As one who despises the first day of any job and struggles with a ridiculous lack of self confidence through the first week, I decided to torture myself by counting up my recent employment firsts–four in three months. And I feel like I might be forgetting one. Job one–event planning in Key West. I knew [...]
“I just want you to know,” said the elderly gentleman on a phone somewhere in very cold and very snowy Pennsylvania, “I am booking this family reunion party with you because you were the only one who took the time to listen to all our requests, and you obviously went out of your way to [...]
A manager somewhere in D.C. at 9:45 a.m.: “Hello?” “Hey, you awake?” “Yep. What’s up?” “Can you come in to work? Gotta a no call, no show.” “Sure. Be there in half an hour.” “Thanks.” A manager somewhere in Key West at 9:45 a.m.: “Hello?” “Hey, you sober?” Pause. Laugh to self. “Yep. What’s up?” [...]
“The money is good there,” said Upset Waitress a few weeks ago as we sat smoking cigarettes on my front porch. “As long as it’s good, use it. When the money stops being good, leave.” “Yeah,” I nodded. “But every day the new owners change something major, then the idiot manager doesn’t tell us, then [...]
I left for Colorado a week ago. My local bar manager told me he wanted me on the schedule full time when I returned. With that good news in hand, I turned down another job that had just been offered, and I reduced my shifts to one at the dive. Oh, and I booked a [...]
She wandered in at 8 a.m., wide-eyed and only a little nervous. Her crisp apron was tied nicely around her khaki pants, her makeup was just so. Who the hell are you? I thought as I buttered toast and kept half an eye on the line, where my order was starting to pile up. I [...]
“How’s the book coming along?” asks a Fort Lauderdale friend in an email. “Fine,” I lie in an email response. In truth, I have to re-write every chapter of my book every day. Just when I think I have the story line that works, everything changes–again and again. I moved here to work in a [...]
A long, long time ago, I was a bartender. I was asked to tend bar at a popular resort-town spot, where I worked as a server, because I sucked so much as a server. “You’re off the floor! You work the service bar now,” barked the restaurant’s owner after I was weeded for the billionth [...]
“I’ve hired someone to help you out,” said my owner. In this case, my “help” was supposed to spare me the agony of having to manage dinner, because restaurant management is something I absolutely, positively NEVER want to do again in my restaurant life, unless I own the restaurant. Except this kid, who literally drove [...]
Back in the day, when I saved up my allowance to buy 45 rpms of the latest music, I always found myself drawn to the B-side song–that tune on the other side, the side that took up space simply to support the hit song. Sometimes these B-side songs were instrumental versions of the hits. Sometimes [...]