Lunch, one of our older regulars with a few friends from the ranch, famous for his donations to the U of C, SAIT, large donations, multi-million dollar donations, more I don't know about, they're talking politics, coming up with a new political party for Alberta that represents their interests, getting drunk...
Evening, quiet, all nights now, more or less, are quiet. One regular, expected, with his wife, he runs a couple of charitable foundations in the city, his name is well known despite a generally cultivated appearance of homelessness. I'd tried to fob off the fringed coat on him last week, it suited him, completed his wild-west Deadwood style, with the cowboy hat and the long grey hair and beard he looked for all the world like an outlaw out for bounty or revenge...
Not for profit of course, but I'm a firm believer in the fact that things belong with whoever will most appreciate them. And me, I'll wear the coat maybe a dozen times a year. Him, he'd wear it every day, and it would look a hell of a lot better on him than it does on me...
He'd declined, the coat, big as it was on me, didn't do up on him, but we snapped a couple of pictures on his phone. Tonight, with his wife, he's asking about the coat, where I got it, he's been brooding, he liked it, a lot, so did his wife, but it didn't quite fit, it was an expensive coat, and I promise to keep my eyes peeled for another...
The night passes, another couple of regulars, in their 80's, I know them by name, they're drunk and friendly and - after 7 years, begin to ask about me. I'm vague, nothing to say really, me is always a good way though to start a conversation about you, and they tell me about themselves.
I should have known. Really. Other customers recognized, them, treated them with some deference, to me, like so many others (which later I would Google and discover were big in the city, the movers, the shakers, the owners) - they prove to be large scale philanthropists, the arts, parks to the provincial government, donations here and there, a million or so to this theatre, quarter million to another...they are big league. They're telling me this, all the while underlining the fact they don't want to appear as if they're blowing their own horn (...) - and I fact check it later, when they've left, they were blowing it, for sure, but they're big players as well, big Sponsors of worthy causes in Calgary, perhaps they're drawing me out because of my perceived indifference, they drop names, friends, political figures, a couple I know, dislike, immensely, but I shouldn't hold this against them, they are pleasant enough and clearly concerned with giving back...
A lot of our customers hate me. Not as extreme as the other waiters, but I'm pretty egalitarian, I'm the classic socialist waiter, no matter who you are I treat you with the same indifference. You're a customer, yes, thank-you, but don't pretend I should know you because I probably don't, I'm immune to the convention of grovelling before power and money, these things mean nothing to me...some of the customers get this, they appreciate it, others, the entitled, don't. If you're a politician, chances are you want to be recognized, want me to applaud your celebrity, probably I won't, most likely I'll despise your politics and conceal my contempt beneath a thin veil of politeness...
I hate my job. Doing this, I'm denying my ability to be any other - the schedule, commitment, it overwhelms me, it's too much. And I bitch - too much - about our customers, the entitlement of the few, which I have to pander to. But not all our customers are bad, indeed, very few, unfortunate that the assholes make such an impression. So this once I'll recognize - anon - as always (no names, but you know who you are) -the Philanthropists.