falling, falling

Last year, on September 11, I opened my exhibit, 'SCRATCHED' in Cafe Gnosa, Hamburg. I got up very early in the morning to curate and set-up the show. Apparently, I had the wrong train ticket because Bahn Kontrol fined me 40 Euro. I looked like shit that day, skinny and pimpled from stress and sleeplessness but I did my best to dress well and smile away the blemishes. Johannes treated me to dinner to celebrate and I had truffles for the first time - only to find a pubic hair in my meal. Then and there, I got a text message from Christoph telling me he might not be able to make it but he would try his very best to come. He showed up late but I thought hey, at least he showed up. I got seriously drunk on champagne and in my stupor, I let the words spill: "If you want me, I'm yours," to which I got a hug as a reply and a few polite minutes later, departure. I stumbled home late that night, feeling like I had just been crushed by the weight of my fallen idealism.

This year, I showed up at work early, like I do on most days, had my traditional ELT, then served customers exceptionally. I got lots of big tips and compliments on my service, had the highest average check I ever had, defeating all the waiters around me, then sat down with two supervisors in order to be fired.

“We’re letting you go.”

Before I left for the Philippines, the managers approached me and asked me if I would work for them through September. The syntax made it clear that they wanted me around only for as long as they needed me so I knew it was coming. How could I not, really? They were firing or squeezing out all of the people in the restaurant that I liked or were close to and they were constantly hiring new people, replacements, and one of them had to be mine.

I was clearly on the fringes of Cora Society, not a member of the elite A-Team, who run the show and enjoy several immunities. Where they could get away with murder, the rest of us lived in fear of making that one mistake and I very stupidly handed them one on a silver platter when, in my exhaustion, I forgot to set my alarm and showed up at work late, making it the second time that week that I was tardy.

The story for why I was late the first time is long and I don’t feel like typing it all out here but the gist of it is, I was on vacation and too pre-occupied to call work to find out my log-in time on the schedule they revised while I was away. A coworker left me a voice message which, unfortunately, had the wrong details, resulting in my delay.

That’s valid grounds for firing. Sure, I’ll take that. What’s difficult to swallow is the fact that other people did that and worse – but they got chance after chance after chance. I didn’t even get a week to look for another job.

I wish it was because I was a bad worker, then I'd be able to accept their decision without any sense of indignation. Unfortunately, I'm a good worker. I know it. They all know it. I can count on my one hand all the breaks I took in the 8 months I worked there, I always did as I was told even though I didn’t necessarily agree with them, I worked my ass off all the time, watched their tables during their endless smoke breaks, I cared about customers genuinely, never bitched about the tables of foreigners they hated, and I was extremely easy to work with. Even the ones who fired me can't deny that.

And there’s Lindsay… Lindsay who never liked me (only God knows why) and ultimately got me fired by reporting that I didn’t listen to her when she told me to have the kitchen remake an order she didn’t see fit for me to take to a customer. The food did not look half as bad as some of the dishes I’d seen other servers take to tables. On top of that, Frank (a kitchen manager AND server) told me that the dish was fine and only needed more hollandaise sauce on top of it. Thirdly, I have no respect for Lindsay’s opinions because she’s a hypocrite and snaps at people for doing things that she does so blatantly herself – like get orders wrong or sit with friends at tables. She even told the manager that the food I sent out was returned – apparently it never was.

“But that’s not the point. You should have listened to Lindsay. She's been working here forever.”

And if that’s a requirement at Cora’s, I’d rather keep my common sense, my dignity and be fired rather than comply with every command given to me by someone who neither has nor deserves respect.

Then the supervisor mentioned that I had a bad attitude because I "[kept] disagreeing" with her. The Bread Ends Issue was brought up.

For those of you who know about it, you know exactly what I’m talking about. Ever since The Big Bread Ends Debacle, I'd been bringing my own bread to the restaurant despite the fact that all my coworkers were continuing to eat the restaurant’s bread in front of this supervisor without getting so much as a finger wag or a ‘tsk tsk tsk’.

Apparently, compliance with her commands was never nearly enough. I was supposed to actually believe all the things she believed in - or at least fake it well enough because she must have heard my differing opinions on a loop everytime she passed the toaster and felt very heavily my state of constant disagreement with her.

She always had it in for me, that one, couldn't stand the rattle of Tic-Tac's in my pocket and hated my little cultural quirks. Again, I’d rather be fired than work with someone who couldn't stand me for not being a perfectly mindless, sycophantic Haligonian.

So I’m better off; I’m free! I’m unemployed, nervous, scared of what’s to come but Free. At least for now.

And now I realize how much stress I was experiencing at that place, doing my unicycle tight-rope act. I can only last eight months without doing something extremely stupid (apparently); I’m only human after all, bound to make a mistake eventually, and I’m proud too; I stand up for things I believe in or at least let it be heard when I disagree strongly about something. So I hope to find a place that welcomes a human being like me – or at least tolerates one – because I can only do so much… Maybe I only want to do so much because thinking about it, serving tables, kissing the asses of cranky supervisors – it’s not my calling, it’s not me.

Right now I want a job that will give me headspace to think of the steps I need to take into my desired future, whatever that is. If this job's going to be 'filler', a bill-payer, then I want it to be easy and most importantly, I want the work environment to be friendly and light, so I can stress about other things. Hopefully, I’ll get a job in my field so I can start swimming in visual art again, try and oil these rusty joints, polish this tarnished coat. I’m bright! So why am I doing stupid jobs for stupid people in stupid places like I’ve been doing for over half a year. I never loved them, so why didn’t I leave them sooner?

I’ve got better things to do, I just wish I knew what they were.

This time I'm sober.