Gary Ackersviller was my boss for a long time. No, this is not a post-mortem retrospective. It’s just a meditation on good management penned before my ‘muy tranquilo’ Mexican holiday. Hopefully he is quite alive and well somewhere in Germany.

Gary ran the Red Pump Restaurant in Bayfield, Ontario and I worked there seasonally from 1990 to 2004, non-consecutively. Meaning, I worked there for about 8-10 summers total in between forays into school, self-employment, travel and other gigs. I started as a busser the summer I was sixteen years old and kept coming back for more over the years. I left a couple of times – found work in other restaurants – but I always came back. I’m going to try to explain why.

Working in a restaurant is intense. I don’t care if you’re in the kitchen or on the floor – every night is a production and every minute counts. I have never been in the army, but for me these times represent a sort of bootcamp. I felt like a foot soldier – marching willingly into battle in the name of fine food and drink.

It takes a special person to keep you in good form in these situations and a certain natural aptitude for leadership. Gary Ackersviller was the captain I never minded reporting to and these are some of the reasons why:

1. Gary always worked harder than his staff (or at least made it seem that way).

Gary didn’t just run the restaurant – he took care of the gardens, supervised the cleaning staff and managed the exclusive suites that we had upstairs. If we encountered a problem customer, he was the one who gracefully threw them out. He was up at the crack of dawn and worked all day and night until we had all tipped out and he made sure we got home safely. If we were short, or people were slacking – he was there – with the steak knives you’d forgotten or pepper for your table of eight. He set an example that was impossible to imitate, but his example was consistent and admirable and it benefitted everyone equally.

2. Gary didn’t delegate anything to anyone that he wouldn’t do himself.

Sure, sometimes Gary would ask me to do the silverware when I was happily cleaning up the bar and swilling Sauvignon Blanc – but I couldn’t refuse because I knew he would do it if no one else was there and that there was no clean-up task that he hadn’t done a million times himself. He never gave the impression that he thought anything was beneath him and made it clear that having clean windows was every bit as important as the $300 bottle of wine you just sold, and that it was, in small part, the reason why a person would spend that kind of money at our establishment. He could often be found repeating, “Fear not the paper towel!” as we polished the French doors.

3. Gary was always fair (and he didn’t reward greed).

Over the 14 years that I worked for Gary, the rules never changed. If you showed up first for your shift in the morning, you got the first table or, if it was going to be a busy day, you got your choice of section. Those were the rules – they were always the rules – and the rules worked. He had his favourites but the rules remained. If someone started thinking that they were somehow entitled to only the best shifts and the best tables, he reminded them of the rules by giving them tables of lunching European ladies who looked like they were going to order tap water and salad and ask for separate bills.

4. Gary was generous.

When I first started as a busser, it was easy for the wait staff to shortchange me. Every single night Gary would ask me how much ‘the cheap bastards’ had tipped me and gave me cash from his own earnings to reward my hard work. Over the years, other small rewards made all the difference to me. A nice glass of wine or a couple of oysters at the end of the night – a midnight lunch of gourmet tidbits, maybe – but these little things meant the world to me. The littlest gestures reminded me that I was appreciated and that we were all in this together.

5. If Gary couldn’t be nice and funny and charming at the same time, he got someone else to manage his business.

Being a superstar manager isn’t all fun and games. Even Gary had his days. When these days came (usually mid-week when the village wasn’t overrun by tourists) he relinquished the reins and gave the power to one of us. Honestly, though, this didn’t happen very often. It was as though he was born to manage a restaurant. This kind of inherent chaos isn’t for everyone but I think the following applies to anything any of us do for a living: If you don’t have fun on the job then you’re in trouble. If you can’t charm your staff and your clients then you should, at the very least, get out of the way. I worked, obviously, for money. But if it wasn’t for Gary’s daily antics and stupid songs and charming way of saying, “It’s your turn to clean the crapper,” then I would have found another way to pay my rent and fund my trips overseas.

Now, I don’t recommend becoming some sort of quasi-gay misogynistic arsehole if that’s not really your bag. But if you can’t find your true hilarious self on the job, then try to imagine where you could find that self … and go there.

So, Gary. Wherever you are … I’d like to thank you for giving me something to strive towards. And if I can’t live up to your example, then I’ll join a nunnery and sing: “Get your hands off my woman! You dirty pig farmer!” Or something to that effect.