Chapter 4 The growth of the first little urchin-2

One summer, I worked part-time at the hotel run by my aunt.At that time, he was probably seventeen or eighteen years old!I can't remember exactly what the salary was, it was like $22 a month.The job is simple, I'm usually either on duty at the counter or doing odd jobs in the restaurant.And if you work 11 hours a day, you have to be on duty the next day.The person on duty at the counter every afternoon is responsible for bringing the milk upstairs to Mrs. Dee.She was a patient and never tipped us.I thought at the time, this is the real world - you do everything you can, and you get nothing.

The hotel is located in a beachside recreation area in the suburbs of New York.During the day, when the husband went to work in the city, the wife would gather in the hotel to play cards, so we had to move the bridge table out every day.In the evening, it's the men's turn to play poker, and we have to prepare the table, clean the ashtray, etc. beforehand.Usually, I have to stay up until around 2 o'clock in the night to call it a day, so the actual working hours in a day are 11 to 13 hours. There are some things I really don't like there, and tipping is one of them.I think we should get paid more and not tip the guests.But when I suggested it to my boss, there was only a burst of laughter.She told everyone: "Feynman says he doesn't want tips, hee! hee! hee! Feynman doesn't want tips, ha! ha!

what! "My conclusion is that there are many people in the world who love to think they are smart, but are actually ignorant. For a while, when the men came home from get off work in the city, they would immediately ask us to deliver ice for their drinks.The guy I worked with used to be the counter guy, and he was older and more sophisticated than me.He told me one time, "Listen! We keep sending ice to that guy Eng, but he never gives a tip, not even a dime. Next time they ask for ice, just ignore it They. Then they will tell you to go, at which point you say: 'Oh, sorry, I forgot.It is inevitable that people will forget sometimes! '"

I did so, and Engel gave me a tip of fifteen cents!But in retrospect, my colleague had a trick: He told people to risk getting in trouble.Let me "train" that guy into the tipping habit.He didn't say it clearly, but directly instructed others to do it. My job also includes clearing the dining table.Our approach is to pile all the glasses and plates on the table on the tray next to the table. When the pile is high enough, we take the tray to the kitchen and replace it with a new tray.This requires a total of two actions: first remove the old tray, and then replace it with a new tray.But I thought, "I'm going to do those two things in one go." So I tried slipping the new tray in from the bottom while pulling out the old one.As a result, the tray slipped—crash!Everything falls to the ground.Then, of course, there was a series of questioning: "What are you doing? Why did everything fall apart?" How could I explain clearly that I was just trying to invent a new way to handle pallets!

One of the desserts in the restaurant is a coffee cake, which is always served on a small plate with a pretty doily.But if you go in the back kitchen, you'll see the guy who handles the food (this guy must have been a miner or something. He's a huge guy with stubby fingers).He'd pick up a stack of doilies that had been embossed in some way, and with his stubby fingers, would try to separate the doilies from one to another and place them on the plate.I keep hearing him mutter, "Damn doilies!" while he's doing it, and I'm amazed: "What a contrast—guests at the table enjoying delicate cakes on little dish towels; stubby-fingered pantry in the kitchen behind muttering 'Damn doilies!'" Visible True How different is the world from the world of appearances!

On my first day on the job, another woman who manages food told me that she usually makes ham sandwiches or other late-night snacks for people on the night shift.I said I love dessert and it would be great if there was leftover dessert from dinner.The next night I was on the big night shift, serving the poker guests.It was past two o'clock in the morning, and I was sitting around doing nothing, feeling bored, when I suddenly remembered that there was something for dessert.When I opened the refrigerator, she actually left six desserts for me!Chocolate pudding, cakes, jelly, you name it!I sat down and ate all six desserts and it was a treat!

The next day, she said to me, "I saved you a dessert..." "Desserts are great!" I said, "They're all really good!" "But the reason I saved six desserts is because I don't know which one you like." From now on, she will always leave six desserts for me. The types may be different, but there are always six desserts. Once, when I was working the counter, a girl went to the restaurant to eat and left her book by the telephone at the counter.I glanced over, saw the title was The Life of Leonardo, and thought it was a must read.Later I borrowed the book from her and read it in one sitting.

