Some folks are doctors and others are lawyers. There are those who buy or sell or trade.
My dad was a stockbroker. My mom managed a tennis and golf shop. I once met a man who worked at a meat packing plant where he dili- gently operated the stun gun.
Me? I deal in Time/Space Convergences.
In other words, I make restaurant reservations for a living.Lots of reservations:A table for two at that romantic country hideaway; a private room for 150 fund man- agers; the chef’s table at the hippest,hottest,coolest,most sought-after place in town. I’ve secured dining opportunities as close as the corner cafe and as far away as Beijing,China (which needed to be done through an interpreter).
I secured my first restaurant reservation in 1985,when I was a very young,wet- behind-the-ears doorman at a busy suburban
hotel.After seven years of working in lodging properties - a two year hiatus was followed by twenty-two years spent in my current position as a corporate concierge, I surmise that I’ve made somewhere in the realm of 55 million separate reservations!
Okay, that number is grossly inflated to say the least. (I just wanted to see if you were paying attention.)
In reality there’s really no way for me to know exactly how many rear ends I’ve been responsible for placing into seats,atop stools and along banquettes,but I reckon that I’ve been personally been responsible for tens of thousands of individ- ual reservations accounting for quite a few millions of dollars of revenue toward those eateries I have strived to support over the years.
Ah, the Time/Space
Convergence.The Time part usually translates to“Prime Time” (between 6:30-8pm),or,why else would they be asking me to assist in the first place?
Then again, I get my daily share of lunch requests,and I’ve noticed a big uptick over the last few years in breakfast meetings, too.
Space = A corner table; private rooms;meeting and event spaces; the chef’s table; alfresco
dining.All in all - the best seats in the house.
There are three best parts to dealing in Time/Space Convergence.
The first one is - It’s fun! I really enjoy becoming a real estate mogul of sorts who broker’s miniature parcels of property with each
reservation.There’s a definite challenge to nailing down the perfect reservation and,as you’ll soon learn, there’s more to the task than simply picking up the phone or logging onto Open Table or tapping an app.
74 January February 2016
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