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August 12, 2005
Melissa and the Eggwhite Omlet
No, it's not the title of a children's book. It's how I spent my morning for two months of my life around May of last year, and the scene I nostalgically revisited this morning.
Part of my job is meeting with nurses at all hours of the day and night in locations that are convenient for them. This has led me to spend hours waiting for nurses in a McDonalds in Camden, New Jersey, where all of the other patrons were on their way to the local clinic for their methadone maintanence injections. This has resulted in many an evening spent feeding at the salad bar at the Trolley Car Diner in Chestnut Hill, PA, where nurses from the local hospital could pop by after work. And for two months last year, I sat in a Denny's in suburban Philadelphia every morning from 7:30 to 9 am, waiting to meet with nurses as they came off of work.
The campaign didn't go forward at the time: we met with over 100 nurses out of about 350, and as is traditional, management gave a big raise, held a lot of mandatory anti-union meetings, and made a lot of promises to keep the nurses from organizing. As is also traditional, management failed to keep their promises. It's over a year later and the nurses are frustrated again, so they've called us back and now I'm back at the Denny's, home of the Fit Fare calorie-controlled menu, and my favorite waitress in the world, Melissa.
Melissa waited on me every morning, seven days a week, for two months. She sees my car pull up in the parking lot, and she puts my coffee on the table. No cream, no sugar. She knows that I want the eggwhite omlet with mushrooms, onions, tomato and green pepper. Needless to say, I leave excellent tips.
Posted by april at August 12, 2005 5:38 PM