“Ha! Ha! Ha!” There goes that obnoxious lady’s laugh again… somehow it finds its way over the booming chatter of everyone else at the bar. Looking into the kitchen I ask, “Can I get a side salad please?” Crickets. The kitchen can’t hear me (although I believe I’m very loud) over the loud hissing from the friers, the sizzling of the flat top, and that god-forsaken beeping of the pizza oven timer. After repeating myself a couple of times—with increasing volume—I finally get my side salad. I must leave my peaceful(ish) cocoon and venture out onto the booming service floor where there are a million and one bodies, all inconveniently placed in my way, where no one ever wants to move. 

This is what I deal with every Friday night of every week from 4:30 to 9 pm. Working in the food industry is not for the faint of heart. There are mean people, indifferent people, and all-around just annoying people. No matter what happens the mean people will always be rude. Oh, you brought my food out in five minutes. Let me be the absolute worst customer ever, I swear that’s what they think. Just because they’re miserable with whatever they’ve done with themselves doesn’t mean I should be too. Then there are the starers, these I classify as indifferent. They respond when spoken to and don’t really cause much fuss. The annoying people are the needy ones. They ask you for anything and everything like you don’t have to take care of all the other tables in the restaurant.

Then there’s me. A 5’9” and apparently soft-spoken 17-year-old girl. At least 70% of the time no one ever seems to hear me. “EXCUSE ME!” I shout. No one moves. They never move. I usually just give up and push them out of the way, making sure not to drop any of the precious food that I’m currently balancing on my left hand. Picture this: me, my left arm fully extended into the sky holding a platter of food, my right hand carrying whatever else I couldn’t fit on the tray, maneuvering around people like a mouse invading some cat. 

Don’t even begin to ask me about parties. The servers never really give me a table number, it’s just a name. Some are unpronounceable due to their inability to spell, and here little ole’ me goes again. The back room is always 10x hotter and louder when there is a party. One would think that they’d want their food, so they’d shut up and listen to you right? You’d be dead wrong. “ROB. JOHN. METHUSALAH?” I scream. Blah blah blah. Chatter chatter chatter. It’s usually all I ever get back.  Here I am yelling my little heart out and they’re still over there chatting. Sometimes I get so fed up that I just take the food to the server and say, “Here you go this is for whoever Bob is.” Then I walk away back to the kitchen to collect myself. 

Now those are only a few of the issues at my ever-loving employment, but let’s not forget about the nice people. These are usually the regulars that come in. They love to talk about life and are understanding when something goes awry with their food. My favorite has to be baseball Tim. he got his name because we have two regulars named Tim and we needed a way to tell them apart. Baseball Tim likes baseball (kind of obviously), and there’s plane Tim. He flies a plane so that one was also easy to implement. Baseball Tim likes to debate… a little something about me is that I love to debate too. I could fight you on almost any topic if you really wanted me to.  Our friendship was like a match made in heaven… sure I’m 17 and he’s like 30-something, but we can converse relatively easily. We talk about plans for the future, making Christmas cookies, school, and movies… talking with him is the reason I come back to work. Always value your life-lines.

As you can see I have a love-hate relationship with my job. Although I say I’ll quit at any second, I probably couldn’t. Sure I hate the work and 90% of the customers, but I love my co-workers and the regulars. In this life, you have to find the positives buried in the negatives, and if anything this job has taught me that. “Ha! Ha! Ha!” Oh my lord, can she just leave already?