I slept in a small room at the back of the hotel, and there was a troublesome rule in the hotel—you had to turn off the lights when you left the room, but I couldn't remember it.But I got inspiration from Da Vinci's book and designed a small mechanism consisting of a rope and a weight. The weight is a Coca-Cola can filled with water.As soon as I pushed the door open, I pulled the cord to touch the switch, and the light came on; when I closed the door, the light went out.However, my real "achievement" is yet to come. I often help chop vegetables in the kitchen, and one of the jobs involves chopping green beans into 1-inch or so pieces.The general standard action is to hold a knife in one hand and two pods in the other, and cut the pods inward with the blade close to the thumb, but if you are not careful, you will cut your thumb, and it is very slow and inefficient.So I put a little thought into it and came up with a great idea.I sat at the wooden table outside the kitchen, put a large bowl on my lap, and stuck a sharp kitchen knife into the table with the blade pointing down at a 45-degree angle to the table.Then, with a pile of pods on the left and right, I take one in each hand, swing the bow left and right, and swing quickly towards the blade, and the string beans slide into the large bowl on my lap.

So I chopped green beans one by one - cut!cut!cut!Cut and cut!Everyone was passing me the pods, and I was chopping like the wind. Then the boss came over and asked, "What are you doing?" I said, "Look at the way I cut the pod!" Distracted for a moment, I pushed my finger up the knife edge, and immediately the blood flowed profusely, and it dripped all over the pod, causing a mess.She kept counting: "Look how many beans you have spoiled! How could you be so stupid! "Therefore, I have no chance to improve my invention. Actually, it is not difficult to change, just add a protective glove.

In my days at the hotel, I had another invention, but with a similar fate.Here's the thing: To make potato salad, we have to slice boiled potatoes; boiled potatoes are warm and sticky and can be tough to handle. So it occurred to me that I could put several knives side by side on the rack and drop them at the same time to cut the potatoes whole.After thinking for a long time, I finally thought of a way to fix the knife holder with wire. I ran to the grocery store to buy a knife and wire, only to find a gadget that fit my needs—an egg slicer.When it came time to cut the potatoes next time, I took out the egg cutter and quickly cut the potatoes to take to the chef.The chef is a big German guy who is the head of the kitchen.Unexpectedly, after a while, he rushed out of the kitchen angrily and shouted: "What's the matter with these potatoes?

Not cut at all! " I've cut it, but the potatoes are all stuck together again.He said: "How do I separate them?" "Soak in water." I suggested.Fire is coming out of his nose: "Soaked in water? Huh?" Another time, I had a really good idea.When on duty at the counter, be responsible for answering the phone.Whenever a call comes in, in addition to the phone ringing, the switchboard will also have a cover flipped down to let us know which line the call is coming in from.Sometimes, I was helping customers to set up the card table; or when there were no calls coming in in the afternoon, I was sitting on the front balcony-all away from the telephone switchboard, but the phone suddenly rang.I hurried to pick it up, but because the design of the counter is not ideal, you have to go very far inside to bypass the counter, go to the back, look at the switchboard, and then know which line is ringing, which takes a lot of money time. So I came up with a good idea.I tied wires to each cover of the switchboard, looped the wires over the top of the counter, and hung them outside, and tied a small piece of paper to the end of each wire, and the telephone receiver was placed on the counter.That way I don't have to go around behind the counter to answer the phone.When a call comes in, I just need to pay attention to which piece of paper is moving, and I know which small cover has fallen off, and I know which line it is.Importantly, I can answer the phone directly in front of the counter, saving a lot of time.Of course, I still had to go around to the switchboard behind the counter and get the call in, but at least I could say "please wait" before going around the back to get the call. I thought the design was impeccable, but one day the boss came in and wanted to answer the phone, but couldn't figure out the complicated design. "What are these papers for? Why are the microphones here? Why don't you... blah blah blah..." I tried to explain it to my aunt, but when your aunt is a shrewd innkeeper, you can't explain it.This incident made me fully understand how difficult it is to carry out reform and innovation in the real world!