Life Itself

Is the most wonderful Fairytale. - Hans Christian Anderson

I started work on Friday - catering on-campus events. I think I applied for dish-washing or something, but this is so much cooler, so I'm not going to mention that maybe my application got put in a different stack... It was very much like final banquet, and I felt so classy in my white blouse/black slacks as I ran back and forth down the wide concrete hallways that web their way around all the banquet halls. After we set the tables up, the people came, and we waited for the food...served the salad, and waited for the food some more. I found there was something ingrained deep down as we took the salad plates away with nothing to replace them with. Somehow this was Wrong. And as I stood behind the chairs before I served the main course, the only thing I could think was left or right, right or left? This wasn't something discussed at all in training. It went much deeper, but I couldn't remember right or left. What would Mrs. Weston think?

Lunch was amazing. We got to eat the left-overs while we waited for the people to clear the room so we could clean it. Beef tenderloin and berry parfait (everyone loves parfait). Then the cleaning started. The girl I had been working with up to that point, Kahori, had left, which left me and my manager, Josh. He started working 2 months ago, and in that time, both managers above him left (baby and graduation) leaving him doing 10 hour shifts every day, and yet he was friendly and helpful and outgoing - just like everyone else there. We emptied all of the glasses and stacked them into a crate, and stacked crate upon crate until it was about eye-level. One of the glasses broke from being tapped on the edge of the trashcan to remove the remaining parfait. Thus I learned it's ok if something breaks. The second glass met its demise when, as the tables cleared, it sat, alone, undisturbed, taunting us. The top crate was full, and the second-down looked that way too, so with a shrug, he said, well, I guess this one has to break, too.

In a different building, I met more of the staff. About half, I think is Japanese. The American names, I pick up fairly easily, but the Japanese names, I have to repeat 3 times just to make sure I'm hearing them right, so I think they will take much longer to learn. It surprised me how quickly everyone learned my name.

The schedule came out, and yep, I'm scheduled for Saturday again. I think they'll let me come in a few hours late, so that it's after sundown. They don't seem to have any problems working around schedules (or to be paying too much attention to our schedules - yet - I think it's a bit hectic for them at the moment with everything starting up again after the break, and everyone having new class schedules).