need you to fill out this trial shift agreement, we’ll do a copy of your passport, and then, of course, you just need to get suited up. What shoe size are you, again?”
What shoe size am I?
“41, 42”. Mike looked at me with that narrow-eyed quizzical look and I volunteered “eight, maybe”.
Mike told me to take a seat and then grabbed a key out of a lockbox and disappeared out and into the stairwell. The “buzz” of the fob marked his exit and another buzz marked an entrance, and another entrance and another. I was filling out my contact details on the trial sheet when I felt the door open behind me. Looking up, I expected Mike - but it was the chef. I recognised her right away from the research I’d done after my interview. Magazine features, chat programs, book launches, Michelin guide – she’d done the rounds. She looked rushed but fresh for the day, dropping her keys and bag onto the one desktop that had no computer. Then she paused and her eyes scanned the office. She walked to Mike’s desk, took the pale pink chair and replaced it with the amber chair from her side of the room. Save colour, they were identical. She took off her cardigan, turned to the clothes rack and then noticed me.
“Oh, hello there. I’m Melody”. This seemed an unfortunate name considering the nasal quack of her voice.
I stood. “Hi, I’m Paul”.
“Paul, are you here for a trial?”
“Yes, sommelier”.
“Sommelier?”
I was puzzled by the puzzlement in her response. There was a slight pause but I responded in the affirmative.
“Yes, sommelier”.
“Well,” she rejoined “good luck”.
The chef returned to her desktop station and immediately started scrolling through her mobile. I went back to my paperwork. But, our brief interaction had me slightly unnerved. I sensed there was something I was missing, here. This is just a restaurant job, right? What am I missing?
“Good luck,” indeed.
HOME next Seedling 3: the Trial Begins