Putting pieces together (2 of 4): Little things.

After working with my one (Thai) (newlywed) coworker a while, I noticed that like one out of every three shifts when it was slow when we started out working, she'd just be on me about something, like, I should offer chopsticks to every customer, and I shouldn't offer the "side spices" (chili paste and dried chili flakes) to customers, but only give them to customers when they ask for them, and I was going up to tables too fast, that I should give them more time to decide what they want, always something little like that, but not every shift, maybe like once a week.

And, I figured out it was her just being grumpy in the morning, so I was always like, "Okay," and I just went and did whatever I was going to do.

And, you wouldn't believe how many different iPads and shit we have out back behind the counter, because of all the different delivery apps that the restaurant has to deal with, and these have so many little intricacies about how you confirm orders and whatnot, and then there's multiple giftcards, too, that are all entered in different ways.

So, I'd always try to learn, but I'd double-check when I wasn't sure about stuff, since this was dealing with customers's money and making sure orders got in right, and I didn't want to mess anything up or cost the restaurant money.

"I told you once," she'd always be like, when I'd ask about something like that, and I'd demure and say that the last time I dealt with that thing was like a month ago, and one she argued with that and was like, "No, it was two weeks," which I didn't think was right, but I didn't say anything.

Mostly, I figured it was rote learning like they had in (Thailand), since her husband had told me about STEM education there, and it sounded like you just had to listen and recite back what an authority figure told you, without doing any independent thinking or even questioning about anything.

I mean, who doesn't channel past behavior that they were formed in?

Putting pieces together (1 of 4): Foreboding past interaction.

Back like the second or third day when I started working at the (Thai) restaurant, I was working with the one (Thai) (newlywed) coworker, and when she was away doing something, the one (very short) (Guatemalan) guy who later ended up being chatty with me was like, "What do you think about her?", and when I said something about how everything was great at the restaurant and I liked everyone who worked there because they all did their jobs etc. etc. etc., he was like, "I don't like her."

And, this was totally out of nowhere and said for no reason at all, and it really did make me wonder if it was some front-of-the-house/back-of-the-house thing or different language groups or machismo, or what.

And, I just didn't know.

Closed doors, versus open.

I was just reading the reflection of someone in a prestige career, and they reflected on suddenly when they got success for one thing, it's like doors were suddenly thrown open to them everywhere.

I very much feel that, that I'm always butting my head up against walls with articles and conferences and publications and whatnot, where what I do is good, but I don't get opportunities because I'm not "someone," and on top of that, it's hard to get to be "someone" if what you do threatens enough of the people who are gatekeepers.

If you put your finger on something that is big and is really and truly not being done well, it's almost like it becomes obvious in retrospect, but it makes everyone else who's currently working in that area really and truly look like shit.

Holiday tidbits (4 of 4): Brewery patio.

Because of the new COVID variant blowing up, I've basically stopped going into the brewery during slow afternoons when it was empty like I had been.

But, on New Year's Eve, the weather was nice, so I got a take-out burrito and ended up sitting outside when they opened and having a few cold brew coffees there while reading a bit out on the patio.

And, I told the one (older) (white) (townie) (lady) bartender that  I probably wouldn't be in there too much for the next month or two, unless the weather was nice enough for me to come in and go sit outside.

At one point, she brought me a big red plastic plate full of Chex Mix and leftover Halloween candy including those sugary pumpkin-looking things and some dark chocolate-covered dried cherries that the one other bartender had left and some cookies that her friend had made and left for everyone, including homemade toffee and these store-bought crackers that have like melted sugar on top of them, but also somehow bacon, even though you can't taste it in there.

When the sun started going down and it started getting cold, I brought in my glasses and threw out the plate and said thanks, and I left.

Holiday tidbits (3 of 4): Restaurant coworkers.

Like a few days before we closed the (Thai) restaurant for Christmas, suddenly one night the eldest daughter of the owners came out from the back office with ice cream cake in little red-and-white crosshatched paper food trays, to bring everyone to eat.

It was her dad's birthday!

And, since her parents always work, they were celebrating at the restaurant.

The one (younger) (very short) (Guatemalan) cook who speaks the one indigenous language that most of the others don't speak and who also always calls me "senor" like I call everyone else and who is also laconic but is also somehow always chatty with me, he stood there eating the cake and was like, "When is your birthday?", and then when I told him and asked him why, he was like, "Bring us food then."

Like the day right before we closed, too, he came into work looking like shit, all dark around the eyes and moving slow.

I think he let loose on the night of the last day of work before vacation, and he must have gotten super fucked up and been all hung over coming into work, that last final day.

Holiday tidbits (2 of 4): Workout return.

I'd pretty much given up my rigorous "ten minutes a day" COVID workout over a year ago, since my lower back had gotten fucked up right before I moved and then it got more fucked up with moving and then finally my one interim bicycle that I have and that I was using to commute to the one retirement village job that I eventually quit and that I also occasionally used to get to far places not easily reachable by bus, its saddle could mess up my back again, too, for some reason, so my back was also always kind of sore or about to be sore from that.

But, my back has been feeling better since I walk to work now, so I decided to try to reintroduce the workout during the ten days off while the (Thai) restaurant was closed between Christmas and New Year's.

It's amazing how exhausted it makes you; like, the next morning, I'm just lying in bed and all my muscles are sore, especially lower body.

Holiday tidbits (1 of 4): Greetings.

Like has panned out the past several years, I got pretty much more Christmas and New Year's greetings from people who I knew at the edges of academia and resthome coworkers, than from people who went farther and "made it."

It really is amazing how people who manage to forge a path in that world become incredibly self-absorbed.

It's like my one (half Sudanese) (half British) friend (the brother of the brother-sister pair) has said (in so many words), "They're such awful people, I don't know why I spent so much time trying to fit in with them."