Existentialist Tuesday - Do I exist? I mean, as a waiter

Exists, doesn't exist, exists, doesn't exist
I wait, therefore I am

Old Knudsen, the bitter master, advised me to enjoy my moment in the sun (did I mention my one line mention in the Guardian?) and not to let it go to my head. Wise words indeed. And with that in mind I have taken to wearing black today, smoking French cigarettes, and quoting Sartre...

Sartre's Waiter- An example of Bad Faith

Let us consider this waiter in the cafe. His movement is quick and forward, a little too precise, a little too rapid. He comes toward the patrons with a step a little too quick. He bends forward a little too eagerly; his voice, his eyes express an interest a little too solicitous for the order of the customer. Finally there he returns, trying to imitate in his walk the inflexible stiffness of some kind of automaton while carrying his tray with the recklessness of a tight-rope-walker by putting it in a perpetually unstable, perpetually broken equilibrium which he perpetually re-establishes by a light movement of the arm and hand. All his behavior seems to us a game. He applies himself to chaining his movements as if they were mechanisms, the one regulating the other; his gestures and even his voice seem to be mechanisms; he gives himself the quickness and pitiless rapidity of things. He is playing, he is amusing himself. But what is he playing?

We need not watch long before we can explain it: he is playing at being a waiter in a cafe. There is nothing there to surprise us.

Nailed us Mr Sartre, nailed us good.

Is there any such thing as a "natural born waiter"? Aren't we all just playing a role? Some people play the roll better than others, they appear natural, less stiff, more relaxed. But essentially they are still just playing a roll.

Me? I prefer bread rolls....

I had that Jean-Paul Sartre in the restaurant one day, I approached him and asked:

"Can I get you something to drink, Monsieur Sartre?"
Sartre replied, "Yes, I'd like a cup of coffee with sugar, but no cream".
I nodded in agreement and walked off to fill the order and Sartre returned to working. But a few minutes later, however, I returned and said, "I'm sorry, Monsieur Sartre, we are all out of cream ......... how about with no milk?"

Old Knudsen has finally realised that waiting is where it's at...you must check this out