In the table-turning trade, every shift ushers in a new assortment of characters. And the luck of the draw can either make your day or make your day a ten percent, everything on the side and separate checks living hell. Focusing on the positive, here's a short list of the types of clientele I love to see sitting in my station:

My food & beverage blood brothers & sisters- Unless I literally take a crap on their table and/or call them cocksuckers, this ticket's good for a 25%-plus grat, guaranteed. Then there's the camaraderie factor. There's just something oh so cathartic about engaging your professional peers in witty, work-related banter at the expense of the boorish, butthole customers and anal taskmasters we all have in common. And admit it. Few things feel better than dropping that tableside F-Bomb you know you can get away with.
Professionals- Show me guys in suits doing the power lunch or dinner thing, and I'll show you easy pickings and a tip sure to cover my next cable bill, inclusive of the pay-per-view charges. High let's-make-a-deal testosterone levels make my job easy. I simply bait the hook properly: "Gentlemen, the bacon-wrapped filet crowned with crab and hollandaise sauce is our signature." Like pond carp, they can't help but compete over whatever's thrown in the water.

"And to whom should we entrust the wine list?" is my go-to move. If no hard-charger makes a quick grab, the right guy usually gets flattered into action in short order by his deferential associates at the table.

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I suppose there are some tried and true secrets to making relationships work. And while I won't toss out altruisms here, I'm sure openness and honesty are great policies to employ to that end. But as evidenced by a conversation I listened-in on last night at work, I'm as convinced as ever that you can't always lay every card on the table, even if that someone sitting opposite you knows exactly what you're holding onto.

"So, explain this solitaire situation to me again," A certain Mrs. sounded pretty insistent with her man of the house.

"It's an online thing, Sharon. What's your point?"

"Let me rephrase, Jake: Explain the attraction."

Man of the House and I make eye contact. He's looking to me for something. I do what I can.

"Would either of you care for an after dinner drink?"

"Could you just give us a few minutes, please?" The Mrs. is terse, not thirsty.

"You're on your own, Pal," I let the gentleman know in a gesture, shrugging subtly from just over the lady's shoulder. Then, I start straightening up my station around them to stay within earshot, and it pays off.

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As a career bar and restaurant guy, I've had my professional eye trained on the state of social-sexual politics for the past twenty-five years. Even so, it's hard to say whether we've evolved or devolved as an outgoing species. While the games remain basically the same, the rules have certainly changed, for better or worse.

One thing I've noticed in recent years is the dearth of young twenty-somethings doing the dinner date thing these days. So I asked my coed daughter and her steady to weigh in on the topic, perchance to shed some light.

Both she and he assure me that, in the eyes of "their generation" (gulp!), this is a farcically fusty ritual, practiced by social dinosaurs too primitive to appreciate the simpler pleasures of "just hitting Pepe's Tacos and hanging out."

I can see, of course, why boyfriend subscribes to this theory. Such drive-thru druthers come at quite a discount to him. When I was a young stud back in the day, I shelled out handsomely for the sit-down dinner prerequisite of every self-respecting Friday or Saturday night date. And for good reason.

"Besides, Dad," Daughter reminds me, "Guys paying for everything can come with certain expectations."

"Yep, that was pretty much my good reason," I say to myself, under my breath.

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Meet Bob. Talk about a major tool. Bob's one of those types who makes us hard working restaurant stiffs wince over the thought of having to accommodate him.

Bob's friends and family insist he's just hard to please. Every time he comes in, everyone with him seems to take turns apologizing for his condescending and contentious demeanor.

"Don't take it personally," someone in Bob's enabling posse will say. "Bob always sends his steak back. He's very picky." Bullshit. Bob couldn't care less about what's on his plate. He's all about eating up the attention that acting like an asshole brings him.

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When you till the soil in local food and beverage, you learn certain almanac-like lessons in eking out a living. Working in an industry where warm winters mark tourism's high tide and torrid summers slow income streams to trickle, one keeps an eye on the ebb and flow.

As for myself, I've come to gauge the business climate's prospects from season to season, year after year, through certain telling indicators. Given everything that seems to be in the air, it's hard to divine anything but more doom and gloom for the immediate future.

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During service, stuff happens: Drinks spill, wine corks break, and food can have a hard time finding its way to hungry people.

