Another day at work at my new job:

1) As I’m tapering off training, I get assigned a small table of a(n older) (white) couple in the quiet and dimly lit lounge that’s good for dates, and the lady seems high-strung, and she wants to get an Irish coffee, but she says that she’s had it here twice, and the one time was good and the other was not, and she wants to know if the bartender who made it last time is on and I run around and check and she is and so I go run back and tell her that I put the order through, but as soon as I say that she’s like, “Oh no, I don’t want her to make my coffee!”, and so then I have to run around and cancel the order although it’s already in progress, although the (quiet) (introverted) (tatted) (white) manager is making it, so they end up bringing it out to her anyways.

“Looks like you got a winner,” my one (eccentric) (blonde) (semi-manger) coworker is like, when I apprise her of the situation.

And, she says that we get a lot of “those kind of white ladies” in here.

The entire management team also remembered who this lady was from last time, too, because she kept insisting that they didn’t know how to make an Irish coffee since an Irish coffee always has cocoa sprinkled on the whipped cream on top, except it doesn’t, they were saying.

“That’s it, I don’t want to hear any more about this,” the one (quiet) (introverted) (tatted) (white) manager was like, when a group of everyone was talking about this lady and her history and how you make an Irish coffee, just hashing out all the details.

2) Four (South Asian) students come in and end up getting individual meals, and when I collect receipts, it’s $0 tip, $0 tip, $1 tip, and $1 tip.

And, I really want to take a picture of all of those receipts and text it to my one (chubby) (Thai) ex-coworker and to my one (newer) (taller) (Thai) ex-coworker and be like, “See, Indian here too,” only, I don’t want to get caught doing that at my new job and lose my job, so I don’t.

Jigsaw puzzle disappointment:

This one puzzle that I got from the “take one, leave one” jigsaw puzzle exchange at the local public library in the (college) town that I now live in, it was these slices of various citrus fruits arranged with space between them against a dark blue background, with occasional herb pieces scattered here and there among them and even tucked in behind them on occasion.

And, it looked so nice and bright on the box that it looked just perky and positively perfect to put together during the dead of winter, although when I first took it out and flipped over the pieces, it just didn’t look that bright at all, although I do admit that when you started assembling the citrus pieces, that’s when the colors really started to look brighter, although still not quite as bright as on the box.

Much worse than that, though, was the fit of the pieces, so many you would think fit in, but later you’d discover that one had been misplaced and the misfit was so imperceptible at the time that it only became apparent when you’d build out this whole section and there’d be a gap left near there and nothing would fit in there by it no matter what you did, and then you’d take a piece or two out and try other things and then you’d discover the rearranged, true fit.

Just a really, really shitty product, although the box certainly looked nice.

The manufacturer’s information said (China).

A day at my new job:

1) On the bus commute in, a bunch of (South Asian) students are just lollygagging around and blocking the aisle on the bus when people need to move in because so many people are getting on the bus, and it makes me realize how I don’t really see that many (South Asian) customers at my new job at the (Irish-y) burger joint in the first floor of a historic hotel.

2) During shift, some (50s-ish) (white) ladies are curious about all of our various rooms and so as I do with customers now I offer to show them around, and when I get to the one that you can rent out for receptions, the one asks about capacity, and she mentions that she’s a realtor and heads up a local association and is always looking for professional event venues that can seat up to a hundred and twenty people.

3) After work, I go to the one (campus-area) grocery store that’s on my route home, and as I’m walking with my grocery bags down the sidewalk to get to the bus stop that’s on the route that will get me home, there’s this gaggle of like eight-to-ten (South Asian) students strewn across the sidewalk and crosswalk entrance as they talk to each other and just lollygag around and block everything for everyone in both directions, and it makes me realize again how I don’t really see that many (South Asian) customers at my new job at the (Irish-y) burger joint in the first floor of a historic hotel

Back-story (2 of 2): A person who was fired.

My one (chubby) (Thai) ex-coworker was telling me about how there’s an infamous restaurant story at the one (Thai) restaurant that I used to work at about the one (older brother) of the one (space cadet-y) (young) (blerd) girl, who had worked at the restaurant before her and who had actually been fired from it.

