Work Sucks, Until It Doesn't

[Repost From Old Site]
You know, now that I think about it, every job I've ever had has sucked.
My very first job was at the Coffee Bean (Though it was known as the Coffee Beanery in those days).  I was a top performer there, but I quickly found the place to be shithole, which is why it was so easy for a 16-year old punk to be one of the good ones.
I tarried briefly at another coffee shop and them moved on to one of my most fondly remembered jobs as a full-service gas pump attendant at Amoco (now BP).  I worked there off and on for over two years, and I loved it.  It was full of zany characters and the whole place was held together with duct tape and coat hangers.  I had the run of the shop most of the time.  I could wander in two hours late and nobody got mad.  I got to wrench on a few cars, made a few bucks in tips, and had enough to buy my then girlfriend a meal every once in a while.  It was a great job... for a teenager.
Then I went to college and I didn't exactly work... let's say I dabbled occasionally in black market trade.  My clientele was so scummy that it nearly changed the course of my life, an issue I mentioned with in an earlier article.  Near the end of college, I worked at Ray's Wine and Spirits, probably my most fondly remembered job.  The place was another in what's become a long string of falling apart crap-holes, but I had a lot of close friends working there, and we made that place like a second home.  The pay was shit, but there were... fringe benefits, and the boss made a habit of looking the other way.  It was a great job... for a stoner.
Alas, I did eventually graduate (though Lord knows I stretched that out as long as I could) and I moved in with my Grandma for a few months.  There, I held two short-term jobs, one as a cashier at yet another character-filled gas station (Shell this time), and my first server job, at Smoke House BBQ.  For you Kansas Citians, Smoke House is a pale, limp-wristed imitation of Jack Stack.  Don't bother.  Both of those places offered crappy pay and crappier hours.
Then I moved on to Harpo's, a bar and grill in the famed Old Westport district.  It was my first bartending job, and I made good money.  It sucked in the end, because Old Westport is a giant clique.  If you're working behind one of the 11-odd bars in the area, you'd better spend your off hours drinking in front of them, otherwise you're branded as an outsider.
Then came Meadowbrook.  Oh, Meadowbrook.  It was a private golf club.  I loved the members and they loved me.  My first boss there was a good guy, and if  were to see him again, I'd buy him a beer.  But by the end of a long and harrowing story that I will spare you the details of, I was made into a scapegoat for all the shortcomings of an aging edifice whose ability to turn a profit was forgotten legend.  In times of recession, luxuries are the first to go, and I got the boot with them.
After moving to L.A., I worked part time at Target, which is really just Walmart + 10%.  It's an expensive Walmart.  The shit there is the same.  Target, like Walmart, was filled with trailer-trash mutants who couldn't seem to leave me in peace to zone my shelves.  Anyone who has worked big-box retail will know what I'm talking about.
Then there was the J.W. Marriott.  I met a bunch of great people there, some of whom I consider good friends.  But the level of fever-pitch insanity that was the norm there was more than I could handle.  As a cocktail server, you could hardly find a more challenging environment.  That place is asses to elbows 362 days a year, and the only predictable thing about that place is its manic unpredictability.  That job was a heart attack waiting to happen.
All of these jobs had their moments, but in the final analysis, each one took a toll on me.  Some of them merely exposed me to people I found distasteful.  Some put me in environments that quickly became unhealthy.  Some pitted me against customers or coworkers who seemed to be out for my blood.  In every job, nearly every employee was unhappy.  In every job, I quickly rose through the ranks to become a top performer, but when I was at them all I could think about was how much I wanted to be anywhere else.  I believe, during the final days at Meadowbrook, I even said that I'd rather go to prison than walk into that building one more time.
Before I've resigned from each job (always on good terms) I've felt that way.  Like being locked in a cage with a serial rapist was better than going to work one more time.  No matter how nice the place was, it always turned out to be a chaotic hell-hole when I was there.  When I left, every place either got better or got shut down.  Ray's, Amoco, The Coffee Bean and Meadowbrook all went under new management within months of my leaving, some changing their brand name in the process.  Smoke House, Shell, The Marriott and Target all had turnovers in management that increased the happiness of the employees.  After a while, I started to feel like I was a curse.  Everywhere I worked got worse during my tenure, and got better (or was at least put out of its misery) the moment I left.  And then I realized something.
This is how God works.
Since I've been "self-employed"  I've had no trouble finding freelance work when I want it, no real trouble performing such work, and no trouble moving on amicably.  I'm fitter, healthier, more productive.  My house is cleaner.  My dogs are happier, and more well-behaved.  My wife is happier.  I'm happier.  I am eager to start work every day.  When other errands impede my ability to work, I get upset.  It used to be I looked forward to sickness and car trouble so I had an excuse to play hooky.
And I'm overcome with a profound sense of deja-vu.  When I was in my mid to late teens, I published a zine that actually got a little attention.  I was featured in the newspaper.  I set up and maintained a small distribution network that saw my zine making it as far as L.A, Minnesota and Austin, TX.  I wrote often, and people liked reading what I wrote.
When I was in college, I thought I wanted to be a musician.  But every turn I made, every opportunity I explored, every connection I made turned up a dead end.  In the working world, every advance I made was punished by a boat-load of stress, and never rewarded with a substantial increase in earnings.
For my whole life, there has been a pattern of God setting things up for me to knock down.  I've been graced with the foresight to be aware of a few of them.  But nowhere have I been more lucky than when he brought me together with my wife.  Her love, patience and support had made our mutual happiness possible.  It took us a while to figure out that this was what we were supposed to be doing, but now things are going swimmingly.  I finally feel like I'm on the path of least resistance.
And who knows?  Nothing may come of it.  I may wallow in unpublished obscurity until the day I die.  I may never be a famous novelist.  But who cares?  At least I'm finally getting the message that God has been ramming into my brain for the last 20 years.  Be it cruel or kind, I'm no longer ignoring my destiny.

