One Turned Back-The Cow-A Grateful Remembrance of Sirloin Stockade and Mr. Carver

Truth be told, I got the job because of Patrick, Jamie, and Adam, but afterwards Mr. Carver announced I had done a good job in the interview. Being a salad bar attendant was my first real job, I remember being taught to pile the ingredients in the bowl like it was a table of plenty and place the tongs on the same side of the bowl all down the line. When it was all neat and untouched it did look a little like a thanksgiving feast, but that never lasting long before 30 little leaguers would come and scatter pieces of cheese and fling globs of dressing onto the sneeze shield. I remember I would get really frustrated when a manager would come up after a wave of people and tell me that the bar looked awful.

There were times it was so busy I would carry 10 bins of food at a time, trying to keep the bar filled and cleaned. I remember one time, I entered into the walk-in-refrigerator to gather food and I pushed the top and bottom of the pile so tightly that one in the middle popped out. It was cheese cubes and it landed right on Mr. Carver’s feet. He shook his head sadly at me and said, “Seven cents a cube Liz; seven cents a cube.” I had to learn to take things a little slower, or I would make more work for myself.

At the end of the day, I would have to squeegee out the bottom of the salad bar. In order to do this effectively you had to remove the food, bend your head under the sneeze guard, and snake your hand into these little circles. Blue cheese dressing, beet juice, and boiled eggs would mingle together and create a cacophony of smells. We called it the Sirloin Funk. It was the smell of oil, thousand island dressing, soap, and onions that came from working with the vast array of food. It was the strongest in the dish room where plates of uneaten food would be scrapped and dumped, but I noticed it most riding home from work when the smell would pervade the enclosed car.

I wasn’t stellar at any one job, but I was versatile. I was at times baker, cashier, hostess, and salad bar attendant. I wasn’t great at any of them but I was a hard worker, so I learned to proof rolls, smash ice, ice cakes, and take orders. I made so many mistakes and costs Mr. Carver quite a bit of money with my haste, but other than the muttered “seven cents a cube” he didn’t yell at me.

Over the past 12 years, I have watched my husband and his family own the business. As I have watched, I have come to appreciate Mr. Carver greatly. He was a much better and gracious boss than I understood at the time. He gave so many kids their first job and patiently dealt with our sophomoric frivolity. He let me take time off to run in cross country meets, attend church, and go on youth group trips. Now that I’ve seen how schedules are made, I understand how irritating it must have been to accommodate so many requests.

Seventeen years after I stopped working for Mr. Carver, I brought my children to eat at Sirloin. He still knew my name and asked me how my brother was. A young man was carrying a chair for a waitress. Without thinking he had placed it on his head and walked right through a light fixture, about eight globes and lights shattered. Glass littered onto the dessert bar. It sounded like money down the drain. Mr. Carver’s face tensed, but he didn’t yell (at least not on the floor). Instead, he got up and helped change out all the puddings and desserts on the dessert bar. I was really impressed with the professionalism that Mr. Carver displayed that day.

I learned many lessons from my first job and I am thankful for the opportunity I was given. I

am thankful that Mr. Carver was willing to hire a bunch of kids from the CCC youth group. And I am thankful that I discovered that I would be better suited to a different line of work.