No matter the task at hand, no one can do it alone. Even small, everyday things like working and running a restaurant require more than one person. The short story “Pancakes,” by Joan Bauer, follows Jill, a waitress, and how her normal day suddenly goes wrong at the Ye Olde Pancake House. Jill is a perfectionist; she always strives and wants the best from herself and others. She believes that any task can be accomplished with perfect workmanship. However, one waitress is not enough for the masses of people who come to the creperie. Overwhelmed with clients, Jill ultimately can't handle everything and realizes that perfection is unattainable. Although reliable, Jill is bossy and overly perfectionistic, showing that expecting the best can lead to the worst. Jill's reliability is the reason for her confident approach to all her tasks. During her job interview at the creperie, Jill sets the tone, repeatedly assuring the owner of her abilities. She is also very good at explaining her ordering system and her talent for arranging condiments alphabetically. Upon hearing this, the owner, Howard Halloran, remarks that he would die happy if Jill was half as competent as she seemed. After the whole conversation, the owner responds, "'You're hired,' Howard Halloran said respectfully, and has given me the responsibility of opening and setting up the restaurant on Saturday and Sunday mornings, i.e. say when nine-tenths of all the pancakes are consumed. the universe is consumed and you don’t want a systemless person at the helm” (Bauer 196). Jill is known for playing a crucial role in success and she is ready to step in and make it happen. As a child, Jill moved around a lot, and being organized and orderly became her way of adapting and having some stability. She...still in the middle of a paper...not knowing the trouble he caused me” (Bauer 201). Jill, always wanting her customers to be satisfied and the restaurant to be perfect, takes the time to chat with the customer and even report it to the chef. Jill prides herself on being perfect and believes in herself, but in her case, being perfect takes too much time. What seemed manageable at first spirals out of control, and thanks to her reliability, Jill's authority and perfectionism become more prominent as they lead to her eventual demise. . Each of her individual traits grows to attack her from within as she becomes more and more agitated. Using Jill as an example, author Joan Bauer shows how perfectionism is unattainable and can become an obstacle to achieving goals. Although Jill has common sense, her expectations are set at impossible heights and therefore fall on her whenever something goes wrong..