The Food Critic.

My boss is a small business owner. He was very serious about his hand soap shop. But, he owned another little store, where I worked, that was a deli. We served food, but not a lot. People really just bought our deli meats. But we qualified as a restaurant. So, once every year there had to be a food critic come in and review our business. Food critics usually pass us, but critique the little things we don't do correctly. Which is fine by me. My boss gets very annoyed. Usually, he analyzes the list first and thinks about which one is the cheapest, and then he fixes that one. They increasingly get more expensive from year to year.

My boss's businesses do make a good amount of money. He gets safety inspections too. The food critics tell us who they are. They say they'll take the worst table and get average service. They can tell if we are lying through our teeth about our service or if we are really like that normally. They are always super chill about everything and even joke with us. They usually give us a 4.5-star review. For being a deli and food counter, we get a good review. Other restaurants get bad reviews, but not ours. Which is a great thing.

I am a normal run-of-the-mill server. Nothing special. This is probably the reason why I always get stuck with the food critic. That always worries me a tiny bit, because I have to put on an accurate showing of our counter. Or else I will no longer have a job. So I need to do well. Usually, we have the same critic. Only two years have we had a different critic than normally. That was years ago though, and that was when we had just opened and we had to make sure that we were sanitary and doing business properly. I served them too.

The health inspectors came sometimes, but they seemed to have come to just eat and make sure that the tables were sanitary. Because we only had a table or counter, we did not really have a problem with that. Even the wait staff wears hairnets to keep our hair out of the food and the drinks. This always impresses not only the health inspectors but also the food critic. The food critic always has a slight smile on their face when they have our coffee. Our coffee is famous in the town.

There are some cafes, but none of them have as good coffee as us. This always brings in quite a line. Our treats barely get bought. In fact, it's really rare when they do get bought. Tourists. Only tourists who wake up early and need breakfast. But the coffee, we only have a quarter of a cup left by the end of the day. Which is a small amount. Our boss takes it and takes one big sip. Then he smiles, tells us to keep up the good work, and throws out the cup. Then he goes to his deli downtown. This makes us all feel like he cares for us and is willing to work with us in a way.

One day, the food critic came in. He came in. Sat at our counter. He asked for a cup of coffee and a muffin. I took my time with both. I usually tried to be good, but when the food critic came in, I tried to be a bit more perfect. Especially towards our customers. Then the food critic feels like he's getting fair treatment as a customer. I try my best to just change the tiniest details though. Some things that I actually do, even when the critic is not around. These little things are not really that noticeable, but some people do notice and say thank you with a smile on their faces after they see the little details I put in.

The food critic was nice to me as usual. We chatted even a little bit after he tried everything. He thanked me and said our review would be online in a day. Sure enough, our rating went from really good to perfect. My boss had never been so happy about anything before. I was so happy. He gave all of us a twenty-five-cent raise each and told us to keep up the good work.

That night, I went home. I was watching some T.V. show and saw how they were treating the food critic extra nicely. They ended up ruining it anyway. The food critic still did not say they were perfect after they overcame the, but was still very nice about it. I realized that food critics and shows and in reality are nothing like the ones in real life, who was so nice and gave perfect ratings. Even to the smallest of lunch counters. I thought about it. I decided to call the show that night. At first, it was an answering machine. I was waiting for a really long time. But at last, I got on the phone with an actual person. They told me to wait.

They put me on hold. Again. But it was fine. I waited some more and more. I wrote everything down. Ten minutes later, the person was on the phone again. "Hello, how may I help you?" The person asked nicely. I tell them that I had an issue with one of their episodes and that they need to change it. They refused and hung up. I was so mad, I could have exploded. But I did not. I emailed the food critic all about it. The food critic told me it was like that. I decided there was only one way to really make things right. So I went to a filming agency. I lied and told them I was a producer. I told them all about my idea for a show. They agreed.

I started filming. And my first episode starred that same food critic. My show was a complete success in the end. I was so happy. I had finally made a difference. And now I had made a success.