Ex-Dishwasher Seeks Respect for Job : Let’s Hear It for Poor Pearl Diver

CARMEL —  Pity the poor dishwasher, who generally gets minimum wages and less respect than Rodney Dangerfield.

“So far, nobody has paid much attention to that scruffy guy back there in the corner, working like a machine,” said Gene Buck, an ex-dishwasher turned publicist.

It’s high time for the chef, maitre d’, waiters and waitresses to stop getting all the credit, he says. That’s why Buck founded the Brotherhood for the Respect, Elevation and Advancement of Dishwashers--BREAD.

Ever stop to think, he asks, what it would be like to be dining at a fancy restaurant and discover dried egg stuck to your salad plate? Or raise your champagne glass in a toast, only to see the edge rimmed with lipstick?

Dirty dishes, says Buck, are as bad as finding a fly in your soup. Maybe worse.

Status Seeker

He hopes that BREAD finally brings improved social and economic status to the people he says are a crucial component of the nation’s restaurant industry and the health and happiness of the 80 million people a day it serves.

“The team player who’s playing the hardest probably is the dishwasher, who’s back there working the hardest, getting nothing but dishpan hands,” Buck laments.

He knows from experience, having worked as a dishwasher during college and for a brief stint about six years ago.

“That’s the hardest-working cuss in the whole place,” he says. “He opens the place in the morning and closes it at night. About all he gets out of it is a meager salary and maybe a meal or two.”

To boost the dishwasher’s lot in life, Buck recommends that employers consider paying them higher wages and that diners tip them the way they do waiters, those nicely attired men who he says may drive home in a Mercedes at the end of the day if they do a good job and work at the right place.

Spreading the Wealth

“Spread it around,” he says about tipping, suggesting that money can be left with the restaurant manager along with instructions to split it between the waiter and washer.

The experience can be as rewarding to the tipper as to the dishwasher, Buck says, adding, “It’s kind of fun. I get kind of a warm feeling doing it.”

Not to mention the warm feeling for the worker up to his elbows in suds. “I did it the other day and the guy nodded at me,” Buck recalls. “It was unbelievable to him. The manager, a young lady, thought I was joking at first.”

Meanwhile, he has demanded an apology from Colgate-Palmolive for an advertisement in a trade publication that depicts a dishwasher as a burly, cigar-chewing beast with soapy hands. The company has not responded.