Smells Like Solidarity

Negotiating with management can be difficult for customer service workers, but one restaurant crew has discovered the value of playing any bargaining chips they find splattered all over the restroom to its full advantage!

Bar denizen and soon-to-be human geyser Dan LaPorta had joined a group of friends for trivia night at Muncher’s Bar and Grill in Dayton, OH. The group started the evening by sharing a platter of “cheesy blasters”, an appetizer in which a monterey jack cheese filled hotdog is wrapped in a slice of pepperoni pizza and then deep fried. We wouldn’t recommend this particular dish to anyone, but especially not to someone as lactose intolerant as LaPorta, who was about to find out just how appropriately named the cheesy blasters really were.

“It’s cool, I took a Lactaid,” he assured his friends before realizing sometime later in the second round of trivia that Lactaid isn’t exactly invincible. LaPorta returned to the table sometime later only to be chastised by his friends for missing a question about the film Sleepless in Seattle, the answer to which he, a total romcom head, would’ve totally gotten. But his shame may have been greatly diminished if he'd known he had just dealt a steaming, hot blow for workers everywhere.

Restaurant busser Cal Murgo was the first on the scene.

“People were complaining about a mess and a backed up toilet in the bathroom,” he recalls, “so I went to take a look. The second I walked in there I was already out. Ain’t no way.”

“I had my doubts that whatever that came out of was even human,” says Denise Sutton, who also buses at Muncher’s. “Maybe it was some kind of cryptid with food poisoning that had wandered in here, I don’t know. I didn't want to know.”

Server Mark Zimmer also attempted to face LaPorta’s work of abstract expressionism, but could not comment as every time he tried to describe it he gagged.

With the only men’s room at Muncher’s effectively closed for business, the customers were becoming irate. Many were several beers deep and full of greasy bar food. Something had to be done before people resorted to using their empty mugs or the dumpster out back. One customer had already defiled the janitorial closet over the inconvenience.

Paul Tillman was the manager on duty that night and only had one strategy to get the men’s room back in working order: force the staff to do it, a task that was easier barked than done.

“Nobody was having it,” says Cal Murgo. “He was like ‘somebody’s gotta do it’ and we were all ‘not us’. He kept saying that it was literally our job and if we wouldn’t do it he’d find someone who would and we were all ‘yeah, okay, do that then’ because he was clearly bluffing. We knew he wouldn’t fire all of us. Later someone, I think Lenny, said ‘we don’t get paid enough to decontaminate elephant diarrhea’ and Tillman just said ‘okay, then what should I be paying you then?’.”

Tillman had clearly meant this question facetiously, but the staff saw an opportunity.

After a brief meeting in the kitchen, to which Tillman wasn’t invited, the staff returned and informed their manager that cleaning such a mess would require a 10% pay raise and that all staff members be given the same benefits (medical, dental, and 401k) that management received.

Tillman would’ve liked to refuse the offer, but during the ensuing argument and negotiation Dan LaPorta, who had consumed a nacho platter and several beers, had used the bathroom three more times. It was only a matter of time before photos and reviews mentioning the disaster now speckling every bowl and their surrounding floor tiles made their way onto Yelp and Google. Tillman would have to answer to corporate for the entire shitstorm, a consequence he spent his entire managerial career avoiding.

“I remember when Cal burst back into the kitchen,” says Denise Sutton, “and told us that Tillman caved. Also I’m sorry I used the word ‘burst’ just now.”

It's okay, I used “shitstorm” earlier. Words are fun.

“I was pretty psyched,” says linecook Chris Dunne, "especially since I needed to fire a bunch of orders so I didn’t have to clean any of that shit up. I mean I didn’t have to clean anything. You know what though, accurate either way.”

“Yeah, it was gross as hell,” adds Murgo, “but we all rolled up our sleeves and cleaned it together. And even though we could still smell that nasty bastard’s intestinal gravy on our clothes for the rest of the night, it still felt like a win.”

Tillman, who would unfortunately still have to answer to corporate for extending a pay raise and benefits to Muncher’s 47 employees, believes he made the right decision at the time.

“They came to the table ready to play hardball,” he admits, “and while I gave them more than I’d have liked, it was worth it in the end. I mean, I’m not about to clean a bathroom! I’m a manager for Christ’s sake!”

At the end of the day, the Muncher’s staff have Dan LaPorta and his natural disaster bowels to thank for their newfound pay raise and they all hope he goes down in history as a folk legend of the workers’ rights movement.

“It was a genuine act of solidarity,” says Murgo.

“I'd say it's more like an act of chunkidarity or diarrheadarity,” adds Sutton, “but still really cool of him.”

“We’d have had nothing if that guy could handle his cheese better,” says Murgo, “and for that we’re forever indebted to that man and his open sewer pipe of an ass.”

“There’ll be songs and odes about this man all throughout the movement,” says Sutton. “We’ll call him ‘Dan, Dan, the Man on the Can’ and sing about how his firehouse anus doused the flames of corporate wage oppression! Holy hell, hang on a sec, I need to write this down….”

“It was pretty dope of him,” says Zimmer, “to come in here and–”, his last words cut off as he is once again dry heaving.

We caught up with LaPorta to ask how he felt about being a hero to the Muncher’s crew and possibly to service workers everywhere.

“Oh, I’m no hero,” he assures us. “I’m just a guy who got the splatters at the right place at the right time. I’m just happy someone could benefit from the pain and discomfort those cheesy blasters caused me, a pain and discomfort that I think is coming back on me. Sorry, can you get out of my way, I need to get in there….”

And as LaPorta once again makes a beeline to the freshly cleaned restroom Cal Murgo jolts into the kitchen and shouts “Hey, he’s in there again! I think maybe we can get some PTO days off Tillman this time!”

To the staff of Mucher’s, we say good luck in your future negotiations and dealings with management! And to Dan LaPorta, the legendary Man on the Can, maybe stick to the chicken wings from now on. No blue cheese though.