From what she gathered from our one (tall) (thin) (tech-y) (Thai) coworker/ex-coworker who used to work with him back in the day, he was a strange guy, like one day he didn’t feel like working anymore that day and he was offering people $50 if they would cover for him and let him leave an hour or so early.

And, like one time during a summer not soon before close, these people came in the restaurant and asked where their food was, and it turns out that they had been sitting out at a patio table and he took their order like at 9pm or so right before he was about to leave, only, he never put their order in and then he just left, and so they were waiting out there for like 30 or 40 minutes with no food and no food was coming and no-one else in the restaurant had any idea of what was going on until the people finally came in from the patio to ask what was happening.

The last straw was when the (Thai) owners had (Thai) relatives visiting and they had a big table of them and local friends in at the restaurant, and this (older brother) guy b*tched to the owners that they didn’t leave a tip, even though it was the owners bringing out free food to them etc. and none of the staff were doing anything for them, since it was a like a family-and-friends meal that the owners were putting on for them personally over in one side of the restaurant, apart from the rest of the business.

And, at that, that was too much, and he was fired.

Back-story (1 of 2): The day I quit.

So, like 3-4 weeks after I quit my job of more than 3 years at the one (Thai) restaurant that I used to work at, I went out for lunch with my one (chubby) (Thai) ex-coworker and our one (Chinese from China) coworker/ex-coworker, to get my last paychecks from them as well as my W2 for the year.

(They always leave them in this drawer in the restaurant below the register behind the back counter, only, I wasn’t going to go in there to get them again…  When I had written the [Thai] [husband] owner to say stuff wasn’t working out and I wasn’t coming in that day and to mail me everything and then I deleted the messaging app from work, I didn’t send him my mailing address, and I guess they didn’t have that on file, or my messages deleted when I deleted the app and so they never saw what I had written him.)

And, anyways, they told me what happened after I quit.

My one (older) (Thai) coworker who’s a whiz at the phones had to come in abruptly on a few hours’ notice to cover that Sunday lunch shift, and she was pissed.

And, for the next half-week, the (Thai) (husband) owner kind of disappeared from the restaurant and the (Thai) (wife) owner was the face of everything and running stuff in the kitchen, and you could tell that they were making an effort to be nicer to people, my one (Chinese from China) ex-coworker said, adding that he himself had thought of quitting several times in the like past half year.

And, although I wasn’t aware of it, the one (space cadet-y) (young) (blerd) girl who recently started working there again had just put in her notice, since she was moving away to start art school in spring semester in some other city.

And, although I also wasn’t aware of it, the (oldest) (Thai) daughter was in (Thailand) right then visiting her grandmother, since she had an internship all this past summer and couldn’t travel this past summer when everyone else from her family had gone back there to visit relatives.

So, for like a hot minute, they had a tough time really filling staffing at the restaurant, and the (Thai) owners’ middle daughter who had just begun high school had to come in and start working front-of-house shifts, even though she’s never really done that before, she’s maybe just helped out around the edges like folding silverware and filling water pitchers during like graduation weekend and stuff.

“So, where do you work now?”, my one (Chinese from China) ex-coworker was asking, too.

And, I wouldn’t tell him, or anyone, and I said that it was a contest and whoever finds me first wins a prize.

And, from other stuff I had said, my one (chubby) (Thai) ex-coworker had figured out the part of town I was working in from comments that I had made to her at some point about my bus-ride commute, so I said okay, yes, that was true, and other people could know that as a hint, but otherwise I wasn’t telling them anything, it’s a contest and we live in a small town and we have to create our own fun around here.

Adjustments.

Since my late job makes me sleep in until well past the sun is out, at some point I usually start to wrap the sheet around my head to cover my eyes, while leaving my nose and mouth exposed.

I used to have a sleepmask, but the ties pulled out at the mask-edge and I wasn't able to reattach them in any way that worked, including staples.

You came back to me.

When I went to do laundry last week, my crusty brown washcloth was sitting out to the right of the communal dryer, somewhere by the overflowing lint-bucket.

I had only been using my yellow one for like weeks. 

. . .

(Very oddly enough, the very same day that that one came back to me, the yellow one disappeared in the wash.)