Just Like Mona Lisa

I had a little car trouble last night. I am driving a new (to me) 1992 Hyundai Excel and I forgot to turn the lights off when I parked it for my day job. So when I got back after work, the battery was dead. I called my store to tell them I would be late, called AAA, but eventually I got a jump-start from a La Quinta Inn shuttle van. Tipped them $4, it was all I had in my wallet at the time.

And yes, I called back and cancelled the AAA call. (They had said it may be up to 90 minutes).

So I got to work about a half hour late. I worked about 5.5 hours (4.5 driving), drove 39 miles on 12 deliveries, and made $31 in tips. This was boosted by a $10 triple-run, 3 orders called in within the last 10 minutes before we closed. All in all a pretty profitable night.

But the topic of this post is my new friend Mona. Mona was a cook at another restaurant in our franchise that recently closed (due to a bad location on the wrong side of the local mall). She got transferred over to our store about 2 weeks ago, and she is awesome. I haven't met anyone named Mona before so when she told me her name I asked how to spell it. She said "M O N A, just like Mona Lisa."

Mona has worked for our franchise for almost 23 years. She is 70 years old. And she does more work than any other 2 workers combined, maybe even 3. She never stands still, if she doesn't have anything to do she will find something to clean. It may not even be something in her area, but she will work on it anyways. Mona obviosly takes great pride in her work.

Last night while I was out on my last 3 deliveries, Mona finished up most of the dishes. Then while I was doing the very last of the dishes and cleaning the sinks, Mona swept and mopped the area that I was responsible for.

While we were waiting for the manager to finish closing up the registers, I jokingly asked Mona how long they were going to make her work there before they made her the boss.

"Until the day I die" Mona replied. "They tried making me a manager at the other place but it didn't work out"

"Some people are too good at working to be the boss," I told her. "It would be a waste to have you standing around telling people what to do."

She laughed and said, sarcastically, "I can see me standing around."

Mona is a great asset to our restaurant and I hope to work with her more often.