leftunspoken's Diaryland Diary ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Long work story. Sorry. I don't do this very often. Talk about work that is. Possibly because I have a JOB as opposed to a CAREER. So I do not tie 'what I do' to 'who I am'. Since it is just the thing that pays the bills, it seems silly to discuss it here, this place that is me, really-really me, my happy place, my sad place, with my poems and my ideas. But I need to vent. So here it is: I work full-time. Around 45 hours a week. At a job that is high-pressure, mentally exhausting, and requires a great deal of management, juggling, problem-solving, mind-reading, etc. It pays well considering the rampant poverty of the city in which I live and my own lack of education, but not well enough. I have in the past worked second "night jobs" to be able to pay bills or afford things I needed. Last time I did it for about a year and a half. Worked an additional 35 hours a week. For a grand total of *drum roll* 80 hours a week. It was just fabulous. Let me tell you. Loads of fun and good times. I don't know if my favorite part was the dark circles under my eyes, the wrinkles and nausea from the cigarette smoke, the constant pain and swelling in my ankles and feet from walking around for seven hours a night in heels, or the sleep-deprivation-induced hallucinations which always seemed to trigger worse while driving. I finally broke down one night. Sobbing hysterically threw a tray across a room, tossed nearly two hundred dollars (half mine, half someone's change) at the bartender (my very good friend and a beautiful girl), and walked out into the parking lot where I proceeded to crouch (catcher-style, but knees together) in high heels and a mini skirt, to the apparant shock and confusion of several customers trying to park their cars without hitting the psycho cocktail waitress. (I was cocktailing that night. Though I also did time there as a hostess, barback, and dancer {read: stripper}.) I resigned the next day. Even after the tantrum I had thrown (in full view of the video cameras with which they monitored the club), they asked me back. Offered to demand the apology of the regular who's nasty comment set me off in the first place. I quit anyway. I took a long break (about a year and a half now) in which I only worked 45-50 hours a week at the job described earlier. The break ended in August, when I discovered that not only was I poor, I was FUCKED. Back to work. Back to a bar. (Because it's the most money.) Different bar. No naked girls. (For better or worse.) Some things okay. Tennies not high heels - But the place is huge, so with all the walking, my feet hurt just as bad. It's a GREAT schedule as far as my day job goes. One of the managers is firm, but respectful and kind. Most of the time they're pretty nice about you taking a break. Or they were, when I started. The owner is a sweetheart and adores both me and the 'lead cocktail' who has become a very good friend to me. But. The General Manger. GM is Owner's nephew. And like 24 or 25. And a coke head. And morbidly obese, and I think a little angry about it. Uh-huh. You guessed it. Uh-oh. Overgrown, angry, immature, can't be fired, unpredictable because half the time he's high but you can't tell which half it is until you've gotten too close to escape if it's the bad half, resents women because the only ones he can get are the ones who fuck him to get money or favors at work. Mostly I have no problems with him. I work my ass off. He has no reason to bitch at me. His wrath is usually reserved for the lead cocktail. (A woman I have become very close to in the past two months.) She works her ass off even more than me, but she gets yelled at for all the shit done by the stupid little girls they keep hiring, because she's supposed to be in charge of us. But Friday didn't go well. It started okay, but ended badly. He seemed cheerful at first. In one of his good moods. And we were slow. Very slow. With three cocktails on. Fridays are usually lazy. Which means you don't really make money, but you don't work that hard either. GM called LC and me over to give us an instruction on something. He had an arm around each of us. When he finished talking, he turned and BIT me. On the forehead. Hard. Hard enough to leave a welt for about two hours. About 11:30 LC let me take my fifteen-minute break. Both the other girls had already taken their break. I'd been outside for about five minutes. Then GM walked outside and bellowed at me to "Get my dumb ass back inside." I got up and started to walk toward the door, but utterly bewildered, asked what was going on. He said something incoherent about me getting my ass back inside now. I walk in (and honestly at this point was still trying to fix whatever had gone wrong that required my presence in the first place) asked where he needed me. (Like I said it's a huge place.) He couldn't even provide clear instructions. He just said something about me getting back there and pointed to one of the bars. I headed to where he was pointing and wander around checking on all the customers. When nobody claimed to need anything I went and got my tray from the opposite bar and went to find the LC. When I asked her what happened, why I was called back in, she started trying to explain. (Turns out it was the new girl's fault, but the situation was under control.) As I was standing at the bar with her while she ordered and explained, he walked up and said to her "Do I have to fire all the wait staff?" Okay. So recap here: You bit me. You yelled at me for something that was not my fault. Then you threatened to fire me for not doing anything wrong and being one of only two hard working cocktails you have out of a grand total of five. (Half of what is considered full-staff, because everybody who starts hates it so much, or is so overwhelmed they quit within days.) I'm thinking: Hmmm. Time for a new job. Saturday morning I had to get up early to take my *ABC class. I called the guy I'm currently dating and told him what happened. He's furious. He wants me to quit too. Saturday night I go into work in a total "fuck you" mood. I went, I did my job, but I was damned if I was gonna be smiley. When GM and I first see each other, a couple of hours into my shift, he expects me to walk over and hug him. I sort of ignore him. When he gestures me over, I stop about a foot short of him and say "Yes sir." He says "What's wrong?" I say "Well, I'm afraid of being bitten again." He says "What?" I say "Bitten." He looks confused. I say "You bit me last night. Hard. You left a welt." He says "I did?" (This is how fucking coked out this guy is. He doesn't even remember.) He apologizes. I don't say much. I hug him and walk off. I spend the rest of the night looking unhappy. To the point that GM calls LC to the office to ask her what's wrong with me. She tells him that we're both overworked, nerves raw, and that we've both been yelled at too much this week and I may be ready to quit. He tells her he doesn't want me to quit and asks her to talk to me. Him and the manager spend the rest of the night trying to be nice to us. It almost made me forgive him for the night before, just to watch him trying so hard to be solicitous. We had to work Sunday too. Our normal day off. Because of a special event. We go out afterwords with the owner and his brother and some other people from work. I ended up telling the owner's brother everything. He's a sweetheart and a good man and I think he's fond of me. When I left, I hugged him goodbye and he said "I told Owner what happened. He's not happy about it. I think you should talk to him." I told Brother that I was too tired and just wanted to go home. Now I'm worried. I knew that telling the Brother was a risk. In a way I wanted him to know, because if something happened again, I wanted someone to know. But at the same time, I'm afraid of retaliation. I mean this could go two ways: Owner could tell GM to settle down and he could just leave me alone. (Although how many drug addicts do you know that can control their personalities? Usually this depends solely on the levels of various chemicals affecting their brains.) Or GM could retaliate, and this could get worse. Of course if it gets worse, I'm quitting. So I don't know what I'm so scared of, but still. I'm frightened. Can't help it I guess. I was raised to respect authority, and I have the work ethic of a plow horse. This makes me a great employee, but also makes me sometimes foolishly surrender personal safety to the kneejerk instinct to obey and feel like it's my fault if someone is unhappy with me. Even if he's an ass. I don't work until tomorrow night. If anyone had any advice I'd appreciate it. 10:32 a.m. - October 04, 2004 ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- |
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