When I took this job I thought it was going to be a step up from the one I was doing at the time. I was sorting mail and answering phones sometimes and taking on real responsibility seemed like the path to stability. You know, anybody can answer phones, so I thought it was only a matter of time before they found somebody that would do it cheaper. I liked the hours, I guess, and the fact that I didn’t have to worry about anything at the end of the day. Once I was done, I was done. But now I fill out these forms all day.
It’s mindnumbingly dull work. I have to gather all the sales information, the discounts, and the shipping costs and enter all of them in these forms. Most of the time I’m not even sure I’m doing it right. Nobody ever showed me how to do it. I mean, sure, my boss sat down with me for an hour on my first day and showed me all the buttons I need to push to get started, but everything else I had to figure out by myself. I just made a little system to help me remember where everything is and so far nobody has complained.
Since I’ve been here, I started noticing all the people that work here full time. Some of them look like they actually enjoy their time here. They spend late nights here not wanting to leave or they get here early in the morning, almost looking excited about getting started. I wonder what that must be like. I think I might like to be excited like that, but nobody cares that much about shipping costs. That would be crazy.
I try not to think about it any more than I have to and the one thing that really helps me is sitting here listening to this radio. It’s actually a clock radio with big red numbers and I don’t know where it came from. I think the guy that used to sit at this desk left it here. I guess maybe he knew that it was going to be the only thing that would keep me sane. He couldn’t have been more right.
I get here in the morning and think about having to fill out forms all day and sometimes it’s almost too much. The first thing I do–before I even go down to the kitchen to get coffee–is turn on the radio. And sometimes it makes things better right away.
Yesterday, for example, I came in and turned the radio on and they were playing my favorite Stevie Nicks song. Boy, that took me right back to high school. I was such a Stevie fan then. I used to go around in a sheer scarf because I thought that looked so cool. And when people asked me why I was trying to be like Madonna, I got to tell them all about Stevie. I even convinced my boyfriend to go with me to one of her concerts and he liked it so much he bought a shirt. He used to wear that shirt all the time–until the ink faded. I’m not sure if he wore it because he liked Stevie or because he liked me. That was an awesome time.
And then, before I knew it, it was 6:00 and somehow I had filled out my entire day’s worth of forms without really thinking about it. I sure hope I didn’t make a bunch of mistakes while I was sitting there daydreaming.
I didn’t know you liked boys Justin.
There’s a battle over even allowing music in the god forsaken kitchen I am working in right now. The sous chef has this little man syndrome and doesn’t want anyone to have any kind of a good time when he is working, and has gone so far as to slam the transistor radio to the ground, which is stupid. I mean, he’s stupid. And during my second week there, we got into it in front of the whole staff because not allowing music in a fucking fry kitchen of all places is totally ridiculous. Since then, everyone has banded together and I am in the midst of yet another music related work war. The worst part of it all, is that the radio itself probably came from selling magazine subscriptions and any reception just sounds like tin garbage. WHen I worked with the Filippinos in AK during 80 hour work weeks–I used to haul in a giant ass Force EV speaker and play everyone’s cds.. including the WILDLY popular AQUA.. Taking music from people at work is just fucking wrong. Only assholes do that. What’s the big deal if everyone can deal with the selection and no one is doing brain surgery?
I like this a lot. I like tricky stories, stuff that sounds true, and then it doesnt and then in the end it does because it does and doesnt. It also reminded me of Sybil… up to a point.
And while at first I could sense some disdain for this person, in the end I think you did a good job at showing some affection for the girl and i even thought you were being a little sweet about it, which is not something i immediately associate with the you i’ve come to know through your posts.
this post is kind of like my mom. sort of.
the last kitchen job I had, and only, was when I worked at La Tour d’Argent in Houston back in 1994. I was the only white person and second woman. The other woman was the head chef’s wife.
I applied randomly and with no experience was accepted.
After a month I quit as I thought I was messing up the place just by being there, and at the time I really didn’t want to go in that kind of direction, so just thought it better to quit and leave the nice quiet kitchen as is.
Makes me laugh now to see how naive I was back then, though still am somewhat. Now I know kitchens are born chaos generators. Ah well. It was fun while it lasted. I knew how to make souffles for 20 and vegetable appetizers in giant ice sculptures.
There was no music.