There is a threshold for human productivity, a maximum at which it is impossible to push beyond and remain a human. For some this point means total operational success, the greased barring, the ball and pinion or the Maytag refrigerator point. It is a point at which one moves with out thought, resistance or warmth. Think about your first boss, or your drill sergeant, think about the parallels between godliness and cleanliness; imagine the thickness of lady justice blindfold. We would like to invasion the mountain of perfection as a plateau, that if we work hard enough, we would never have to wash our hands or alphabetize paychecks again. But the mountain is more like Olympus; our humanity is made of wax and Cirrus feathers. Make people work as though they are not people and they will melt. There is a threshold for human productivity; it is the balance between how few bodies are needed to produce the most amounts of functioning, marketable products at the fastest rate. My functioning product is a dining experience; a meal, an impeccably pressed shirt, orange chicken that is at the same time soft, chewy, crunchy, and hot, a bottomless glass of fresh brewed mango iced tea, a non-judgmental but interested glaze as I recite a desert list. I must function at the threshold of friendliness, the maximum point of efficient hospitable warmth for the most amounts of people as quickly as I possibly can. I am a waiter. The main principle behind restaurant management is to keep your staff fully occupied at all times. I know that this sounds obvious but if you have ever gone to eat an empty diner between the hours of 2 and 5pm and received terrible service this is why. It is not because you have an incompetent server, rather, a competent manager. As lunch business descends so does the ability to keep the full staff at the push point. The manager then assesses the staff as though the restaurant were a sinking ship. The manager (the captain) must decide who is most vital for survival (the head server) throwing everything else (less competent staff) overboard. The industry term is "making cuts." It's like an old fashion bloodletting. The heart of the body (the head server) now is forced to maintain the "push point" pumping faster and faster while simultaneously leaking vital fluid until utter exhaustion. At 5pm the sutures (night staff) are applied. The industry term for the first night server is "the relief." If this process goes smoothly no one notices. The head server, excited by the challenge and his sympathetic nervous system, is flooded with adrenaline then takes on every table in the restaurant working closer and closer to the human/productivity threshold. The worst case scenario is of course that the server is pushed past the threshold and is less (or more) than human with a costumer. The manager then has to recoup the cost of that costumer's satisfaction and balance that monetary amount against the labor cost of having had one more server (making less "cuts") during this time. If the monetary value of the costumers satisfaction is a free scoop of mango sorbet and a white chocolate dipped fortune cookie (costing the manager less that a dollar) than making excessive cuts prematurely was a success and this behavior will be repeated. If the costumer wants more then this behavior will still be repeated, however next time the manager will assign a different head server. A heart with a higher threshold. I am a head server. The problem? I am human; every one of us has a push point at which our pride, our mothers and our muscles tell us we must stop. My arms are not sprockets, my teeth are not steel. Beneath it all there lies something soft and safe, something thats intrinsic worth is immeasurable. Behind muscle there is blood, behind bone there is marrow. There are memories of fathers warm reassurance that, "Yeah Im fucking worth it." Beautiful if for nothing else than when pushed past the threshold, we all fall down, drunk on humanity and anxiety thrown into the gutter with the weak and the lovers. People be compassionate and tip graciously, its only human.