Work

I’ve always liked food, and regret not embracing it more fully at a younger age. I grew up during a period in which skinny was especially fashionable, and healthy food was all the rage.

I’m told as a child I worried about my weight, perhaps a reflection of my mother’s own insecurities. My mother swears my dad also worries about his figure, and often uses this as ammunition during their frequent fights.

When your kid was malnourished, refused to eat, or was too small for your taste, you took him to Callejas, a physician infamous for his tough attitude toward children and his liberal use of something they referred to as “Serum”.

I can’t imagine it was anything more than Pedialite.

I currently work in the back of house of a tex mex place.

It’s an interesting place to watch the action and interact with people responsible for others’ food.

Family meal is the name given to food made for the crew as an incentive (subsidy?) to work. The implication is that everyone who eats is part of the bigger family that makes up the restaurant.

This is no joke. There are good workers, there are bad workers, people you can admire, people to despise, nevertheless like in a family, you’re stuck with them for the shift. Regardless of individual feelings the family must keep working if anyone will make money.

Certain things are sacred. You do not steal from the servers, you do not skim off the good meat, you do not question the authority of the oldest member of the kitchen, and you pay your respect to the boss.

Get too close to the employees and they’ll consider you complicit. Play ball or become an outcast. If you will have help, better be good at your job, or terribly personable.

Make someone wait and they will resent you, learn when to look away and remain polite.

I hardly even know where I was going with this to begin.

Suffice to say once you’ve been stuck at a place too long you romanticize it and overanalyze it. I suppose that’s the whole point of a rut.

I hope I can find it in me to drag myself out. I once thought Mente would outlast me in the restaurant. Got to the point where I can’t remember if Ticia was there before me. I love the place and resent it at the same time.

Opportunities are so limited, and opportunity that is supposedly there is simply a mirage. Everyone is jumping and their personalities are so warped. I want more out of a job.

I’m willing to be bored to death. I have learned a degree of discipline and restraint and the joy of simply appreciating a good job.

Perhaps that is the same thing that is holding me back, keeping me from having more ambition, from reaching ever higher. Once I wanted to be a food scientist, instead I deliver food to condescending people who were never willing to be pleased.

Cheer for me.