Friday, July 07, 2006

Take This Job and Fuck Yourself in the Face With it

I gussied completely up with rhinestones and liquid eyeliner in hopes to find Maddy still mingling about Lounge night at The Metro. I missed the whole blasted thing! I was in too much pain immediately following work to do anything, so I turned down TWO offers to be social. AARRGGHH!! I pretty much hate my job. It's all I can do some days, to avoid walking out. In tiny moments it can be fine, or even fun, but it is too stressful for me, and hard on my body. Right up cozy with the back dumpster is where I like to take my breaks, in tears. There isn't parking for me on the Friday shift, so I spend the first 2 hours justifying why it's ok that my keys are near the register reminding me to move my car before it's ticketed; which would thereby make the whole shift moot. Today I worked with a prepper that doesn't like me, a manager that doesn't like me, and then a women I knew as a teenager, who decided back then that she didn't like me, came in for lunch and Challah. Later in the day, I took a break from doing dishes and swept instead. Aaahhhh, a relaxing alternative. My first official job was dishwashing. I had processed tax returns from age 11 and trimmed lumber with a chop saw, but dishwashing was my welcome to the taxed income world. All that glory happened in some short-lived German pancake joint, so I had to scrub these HUGE industrial mixers. I was hired with the promise of being a waitress, real soon. Real soon. I would wear clean shirts every day and re-paint my finger nails every night. The scraggly looking girls who were waiting tables weren't tipping me, which I know now was tacky of them, in addition to just wrong. I worked there a month and then hit the redwood. The owners withheld my pay check, although both of my mom's requested it in person. Eventually we had to go to a labor commissioner, who granted me a bunch of money I never received. But I did get the pay check. It was the first of many thankless, low wage, degrading, debilitating, anxiety producing, employment opportunities like the one I'm in now. I dare say the class system in America is worse, because in India the rich are seen as rich and the poor are seen as poor. Here, the rich are seen as having worked hard to get there and the poor are seen as sorely lacking in intelligence, strength, charisma, stamina, or whatever it is that's supposed to be enough to take them from their particular social rung and elevate them. I'll be there again tomorrow, if you want to visit or call me. If you didn't catch that, it's Saturday. Yeah. I work Friday, Saturday, and Sunday. My Sunday morning shift is the one where I am responsible for cleaning the bathroom and parking lot first thing. But don't you dare assume that gets me out of closing. It doesn't. Nary a shift goes by that I don't close one of those macklefrackin delicatessens. If your placing bets on how long I'll last in this job, can I lay down an entire pay check on Not Long Enough to Pay Off My Debts?

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