In order to make a restuarant run you have to be able to accept help from many sources. A highly skilled employee can be a valuable assest but often a manager has to cultivate people who are less than perfect. Someone who is pleasant and reliable, if used properly, can become a prized addition to the staff, despite not posessing a great depth of abilities.

Gul was a memorable young man from Pakistan who worked for me at El Torito in New York City. His cousin Singh, who was our most capable and reliable cashier, arranged for him to begin training shortly after his arrival in this country. The position of cashier required simply sitting on a tall bar stool behind a large desk in the kitchen and processing the checks brought in by the wait staff.

Although an extremely likable man, Gul was not the quick study that his cousin was. Out of a respect for Singh and a desperate need for a cashier, we were extremely patient with the young man, allowing him to train for weeks, whereas most applicants had trained for only a day or two. He was, to say the least, a challenging prospect.

In El Torito we used an old fashioned time clock and each employee would punch in and out for their shift. One of the cashier's responsibilities was to remove the time cards from the metal racks at the end of the week and copy the names onto a fresh batch of cards. After everyone left on Sunday night I would gather up the old cards and replace them with the new ones. After Gul's first week I began putting out the cards that he had written when my eyes suddenly focused on them. It was very late at night and I squinted in an attempt to make out what I was seeing. I couldn't. Some of the cards seemed to bear a resemblance to English with unfamiliar names like Rochman Negplitz or Brandle Kunhpty but most were completely indecipherable, with markings that dripped, ran, and mutated as if Salvador Dali had drawn them.

It became apparent that Gul had no idea of our alphabet and had tried valiantly to mimic what he saw but struggled to distinguish the letters from the handwriting. Each week he got closer and closer to transcribing recognizable names. In the meantime many of the employees enjoyed the challenge of trying to find the card that best reminded them of their name while others, with less zest for adventure, would just fill in a blank card. This posed a problem, however, for if we didn't weed out the rejected ones by the end of the week Gul would then copy both his version and the employee's and the cards began to multiply beyond control.

Gul's unfamiliarity with our culture combined with his extreme innocence and naiveté quickly made him a source of amusement to the crew. When realizing he was the brunt of a straight line or practical joke the good natured, young man would cross his legs, hunch his back, and jam his clenched hands down between his legs. A huge sheepish grin would spread across his face and his tall, skinny body would bob up and down with hearty laughter. Even though the cashier never seemed to take offense, I often felt sorry for him.

One day one of the hostesses, Bebe, had lost her keys. They had been turned into Gul but no one knew whose they were. The cashier, who never showed up to work without a healthy dousing of after shave and cologne, was fascinated by the little spray bottle on the end of her key chain. He squirted the spray towards his face and instantly began to wince and tear. The mace that Bebe carried for protection burned for hours as Gul sniffed and rubbed and itched and cried, all the while trying to look as dignified as possible. The staff tried their best to act sympathetically but the area out the door and around the corner from the cash station was littered with hysterical employees.

In the struggle to find Gul assignments which met his abilities we occasionally used him as the upstairs host. The restaurant was located in the Empire State Building on the corner of Thirty Fourth Street and Fifth Avenue. What had once been a huge two story restaurant / dancehall called the Riverboat had been split into two restaurant / bars owned by the same corporation. El Torito had its cantina on the Fifth Avenue side while the Houlihans bar could be entered from the revolving door on Thirty Fourth Street. In the middle they both shared a glamorous, ballroom staircase that curled down to the two dining rooms. Unfortunately, whereas our bar was to the left of the top of the staircase our dining room was to the right of the bottom. In the hopes of erasing any confusion and steering diners to their intended destination each restaurant provided a host to be stationed upstairs and welcome guests to the establishment. It only took a few days to train Gul for the position.

One afternoon, Gul was working upstairs when his counterpart from Houlihans came over to tell him that a man had just been in their bar wearing a long brown trenchcoat. He had stood by the chest high wall that overlooked the staircase drinking a beer. When the cocktail waitress walked by the man had released the flaps of his garment to reveal that he was wearing nothing underneath. As he held his beer in one hand he stroked himself with his other. The waitress ran and told the manager, bringing new meaning to her title, and the man had been asked to leave.

However, as they monitored him through the large plate glass windows, it appeared that he was merely going to walk around the corner and pay a visit to El Torito. The host pointed him out to Gul and told him that he should not let the man in. Gul was unclear and asked why the man couldn't be allowed in. The host explained that he had been jerking off. Gul was impressed by the obvious seriousness of the situation.

Sure enough, a few minutes later, the man that Gul had seen outside came walking in through our doors. Gul steeled himself for his duty and with a clenched jaw he told the man that he could not let him in. The cashier performed his duty admirably and when the man asked why he was being denied entrance Gul explained very matter of factly.

"Because we do not allow guys who jerk off in here."

The man was not sure he had heard correctly but Gul repeated himself.

"I'm sorry sir, but we don't allow jerking off in here."

The man turned indignantly and left without a fuss. I can only imagine what he must have been thinking about the new stricter codes that were ruining some of his favorite establishments. Gul, meanwhile, was feeling so proud of himself that the stunned host from Houlihans didn't have the heart to tell him that he'd just thrown out the wrong man.

Gul moved back home to Pakistan shortly after that incident leaving behind many people who will never forget him especially one extremely bewildered gentleman who had the briefest encounter with him of us all.