Food Service
By Julian Denney
If life is a prison, restaurant work is Guantanamo Bay. Picture it: you woke up with a fever of 101, but you’re still on your way to work because it’s short-staffed and someone else already asked for a shift cover with no luck. It’s a Friday night, so you can’t even dream that it won’t be busy, because it undoubtedly will be—especially with tourist season creeping up. You’ll have to be coordinated enough to balance a tray of thirteen dirty cups and plates precariously stacked atop one another, even though you nearly swerved onto the wrong side of the road while driving there. The moment you step foot into the restaurant, the smell of stale fries is already making you nauseous, and finally, you get the warm, warm welcome of:
“The regular that *#$% herself called ahead, she’ll be coming in again.”
“She’s still not banned? She’s gotta be a health hazard at this point?”
“She and her husband spend too much money here to ban them.”
And that’s how my shift started. I was a busser for two years because I was too scared to ask for a raise and only got upgraded to host in the third year because I was more tired of getting $11 an hour than I was scared of my manager. Even with that, I still got the privilege of continuing to buss, having to touch everybody’s plates even when I saw them cough all over it. Despite that, I finally felt grateful to miss out on hosting (after three weeks of being put with too many hosts to make my own host money) solely because I thought I might get a migraine if I had to talk to anybody.
However, my luck stopped there, because even if you’re not arguing with an old lady about a wait list or telling the fourth person to ask if you have filet that you don’t, you get a coworker twenty years your senior chewing you out for anything they can gripe about. Not even an hour into a shift, and I’d heard enough about booths two, three, and four needing plates grabbed and water refilled to last a lifetime. Nothing can quite recreate the feeling of rage ignited when asked, “Can you go _______” while you are visibly mid-task and trying not to vomit. By hour four, I’d sent off several texts, including but not limited to:
“Everyone’s catching [kind] attitudes with me. I could throw up on this [beautiful] floor right now and make ALL of your guys’ shifts a lot less fun don’t play with me,” and “So help me god if [my favorite coworker ever] says one more thing I’ll [give her a hug] swear on HER life.”
While I’d forgotten water in someone’s water glass (presenting them with only ice), shattered several wine glasses in a full restaurant, and otherwise humiliated myself plenty, the final straw to make me consider quitting was when the restaurant was void of customers. I was made to clean the bathrooms, apparently not having played the sick card hard enough, and was not informed that the floor was freshly mopped. Everyone else was cleaning and celebrating the final table leaving, and I was so out of it that I mistook their laughter for the color green.
With my coworkers preoccupied, the only people to see it were me and god. I hit the floor like a brick, watching the basket of towelettes drop beside me. I could immediately feel the bruises forming along my entire side, my work of rolling up towels was completely undone, and my pride was more bruised than my body. The mop water was quick to seep into my cheap uniform, and clung to me as I made myself finish cleaning.
After it all, I still (unfortunately) didn’t quit—jobs for highschoolers are finite, and so is my checking balance.
I still have yet to quit.