You've got fail
Well, this weekend sucked. After three shifts, I think I may have accidentally stumbled onto the worst job ever. Besides being expected to work six days a week (everyday except Monday) from 3-11:00, the pay is terrible, I am on my feet for the whole time, with no breaks. The time either moves with the pace of a continent, or I am completely blitzed with a ton of customers and I am the only server. Again, there is one chef/manager, one dishwasher/busboy, and I handle everything else from serving, hosting, clearing dishes, cleaning, answering phones, doing take-out orders, et cetera. The manager also was furious at me that I had not, after three days, memorized the complete menu of seventy items. I am expected to know the price, what is in every kind of dish, what they all look like, et cetera. It is not like when I worked at Green Mill. It was pretty easy to tell the difference between a hamburger and ravioli. It is quite a bit harder to tell the difference between an Alaska Roll and a Dynamite Roll. A piece of Unagi vs. a piece of Tako. I also mentioned that the dishwasher/busboy does not speak English and the manager speaks only broken English. The manager asked me yesterday not to talk to him at all, even if it is for help when I am busy while he is working because "it is not his job". Sigh. This does not even include all the normal stresses of being a server - complaints about food, long hours, late nights, spending your weekends at work instead of friends, angry customers. It was just a very lonely weekend. I have no one to talk to at work, and because of the hours, I can't see any friends either. The real question is whether I quit now, or wait until a better job.
1. I am embarassed to say that on Thursday, for about thirty minutes, I was captivated by the boy in the balloon flying over Colorado. (The boy's name was Falcon.) Today, I read that the police are filing charges against him because the whole thing was a hoax with the hopes by the family to get a reality show. The biggest problem with the gene pool... no lifeguards. The parents will likely be charged with conspiracy, delinquency of a minor, filing a false police report, and attempting to influence a public servant. Can you imagine how much money those bonehead parents cost the state of Colorado when you take into accounts, helicopters, police, firefighters, et cetera?
2. There is a great article in this week's Newsweek from slate.com writer Jacob Weisberg about how the Obama administration should continue to ignore Fox News. Here is a small excerpt: Whether the White House engages with Fox is a tactical political question. Whether we journalists continue to do so is an ethical one. By appearing on Fox, reporters validate its propaganda values and help to undermine the role of legitimate news organizations. Respectable journalists—I'm talking to you, Mara Liasson—should stop appearing on its programs. A boycott would make Roger Ailes too happy, so let's try just ignoring Fox for a while. And no, I don't want to come on The O'Reilly Factor to discuss it. You can find the whole article at: http://www.slate.com/id/2232563/pagenum/all/#p2
posted by cyclonejohn @ 11:01 AM
1 Comments:
1.) Normally I would never advocate quitting anything after only three days, but in your case, I think that's exactly what I would do. This situation reminds me a whole lot of when I first moved to Oxford right after I graduated from college and I was hunting around for a job. I finally found a little sandwich shop on the West side of the city that was looking for help, and since I'd already been turned down by about 20 other places at that point and was desperate for anything that could pay the bills, I finally settled on making sandwiches. However, after two days on the job, it became very clear to me that I had made a huge mistake. The owner was a complete bitch and very rude, not only to me, but also to the customers. I was one of only four employees, so the lunch rush was ridiculous and I didn't get any breaks. I can usually understand people with English accents, but thick Scottish or Irish accents is another story, and combined with all of the slang they use there anyway, there were times when some of the orders that were given to me might as well have been in a foreign language. The money is totally different and I screwed up more than one person's bill. The pay was lousy. Put it all together...and I was completely miserable. Yes, I needed the money bad, but it just wasn't worth it. And in your case, I'm pretty certain that before very long, you're going to begin feeling the same way. If all that's available right now is server jobs, then that's the way it is, but then find one that is tolerable and that you don't absolutely dread going to every day. And if it was me, I would also try to look around at places that have more than three or four employees...at least that gives you a little margin for error in case you get sick or you really need to take off work for whatever reason, and it also allows you to schedule SOME time for friends and socialization on the weekends. Working six days a week is bad enough. But working every single weekend in the evenings is going to make your life pretty miserable in a hurry. If you were getting paid $20 an hour, then right now it might be worth it...but I doubt you are. So my opinion is that there just has to be something else that you can do that is comparable, but that isn't going to completely rob you of a social life and your sanity.
2.) Don't forget about the wheat farmer who had half of his crop destroyed by the emergency vehicles that were chasing the balloon:
http://www.nowpublic.com/world/doug-and-joanna-abbotts-field-ruined-balloon-boy-landing
3.) I totally disagree with Slate. I see his point, but I disagree with it. During the campaign, I think Obama made some of his greatest strides in winning the election when he did that three-part interview with Bill O'Reilly and tried to speak directly to those that opposed him the most. By simply ignoring Fox news altogether, Obama gives douchebags like O'Reilly, Glenn Beck, and the whole Fox & Friends morning crew free reign to continue spreading fear and falsehood with absolutely no meaningful intervention. However, if Obama (or even Joe Biden or Hillary Clinton) was to actually appear on the network every now and then and answer some of the common Republican "questions" (accusations) directly, through a Republican media outlet, I don't think the left and right would be nearly as divided as they currently are. Obama would still be widely criticized by the right, but at least he would gain some much-needed respect, and maybe even succeed at easing some of the bipartisan tension that as of late seems to be nearing a boiling point.
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