Above the Mask

Wednesday Weblog for April 28, 2021 #42

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Joe's Positive Post of the Week

Quote of the Week

Hospitality is present when something happens for you. It is absent when something happens to you. Those two simple prepositions 'for' and 'to' express it all. --Danny Meyer

Photo of Martin & Kelly performing at Loretta's Last Call.

Leading Off: I'm Optimistic

Everywhere I go, things are getting better. And by better I mean, more people can see more light at the end of more tunnels, and those lights do not appear to be freight trains, as the saying goes.

Spring is in the air, although it snowed on April 19th in Massachusetts. I guess the full expression would be 'Spring is in the air, but winter is on the ground?'

As part of the optimism, my son and I had the chance to attend our first ‘live’ major league sports event at Fenway Park in two years. (That's him in a section by himself before the game on the right of the photo, taken while I was looking for a $14.75 Fenway Frank.)

We were part of a crowd of about 4,800 for a Red Sox game, a concrete sign that we are getting closer to the end of the adventure we call Covid-19. While I was looking forward to a slice of normalcy, there was a ‘not normal’ theme that formed an umbrella attitude over the entire day, and it surprised me.

Above the Mask

We found a great parking spot, thanks to an early arrival and the fact that there would be 31,000 empty seats in the park and the appropriate number of automobiles those seats represented weren’t in the Fenway area. When you find a good parking space near Fenway, your day is already off to a spectacular start.

We entered Loretta’s Last Call, one of the famous Lansdowne Street clubs behind the Green Monster-the left field wall. We always go there when at Fenway, and we are regulars when our friends Martin & Kelly play there.

It is also the location where I won, (are you ready), a pickle-eating contest a couple of years ago. Ok, so I didn't win, I came in second, but I still walked away with a $25 gift card. And no, I wasn't day drinking. That event is a story for another time.

At Loretta's, in the shadow of the centerfield scoreboard, they know hospitality and they know us.

The old TV show 'Cheers' theme song had a line that said, ‘sometimes you want to go where everyone knows your name,’ and it is true.

Myles, the General Manager, greeted us at the door and took us immediately to a table he had reserved for us. He made the usual ‘glad to see you’ small talk that restaurant managers make, and we could see the always present sincerity in his eyes, above the mask.

Becca, the server, didn’t ask what we wanted to drink, when she saw us at the table, she just brought our regular drinks on her first trip and made the special ‘glad to see you’ small talk, that good servers make to good customers. It was obvious in her eyes above the mask that she was glad to see a couple of 'regulars.'

Since I had run four miles that morning, I had earned the right to have a delicious, but-not-the-kind-of-meal-someone-running-a-half-marathon-in-six-weeks should have: a Nashville Hot Chicken Sandwich. While I scraped the coleslaw off the top and sampled the dirty rice, I couldn’t help but wish every place had the same hospitality as Loretta's. You know, that hard-to-hide attitude that they ARE really glad to see you and hope you have a great experience.

Myles and Becca didn’t just say they were glad to see us because it was part of their job, they were both really glad to see us. Not just the words: they meant it. Being glad to see someone is hard to fake. When you are glad to see them, they can tell. When you are just saying it, people can see that too.

Well, we obviously were glad to see them too, and after we finished our meal, we said so, thanked them and headed to the park.

We were supposed to enter on Jersey Street, the complete opposite side of the park, according to the instructions we'd received, but before we made the trek, I spoke to one of the security people, and he waved me in to the centerfield security checkpoint. When you are pushing a wheelchair, a quarter-mile makes a difference, so I was conscious that we were still having a great day with this small kind gesture a total stranger made to us.

As we finally entered the sacred confines of America's Most Beloved Ballpark (opened in 1912):

The kid who asked us to show our health pre-screen on our phones couldn’t be friendlier. He was glad to see us, we could tell by his eyes above his mask.
So was the security team at the metal detector and the ticket taker scanning the digital tickets. We could tell by their eyes above the mask.
So was the elevator operator who took us upstairs, and the security guard who waved us to the left side of the upper deck. Their eyes above the masks gave them away.
So was the usher who led us right to our seats, then hustled and went to get me a dry folding chair, because the chair in the companion seat area was wet from some earlier rain. He was so happy to be helping someone. We could tell by his eyes above the mask.
So was the food runner in our section who actually told us he was glad to see us, although I could tell that from his eyes above the mask.
So was the college student at the concession stand, who was very friendly and I could tell she was smiling behind the mask.

