Shakespeare's Pizza and Mail Order Pizza

Shakespeare's Table Tents

Ryan Miller - Employee of the Month, April 2000

Every month Shake’s employees nominate and vote for one of their own to be Emp o’ Month. The winner gets one misprinted, reject Shakes T-shirt; a White Chip Macadamia Nut Cookie; a table tent full of balderdash to send home; and a $50 bonus.

In restaurant work, cleanliness is it. Foreign teensie weensie tiny livestock in the food is a grande ño-ño. The health department and your favorite pizza joint work together like Siamese plumbers to keep our stuff wholesome.

One important part is hand washing. Hand washing and food making go together like roller blades and road rash, like FM morning DJ’s and bathroom humor, like cell phones and fender-benders. The key is how long you rub your hands together. A quick splash doesn’t do it. It takes a good 30 seconds of wringing to do the job right. How do we get new hires to wash long enough?

Ryan thought, "Say, the third movement of Cherbolinskinewbowisc’s Fourth Symphony is exactly 30 seconds long, if you count the coda! If we just have them hum it one time through as they wash their hands, they’ll wash for 30 seconds every time!"

So he hung the sheet music next to all the hand sinks. The new emps loved it. Classical humming infused the kitchen, along with the smiles of workers no longer fretting whether they washed adequately.

Except then we had to fend off a lawsuit by the copyright police over the commercial use of the music. So Ryan listened to 3,456 different tunes that were not copyrighted, timing each one. Finally he discovered that one verse of Jingle Bells is also exactly 30 seconds long. So now it’s Christmas all the time at Shakespeare’s.

Congratulations, Ryan.

Yes, there is more:

• Kim Sherman, Emp O' The Month
• Ryan Miller, Emp O' The Month
• John Gilbreth, Emp O' The Month
• Bret Hodgson, Emp O' The Month
• Taylor Bacon, Emp O' The Month
• Katie Sperry, Emp O' The Month
• Fin, Emp O' The Month
• Bobby's 'Stache