Wednesday, March 28, 2007
by Ospite. 
It seemed a little darker than usual for a Saturday. The entire day just had an imminent sense of doom. As the time passed, the forboding grew to an eerie level. Lunch and dinner seemed to meld together with no break separating the sad monotony of table after table...bad tip after bad tip. I felt like I was barely working, just creeping along like a slug, taking orders, running food, forgetting odd items, looking at the checks as I printed them up. Tables lacked their appeal, that fresh new-face quality that normally keeps me from boredom.
It was almost as if the customers themselves didn't exist. Just their food and their money.
Maybe it was this that caused the pathetic tips. I couldn't pull a percentage higher than 12%. I was more sad than pissed. I started second-guessing myself as a waiter.
While the 40-something hag literally yelled in my face about her salmon that was too orange and not pink enough, I glazed over. I found myself emotionless.
When the doors were locked and I cashed out, I looked and the bills in my hand. $27. For the Day. For a Saturday. Average tip sat pretty at 8%. Ridiculous. I considered quitting then and there. Finding a new profession. I decided to sleep on it.
And sleep I did. When I walked to my car, I opened the door, sat in my seat, and woke up in my bed strangling a pillow. The world's most horrendous Saturday was a dream. The perfect dream for me to awake to and realize it's really Monday morning and I have a double shift ahead of me. I mentally prepared for the longest Monday of my life.
It was almost as if the customers themselves didn't exist. Just their food and their money.
Maybe it was this that caused the pathetic tips. I couldn't pull a percentage higher than 12%. I was more sad than pissed. I started second-guessing myself as a waiter.
While the 40-something hag literally yelled in my face about her salmon that was too orange and not pink enough, I glazed over. I found myself emotionless.
When the doors were locked and I cashed out, I looked and the bills in my hand. $27. For the Day. For a Saturday. Average tip sat pretty at 8%. Ridiculous. I considered quitting then and there. Finding a new profession. I decided to sleep on it.
And sleep I did. When I walked to my car, I opened the door, sat in my seat, and woke up in my bed strangling a pillow. The world's most horrendous Saturday was a dream. The perfect dream for me to awake to and realize it's really Monday morning and I have a double shift ahead of me. I mentally prepared for the longest Monday of my life.
5 Comments:
Ah. THE DREAM. The one where you've having the shittiest day of work you'll ever not have... I worked at a Dairy Queen, and spent a full night's sleep trying to close the store and go home but not being able to due to an endless cycle of customers and not being able to leave until everything was cleaned, but we had to serve people if they came in. I would wake up, get a drink of water, go back to sleep, and pick up right where i left off.
going out after work seemed to help me from having The Dream. Cheers.
hahaha. I just had the waiter dream last night! empty restuarant and me not being able to catch up. Every food order wrong, and no tips to even tip out with. Why do these nightmares feel so freakin real? I miss the old days of being chased by freddy in random abandoned factories...
i've had dreams where i actually go through an entire day of school--notes, boredom, falling asleep in class--then wake up and go through it a second time.
only the second time, i'm not wearing a zebra costume.
Anonymous, Holy Crap me too!!! I worked at a DQ too, and we called it "The Dream" as well. We'd wait a month, then ask a newbie if they'd had The Dream yet. They'd gasp and shout "you get it too!!!". Then we'd go out for coffee, or ghost hunting, or anything else we could think of. It's true that the post-work social interaction can be a life saver.
The worst was the one time I dreamt of working DQ, and when I went to the back of the store for supplies... It was Auntie Anne's. Working one job all night sucks. But Two? Torture. Pure Torture.
I have the same thing.
When I first started working at Starbucks, I would have bux nightmares... where I was making an endless line of drinks and running out of everything, but somehow I couldn't get one drink out. No matter how much I did.
I would wake up in a cold sweat at times.
« Home | Post a Comment »