I Hate My New Waitressing Job

I do some of my best writing in bed at night when my mind is tormented by fears and doubts. With the light off, I try to calm my agitated mind for sleep, but I eventually have to get up and start writing.

I detest my new job. It’s not the waitressing that bothers me, but the toxic environment. Too many pissed off employees. The changing of the guard has everyone on edge, and the new wait staff takes the hit. People yell at me when I do something wrong, “You don’t talk to the cook! You talk to me!” “If you’re not waiting tables, you need to do side work!” Or I am chided, “Remember, I already told you…”

Sunday after brunch I asked what I could do to help. The flitting waitress gives me vague instructions, something about “taking down” a table. (Is the table going to the basement?) I ask what “taking down” means. The manager asks, “Have you ever waitressed before?” I had just spent the past four hours within her view busting my ass bussing tables and making sure every customer’s coffee cup and water glasses were full, and she questions if I ever waitressed before because I can’t intuit was “taking down” means. Maybe they are both unfamiliar with the word “collapse.”

Tonight, for some reason, I travel backward in time to my childhood summers camping in Big Sur, California. Life was so simple then, because the needs of childhood were the needs of the moment. Not the rent, or the utility bill, or whether or not I could take another day at a crappy job.

Big Sur was big magic to a six-year-old. Huge coastal redwoods littered the ground with a thick, fragrant carpet of needles. Their long-decayed logs and trunks became the foundation to many small hills that a three-foot tall person could run up and run down. And what delight to find a hollowed out trunk, blackened and charred clean from fire, that became a little fortress under which I and a newfound friend could sit and play in the protection of these giants, inhaling the cool, clean smell of forest damp and rot.

Back then little people were instant playmates willing to pretend any scenario. No judgment. No weighing the interest of the other party, wondering if they’d accept a social invitation or beg off with some excuse, preferring instead the simplicity of a night in front of the TV with beer and refined carbohydrates to numb life’s disappointments. Just “What’s your name? Will you play with me?”

I remember fondly the sounds and smells of childhood camping. The smell of bacon that would wake me. The sizzle of pancake batter hitting the pan. The clear, strong song of the tent zipper, quiet tamp of foot on redwood needles, clinking of the metal latch being dragged across the padlock ring of the build-in pantry cupboard, raucous bluejays stealing food off the table, the hiss of propane heating coffee and hot water for dishwashing. And most affectionately, the echo of voices heard throughout the campground that seemed to carry forever, but the words didn’t survive the distance. Just the tenor and the echo. (A few years later everything soured and the sounds were mom drunk, dad complaining, and my brothers arguing.)

At night we would make our way with flashlight to the roaring bonfire and the ranger talk. Seated on low benches in the tiny amphitheater, the uniformed rangers would share their lore of the forest and its denizens. And we children would be shown how to pass our hands through the fire without burning them. It was magic.

My father told us kids one year that whoever caught the largest fish would get a fishing pole for a present. Using a stick, line and hook, I caught the largest. My oldest brother, inexperienced with gutting, reduced my catch to garbage. And I never got a fishing pole. It was one of many betrayals by my father.

The last betrayal was after I proudly told him during his last visit that I had quit smoking after 30 years of nagging. As he hugged me goodbye I yearned to hear “I’m proud of you.” Instead, I got “Try not to gain any more weight.” That was the last notch of the belt of respect that I had long ago outgrown. When I left Oregon I didn’t leave a forwarding address or tell my family I was going.

Tonight, in bed, unable to sleep as my mind recounts the contemptible behavior of my coworkers, I wonder if I should throw myself naked to the universe and say, “Show me what it is to be a child again, a child of wonder and trust. Show me your magic.” Dare I put my faith to the test?

I have read that a wise and spiritual man named Jesus once said, “All things for which you pray and ask, believe that you have received them, and they will be granted you.”

The teachers of New Thought teach me that I order my universe with my thoughts, and that the universe is pleased to pour itself into a mold of my making. I believe. Help thou mine unbelief.

As I toss with frustration and doubt and fear I hear the faint honking of Canadian geese, a sound that thrills my soul. It is so precious I push my cat Pinegar aside, jump out of bed and throw open the window that I might stick my head out and catch however much of their song as is possible.

The honking sounds like they’re moving off. But the sound continues and begins to get louder and then very, very loud. And there they are, flying directly over my apartment at 12:52 a.m. I pull into myself the cool beauty of nature to quell the fire raging inside, a fire of anger because people can’t be kind and friendly to others but use what little power they have to be petty and make others as miserable as they are.