One of us!

I am not some angst ridden teen discovering and adopting ideals of an anarchist utopia here but I loathe blatant conditioning and forced assimilation/integration.  If I wanted to be a carbon copy drone I would have come into this world as a copy of a copy of a copy from the original memo you stuck in the copy machine at work.

I started noticing this conditioning a few months ago.  Every time I see the GM there would be a greeting, instant ‘hello.’  Then I started saying it first.  Then I stopped because I realized that I had been conned into saying it.  I didn’t really want to say ‘hello’ to the GM, I was just doing it reflexively something like Pavlov’s dogs.  Another thing: “don’t let the phone ring!” and I was at work, not clocked in but there post-meeting to have breakfast and almost answered the phone.  That I can’t actually blame on anyone.

Forced assimilation/integration.  I’m glad you have your little quirks that work for you.  I really am.  But here you are complaining about turn over times and telling us to drag out the patrons’ stay while we get through a now lengthy script that they probably don’t want.  They know what they want.  You come up to some of the them and don’t even get your greeting out before they tell you what they want to drink therefore why should I waste my time, their time, and the company’s time to ask them if they wanted what they ordered plus something else?  Why?  And these ridiculous buttons aren’t doing us any favors either.  If we don’t ask, we suffer?  More accurately: If they don’t remember when they’re evaluating us then we get screwed over.  Please, rely on customer memory (when most don’t even remember what their server looks like two minutes after they’ve left the table, let alone their name) to recall what we said to them.  They’ve been to restaurants for years, they know how things go so they’re going to tune out 95% of what we say unless they make a conscious effort to respect their server.  That’s how I like getting screwed over by the restaurant.  Love it.  I won’t even get into the obnoxious size of these pins.  This flare.  Nazi imposed Jew flare… sending us to the crematorium.  (God, that’s offensive.)  But let me state for those people who like the conformity and drone actions of servers who are all the same: we are not high class dining, I don’t get enough in tips to be a drone, and the nasty uniform is bad enough.

Keep the change.

Bring on your fires!  I am now the fire extinguishing expert that will save the restaurant hundreds (possibly thousands) of dollars for minimal pay.  There’s nothing quite like these little side adventures when going to work.  What could be better than sitting around making minimum wage to learn about all the different types of fire extinguishers?  You think I’m going to remember this?  You think there’s going to be a line of fire extinguishers on the wall when a fire happens that I’m going to have to think: “Which one for this particular fire?  ABC?”  Perhaps the servers and cooks hang out and discuss the merits and downfalls of the extinguishers, the sleek new design, the damange to the ozone, the cleanup…  Nope.  That’s not on my list of things to discuss in day-to-day life.  Though, fire and fire extinguishing could be a hot topic amongst the secret societies of the restaurant business.  Hosts and prep hang out after hours or huddled in corners wearing their aprons as hoods chanting about cookies and fires.

Don’t get me wrong, I understand that it’s important to understand how to operate a fire extinguisher.  I just don’t think there’s a great need for the drabble that came with it today.  I didn’t even get a full hour of minimum wage.  I made half.  Oh good.  I could have got a few tables and made more money than that.

Then I get back from this epic (and let me assure you, life changing) experience and I get landed with a one top.  Good way to start off a Wednesday night.  One dollar and fifty cents!  Riches right there, folks.  Riches.  Then I don’t get another table until I’m cut.  Paying bills and living the dream.

I could have stayed but why?  So I could stand there in desperation waiting to make more money that probably wasn’t going to total ten dollars by the end of the night?  I have things to do and I wasn’t going to get stuck there making 2.65 to twiddle my thumbs (and recall that I live in Michigan where minimum wage for the rest of the state is 7.40.  7.40!)  Government’s just going to eat that money and stuff it into programs I don’t use and Social Security I’m never going to see because it’ll be gone by the time I’m old enough to need it.

The point of this post being that I’m not a big fan of this abrupt change.  I could have been working but no, surprise! I have to go to fire safety training which was basically a half hour infomercial on fire extinguishers.  I don’t like my routine interrupted any more than it has to be especially if it’s not something that I planned myself.  I don’t mind change within the structure of what I am supposed to be doing but something completely out of the blue like fire extinguisher knowledge being forced upon me for some 3 dollars and some-odd-cents is just not making my flowers bloom.  (Who says that?  Should that be brought into pop culture?  …aged pop culture?)

Keep your change!