Oh yeah, this is IMPORTANT

September 18, 2006 - Monday 18:19

The cherry Red Counter

I am happily to contribute today to absolute nothingness. Finished my last slavery shift last night and I woke up this afternoon and realized I couldn't really move my body, it was falling apart. It took me about two hours trying to find a lying position in which I could feel less ache, no luck, I popped a sleeping pill instead. I was supposed to go to French Canyon with a few friends this morning, but there was no way I could have be there by 9am, considering I arrived in my apartment from work about 4:30am. Next time may be, but there have been so many fun occasions I had missed because of this 5 euros/hour, 11 hour shift. It had been raining, so I worked in the rain for 22 hours at least straight, so, I am sick.

When I walked in the pub last night for the last time around 5pm, I was about to hit the counter with a broom. What happened on Friday night was still vivid in my head and erased every single possibility that I would miss this place once I stepped out of it.

I was working on the terrace with another two girls, and at one point, it got really busy suddenly. I had no idea what the other two were doing but I ended up to be the only one on the terrace for about 5-10 minutes. (It is actually a long time when there are about 100 customers you are dealing with...) anyway, I had about 7 orders in hand, 3 of those were huge group orders. 2 of those groups were already drunk when they came in, so they probably didn't know what they were ordering. After I punched in the orders in the computer (we are talking about 16 50cl beers, some whiskies, gin tonic, etc... in total, it was about 25 drinks). When I took some of the drinks out, I found both of these drunk group had already left! Which meant that I had about 25 drinks left on the counter, (which is as big as a snowboard and it is where all 3 of us picked up out orders and bring them to the clients). So since I couldn't bring any of those orders out, the manager Kevin yelled at me in front of everyone:" What the fuck you think you are doing? Don't take a break right now! You think you are on holiday? Move your fucking ass and work!!!!!! Fucking move it!" "Sir, I had been carrying about 10 drinks at one time on my tray non stop in the past 6 hours, and there were two groups....." I was going to show him the tickets that I punched in, those drinks were supposed to be for the drunk groups, but he pushed me off the bar, I almost fell and hit my head on the counter,:" Don't fucking talk to me, just do it! And don't think! Just fucking do it. BRING OUT THE FUCKING DRINKS, BRING BACK EMPTY GLASSES AND MAKE MONEYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYY!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! NOW MOVE YOUR FUCKING ASS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!" I picked up a glass, put it back down on my tray, I was THAT close to smash this glass on his head, I would use the rest of the broken glass cut open his chest and see if he is human or not, or wait, don't bother, he is not! I started to feel dizzy because of the rage, but I had to carry on and finish the last two shifts left. So, none of those drinks on the counter was actually useful, I had to go out to see if I can take more orders and sell those drinks off without the tickets so at the end of the night my til wouldn't be 100 euros off. When I stepped on the terrace, Mark, another owner of this pub pushed me back in:" What the fuck are you doing coming out with an empty tray? Where are your fucking drinks? You think we are paying you for you to be on break all the time?"

Because of the yelling, a couple of customers at the bar left, when I was outside, one of the girls asked me if I was OK, I shook my head and said yes. No, how can I be OK? For being pushed around by everyone, and don't you dare to tell me the service is slow, I don't make the drinks and too often that every customer wants to pay INDIVIDUELLY for their own drink and I ended up holding 10 liters of drinks in one hand and having another hand trying to find the changes for that 50 euro bill only paid for a 3.50 beer! And NO, I was not OK, I had to go to the toilette for the past 2 hours but every time I was going upstairs, Kevin screamed at me:" Down stairs! NOT upstairs!!!!!!!!!" I had been working my ass off since the day I got this job, and I just found out that I was the ONLY full time waitress there. I finished the rest of the orders, sold some drinks without tickets and then, I decided I needed to cry.

Despite Kevin's screaming, I rushed in the restroom. There was a line. I held my head in my hands and my shoulders started to shiver. But I had no tears, I was too angry to cry. I just couldn't stop shaking. After using the toilette, I was back to work again. I almost had a nerve break down when another 5 people tried to pay individually and digging through their pocket, giving me a bunch of 5 cents. I told them that I would be back in a few minutes, but when I was back, they hadn't figured out the tickets yet! HOW!???? I was not supposed to do that because if I did, they could leave without paying. Kevin set up the terrace that day, like every day, setting it up is a war, he only cares about how it could look nice instead of being practical, he set it up the way the waitresses couldn't walk through. Then, he forgot to change the price on the menu and one of the customers asked me to talk to the manager about the price, Kevin told me to told him to fuck off. Another one asked for two glasses of water, he told me to tell her to fuck off and dump the whole liter of water down the sink saying:" Water costs money!!!!!!!!!!!!!!" It is certain that he needed to learn other English adjectives, verbs, adverbs and nouns. "Fuck" is a useful word, but don't abuse it like you abuse us, you are wearing it out. I really wished that I had able to record everything on a camera, or steal their videos (they have about 10 cameras in the pub and 4 security guards). I would do anything to put them in public!

My last shift was nothing special, besides that fact that I had to yelled at one client not to touch me 10 times and my friends dropped by and it was really nice to see them. I left around 4:15, and I knew I would never go back, even for a drink. That cherry color wooden counter at the bar would make me sick.

So, today, I dyed my hair, (it is so red right now, makes me happy) I did my laundry, laid on the couch and watched TV. Start school in the morning and start my new job tomorrow night. I still felt my body is falling apart, but I will be fine, I always am.