Nobody's perfect. And there's certainly no shame in confessing occasional instances of clumsiness and/or confusion. A simple apology -- or any aplomb demonstrated through problem solving -- can offer an elegant statement on professionalism.

Still, it's hard to own up to any faults.

For me, the cardinal sin of service is forgetfulness, and I've gone to great lengths to avoid confessing it. Years ago, at a fine, French bistro at the Biltmore, my mind went blank while tending to a VIP two-top. For the life of me, I couldn't recall a gentleman's order mere seconds after taking it.

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I work in a professional no-man's land, a crossfire of commerce in which I negotiate dining room detente, and navigate all the bullshit bandied about back and forth. And from those I serve to those who sign my paychecks, all parties concerned keep me at the center of the minor crises that all add up to another day's work. At times, I feel like I'm always "it:" The accommodating monkey in the middle of a game I'm not so much playing myself as I am being played by two sides in tandem. And the object seems to be to pit me against every potential powder keg of a problem to see how fast I can grasp and defuse any given situation before it blows up in all our faces.

What follows is an amalgam of some situational sticks of dynamite, typical of those flung my way on a regular basis:

"Waiter, I don't have your duck for table 22," Chef might summon me to the line- maybe ten minutes after I've taken that order- to inform me, case in point. "The count was wrong. It's 86'd."

"Yes, Chef." That's the only answer I'm allowed, of course. Because Chef- despite his kitchen's imperfect mise en place math- is still perfect. He cannot be held accountable or even be bothered by this. Not in the middle of everything. Not ever.

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Gold rushes unearth human nature horror stories. Precious few mine wealth from such circumstances. Many more are left to the muck and mire of greed and want.

In the hospitality trades, the high roller is the rich vein of our gratuity-grubbing existences. Tap into the right one, we think, and we'll have it made.

But consider a certain Ms. Greedy I once worked with years ago at a South Scottsdale burger bar (circa 1985). When a mad tipper surfaced in her station and started leaving extra c-notes on his ten-dollar lunch tabs, she managed to turn a windfall into a shit-storm in short order.

"Did you hear?" One of my table-hopping cohorts shared the buzz around the buss station with me one evening. "Some guy left Daphne two hundred bucks today."

"No shit?" We shook our heads, covetously contemplating such luck, before considering the possibilities.

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For the movie version of my professional life, I'm tossing around ideas on whom I'd like to see in the starring role. Given the magnetic machismo he and I share, De Niro might seem an obvious choice. Still, juxtaposing my polished, fine dining persona with Robert's renowned, raw pugnacity could create a Raging Bull-in-a-china-shop conflict with character development.

Sorry, Bob, I'll have to pass. And, yeah, I'm talkin' to you.

Moving on, Paul Giamatti's another name that comes to mind. I loved his angst-ridden work in American Splendor, Sideways, and even as the human pet-peddling Orangutan in The Planet of the Apes remake. When it comes to communicating that is-this-all-there-is? ennui we waitstaff sometimes feel standing tableside, Giamatti could certainly do the role justice. Tell you what, Paul: Let's have a sit-down and discuss it. Just know I'll be asking for a body double for the nude scene, no offense. My people will be in touch with your people.

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Before shows like Fear Factor and Bizarre Foods triggered mainstream gag reflexes, I toyed with my own notions of pushing the edible envelope. For much of the '90's, for example, I worked for a guy who allowed me the latitude to turn his specials chalkboards into an outlandish culinary canvas.

Conceptually, it seemed clear we were onto something. "Club-your-own, whole-roasted baby Harp seal" triggered lots of table conversations. A few folks were appalled and protested our flippancy, but most ate it up for the obvious parody on culinary adventurism that it was. By the time our "Marvin Gaye" promotion ran ("Bring in your dad and get two shots free!"), we were lampooning life from an epicurean perspective on a fairly regular basis.

Of the spoofs we served up in those days, "Javelina Nipple Fritters" proffered quite a parable on the power of suggestion, an invaluable tool of our trade. And it taught me a lesson on what rapport, some sense of humor, and a little artful persuasion can bring to the table.

"Good evening," I greeted a group of gregarious seniors early on that particular shift. "You folks familiar with the menu?"

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