Before I became the success story that is Kipp Wieland, I once worked at a Holiday Inn here in Cedar Rapids (it has been demolished since). I had dropped out of art school and returned home to Cedar Rapid’s limited career opportunities and found a job as a dishwasher there. I stayed at that place for nine months I think, and I don’t know how I made it that long.
At some point Holiday Inn decided to take on a mentally challenged kid to work with the other dishwashers in the kitchen there. He was clearly mentally challenged as his major topic of conversation was the Superbowl Shuffle: an early rap song recorded by the Chicago Bears (I believe. Hey-I am no sports fan, okay). The tune 
rambled on and on, featuring a verse performed by various members of the team. The kid’s favorite part was when the “Fridge” delivered his stunning rap. I know so much about it because he brought in a cassette tape of the abominable recording and played it loudly and often in the kitchen. He never really got my name right either, referring to me as “Kemp”.
rambled on and on, featuring a verse performed by various members of the team. The kid’s favorite part was when the “Fridge” delivered his stunning rap. I know so much about it because he brought in a cassette tape of the abominable recording and played it loudly and often in the kitchen. He never really got my name right either, referring to me as “Kemp”. The chef that was the head honcho in the kitchen was a drop out as well, but looked good and somehow adopted the persona of the chef. He even had vanity plates on his Camero to tell the world that he was indeed “a chef”. We had meetings once a week and they generally consisted of the chef telling the kitchen staff that we needed to do more work with less workers (sound familiar). He tried to open our minimum wage eyes to this by relaying to us a conversation he had with the mentally challenged addition to the kitchen.
“Even little [Bobby] came up to me and asked if there was anything he could do to help”. “That’s what we need – More productivity”.
Well – that meeting being freshly in our minds, and [Bobby] not being present as the meeting took place while he was still in school, we carried on back at the sink and the grill – our respective stations.
Suddenly the kitchen door flew open and was followed immediately by a very loud crash. The kid had arrived and had managed to topple over an entire cart of rack after rack of water glasses that hit the floor and scattered shards of golden colored glass all over the orange tiled floor.
As he stood there in the doorway looking like a deer in the headlights, I could not resist delivering the following introduction:
“Here he is ladies and gentlemen – Mr. Productivity.”
Some months before this I witnessed the chef attempting to carve a swan from a block of ice. Being an artist I just couldn’t stand watching this buffoon repeatedly destroying half-assed attempts at ice swans, so naturally I offered my assistance. I managed to hack out not only a swan, but a sea horse, a unicorn, and many other sculptures for Sunday buffet. I somehow got wrangled into carving these masterpieces OFF THE CLOCK every Saturday night until the early morning hours outside in the cold. The chef even drove me up to Elgin Illinois to an ice carving convention. He sank $600.00 into a set of ice carving tools as well.
For some reason, as most supervisors do, he became a colossal prick to me at one point. Assigning me as the only dish washer on a Sunday afternoon after the massive buffet. Pans with egg and cheese baked on them were literally piled to the ceiling and there wasn’t one other single soul to do them. I looked around the kitchen, grabbed a bowl full of strawberry sauce and frizbee’d the thing across the kitchen, clocked out, and left – never to return. At least he still had Mr. Productivity, yeah?