Server Manifesto

[Repost From "Cook Like A Bachelor, Eat Like A King"]
I was born and raised in the Kansas City area, but relocated to Los Angeles a couple years ago.  I have always been in love with food; my mother is Greek so food was always central to our family activities.  My father is Irish, so fine booze has always been a part of my life as well.  Growing up as I did it is perhaps not unfathomable that I would eventually end up in the food and beverage business, where I have been the bulk of the last decade.  I received a BA in Philosophy from KU, so what else was I gonna do?  Teach? Seriously.
For those at the top of their game, at the peak of their career, the F&B biz is an amazing opportunity to express creativity and enrich people's lives.  But once that trickles down to the front-line employee, it's pure horse shit.  That's where I spent most of my 20's: on the front lines.
I've bartended, barbacked, cocktailed, waited tables and worked the door at a handful of different bars and restaurants.  I spent 2 years as a supervisor/manager at a private golf club, doing inventory, making orders, serving food and drink, setting up, working and tearing down banquets. I've had my hand in virtually every part of the front-of-the-house operations of a variety of places.  Most recently I have been working at one of the busiest and highest regarded convention hotels in the United States, set against the backdrop of one of the most vibrant and active entertainment districts in the world.
Know what?  It all SUCKS.  Sure, the money can be good.  I mean, really good, if you bust your ass.  But what for?  When you take a step back from your life, you see that the F&B biz takes a passion that most people lack because it just takes too much freakin' time.  To make serious money, or to gain serious status you have to be willing to put in 60+ hours a week and work at all hours of the day, 7 days a week.  To a person who enjoys having a little structure to their life, it's a total nightmare.  The result, for me at least, was a full bank account, but nothing to spend it on except rent and basic survival.  Every minute I wasn't working was spent trying to decompress from or gear up for work.  My whole life revolved around it, and that's grand if it's something you love.
Most people would agree that bartending or waiting tables are stopgap jobs.  It's not the glamorous career it may have once been.  It's something people do while they're waiting to do something else, be it advance in the F&B world, finish a college degree or land that big break as an actress.  The people who do it because its what they want to do are few & far between.  In fact, in 11 years in F&B, I've met exactly one.
At any rate, it takes a lot out of you and when you're stuck there without some sort of end-game in mind, it can wreak havoc on your personality.  Everyone fears the server who will spit in your food if you do something that irks him.  Why is the server this way?  Why do such insignificant things make him angry enough to attempt to clandestinely harm another person?  After years of combating these urges in my self, I have come to this conclusion: as a server or bartender, you see people exclusively on their WORST behavior.  If you met under different circumstances, you might be best pals with the jerk off who orders a mocha latte in the cocktail lounge at 11:45PM , but as their server, you have positioned yourself beneath them and they indulge themselves by treating you as such.  When you truly bust your hump and work hard to please people and still find them looking down their noses at you, it's not hard to form a bad attitude about people.  When you have 100 people in a row ask for the same stupid or inconvenient thing, its hard to remember that they aren't doing it to piss you off.  After years of this, a server may wake up one day & find he isn't the person he used to be and the new person isn't very likable.
So what is there to do?  Either you need to get to that next step fast, or it's time to quit.  Myself, I chose the latter.  I am elated to be emancipated from the chains of the service industry, but I am left with a lingering passion for fine food & drink, and a lasting respect for those tempered souls who soldier on, swallowing their irritation & making the business happen.
So when you go out, tip your EFFING server.  You only see about 10% of their struggle. And try very hard not to be an asshole.
AHEM.