There we were, about 30 minutes before the game started, and already ten employees couldn’t hide how glad they were to see us.

I could learn to like this.

It was like the Loretta's experience carried over to the park.

The only exception was, here nobody knew our names. But they were all glad to see us. We could tell by their eyes above the masks.

I was thinking that all ten employees we had encountered, through no fault of their own, had probably taken us, and others like us, for granted before the pandemic started.

But now, after a year of craziness, everyone in this experience we were having was glad to see us and it showed above their masks.

This new-found gladness may not just be in the hospitality industry, although that might be where it is most noticeable. We’ve all been through something together, even as ill-defined as it is.

In my catalogue of cliché’s, I often claim that the best way to build a team is with a common enemy or a common goal, or with both. (If you think about that for a minute, you’ll recognize how true it is).

The pandemic certainly provided a common enemy and as we move toward the common goal of reopening our society, the formula will be complete: we might all be a team.

We used to say we are all in this together and I know I personally didn’t really mean it, it has kind of been every family for itself. Now that the end is in sight, at least where I live, I realize that even if we were not in this together, we are leaving it together. Not only are we leaving it together we are leaving it different than we were.

We have a year of breathing through a mask, so our glasses don’t fog up as much.
We have a year of being denied the ability or freedom to so something we love to do.
We have a year of reading people by their eyes.

I think we are all grateful for more things and more small things than ever.

As a bonus to the re-entry, there might be more people happier to see you this year than there used to be. They missed you. They missed us. You will be happier to be anywhere that you used to be, than you used to be.

Some claim that you shouldn’t say ‘new normal’, because that implies that the new normal will not be as good as the old normal. What if the new normal is better?

Our day at Fenway Park offers evidence that there might be more appreciation for the customer moving forward. Maybe not at the grocery store or Walmart, but any place that has been shut down or shut off is probably going to be in a grateful mode for a while.

I think the right thing to do, is to be grateful right back.

Grateful for the higher level of service.
Grateful for the sincere 'glad to see you' attitude.
Grateful for the look in the eyes above the mask.

When I planned our trip to Fenway Park, in the back of my mind, I was hoping for an experience to be able to incorporate the trip into a story to share.

Even though I was hopeful to grab a story or two from the game, it never occurred to me that the story would be about hospitality and how the hospitality standard set by Loretta's Last Call would continue to the Red Sox game.

Normally I am optimistic, but now I am really optimistic because if we can tell someone is glad to see us from their eyes above the mask, imagine how much easier it will be when we can see them smile.

Go Red Sox!

Visit Loretta's if you have the chance. It's a great place to have something happen for you. And check the schedule to see if Martin and Kelly are playing. Not getting paid to write that.

Surprise Photo at the End: Mack the Knife

As you might imagine, the team I worked with really wanted to see me perform in Dancing with the Stars of Boston, but were not able to make the trip for the fundraiser.

So, along with my professional dance partner Carol, I 'performed,' and I use the term loosely, the cute routine in a private show at the dance studio.

The team surprised me with some flowers, because what else do you give a guy living on the line between bravery and stupidity? I hope you can see that, at least in this photo, I have an attitude. At least for a moment, I took some breaths away as Mack the Knife.

Thanks for reading and thanks for referring.

The honor roll now stands at 39 Members and my wife is still impressed: Arizona, California, Colorado, Connecticut, Delaware, Florida, Georgia, Hawaii, Indiana, Iowa, Kentucky, Louisiana, Maine, Massachusetts, Michigan, Mississippi, Missouri, Montana, New Hampshire, New Jersey, New York, North Carolina, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Puerto Rico, Rhode Island, South Carolina, South Dakota, Tennessee, Texas, Vermont, Virginia, Washington and Washington DC, plus Canada, Spain, Conch Republic, Australia and the United Kingdom