Wednesday, November 12, 2014

A Starving Artist on Hanging Up Her Apron

I was raised in an uber-compassionate albeit pseudo-strict household.

PS, Regarding the second half of that statement: my brother, I'm sure, feels entirely otherwise.  Being the youngest and a GIRL, I had to call home to check in with my folks whenever I was out for more than a few hours at a time, had a curfew until I was 20--that's a real thing, and I never drank more than two drops of likker until I was safely in college and away from the parent phone-chain that my mother was a proud member of, tracking any and all of the shenanigans that my wonderful and relatively do-gooder friends and I might be (see "definitely were not") getting into.

My brother, meanwhile, would stay out until whenever, no questions asked, and have sex with girls in swimming pools.  It's fine.

...I digress. (Ugh.)

My parents' rules weren't necessarily plentiful, but, boy, were they steadfast.

The rules of thumb, however, and ways of achieving world domination/"this is how you get by"s of my childhood home, these were plentiful and abounding and were as repeated and resounding in our household as "Put your dishes away!"  Three highlights being:

1)  Work.  You have to work.  You have to earn your living, and you have to understand what that means, and you have to work hard and continually in order to not just survive, but make the best of your situation.  Some people have things handed to them, the rest of us don't.  (This, of course, was never stated in these precise terms.  I think my parents' actual phraseology was always something more along the lines of "Gotta work, Ange!",  said with a smile and a "Go get 'em, Tiger!"-enthusiasm.)

2) Stick to your guns.  (Which is another way of saying "Stand up for yourself and for your beliefs, and don't ever ever back down.")

3) Know when enough is enough.  (Self-explanatory.)

The first of these rules was first instilled in me pretty much when I started growing boobs, and I became fairly obsessed with keeping it in practice until OHHHwaitIstillam.

The latter two:  these were also first instilled in me around the the same time.  I have been struggling with them ever since.

Marrying these three rules of thumb tends to be fairly tricky and difficult.  I mean, for me, anyway, a relentlessly energetic overachieving Yes-girl.  But I am coming to realize exactly how clutch it is to do precisely that.

Allow me to explain:

I started babysitting in sixth grade, like you do. Sporadically, sure, but enough for me to understand what a job kinda sorta felt like.

(Sidebar:  I would like to apologize to both the Riciotti and Dombrowski families for what I'm sure was a white knuckling-experience having me, an awkward awkward preteen, watch over your children, your boys, nonetheless.  ...AND eat all of your pizza.  Every single time.)  (Ugh.)

Within months, I had my first paper route.  It was a weekend gazette and my particular route was in a fairly ritzy part of town, which meant that I spent a lot more time unsubtly peering into the homes of rich people as opposed to, you know, doing my job.  What my parents actually did sitting in the car each weekend for the nearly four hours that it took me to drop a newspaper in front of 80 homes, I will never ever know.

And then, just shy of my 13th birthday, my mother approached me with a proposition:

"Hey, Ange!  Patty's diner needs a busser on Sunday mornings for breakfast.  Wanna try that?!"

What's a busser? I asked.

It was over.

I've been in restaurants ever since. And what I've found in the wayyyyyyyyyyy too many years that I've been in and out of the restaurant biz is...god.  A lot.  For one, it's easyWELL.  OK.  It's not "easy", so to speak, not at all.  You get yelled at and ordered around by an awful lot of people who like to play bully in their professional lives and JUST WANT A GODDAMN MEDIUM RARE BURGER WITH SOME FUCKING SWISS CHEESE ON IT, NOT THIS GRUYERE SHIT!! in their down time. GOD!

Your back and your feet turn to shit out of what feels like absolutely nowhere.  And then, you have to buy Crocs.  And then, you throw them away to maintain some semblance of dignity about yourself.

And then, you get a Costco card just to grab bath salts, heating pads, & some black market-like Excedrin in bulk.

Your work hours are the exact opposite from everyone else's, and, the kicker:  your job is To Serve which means that, essentially, you are getting paid to be someone's bitch.  (To a degree.)  Occasionally, you're the bitch to 40 different someones at once.

But.

It's "easy" in that I don't need a PhD to do it.  It's "easy" in that, depending on what business is like that day, I can phone my performance in.  It's "easy" because it's flexible, it's cash in hand, it moves quickly, and, frankly, I'm good at it (if I'm not in a corporate restaurant and I can lean on your table and get away with winking at you and turning your table as opposed to wining and dining you).

It's easy because I've been doing it for wayyyyyyyy too many years.

However, there was a point during my last 6 months in New York in which I was deeply evaluating essentially EVerything about myself?  I guess?  Like.  Which life choices I'd been making that I'd actually want to stick with post this move out west? And I started to look at my life as a Server.

And I started to hate that I had a "life as a Server".

And I started to realize that I was nearing the end.  That I'd almost had it.  That, soon enough, I was going to have to throw my hands in the air and say Fuck it, I'm done.

But, I knew that that time hadn't quite approached.  So, I made a pact with myself:

I'm giving myself a year, quoth I.  I'm giving myself a year in Los Angeles to do this and buckle down and make some money.  Then?  Then I'm done.

I don't know what will be next, but I know that I'll be done.

I made that promise with myself, and I believed in it.

And so, then, I moved to Los Angeles.

And so, then, I COULD NOT FIND A JOB.  NOT EVEN SORT OF.  And I hunted like a fucking crazy person applying to every single restaurant that I could while every single person in Los Angeles was doing the precisely same thing blah blah blee blah blahhhhhhh until THEN.  LIKE A HAPPY LITTLE BEACON IN THE SMOGGY SMOGGY NIGHTTIME SKY.  I saw this happy little light shining just for me and only me and I.  Got.  A job.  And I fucking jumped on it.

(And then, I landed two other ones, too, one getting film permits signed, and the other, catering.  And then I promptly dropped the catering gig because it would require me to drive 70 miles roundtrip on the regular and only paid $10/hour.)

(Hey, Friends:  don't ever get a job that requires you to drive more than 6 miles roundtrip if it's only going to pay you $10/hour.)  (Ever.)  (Ugh.)

Now.

Here's what I would suggest about accepting job offers:  Even if you're desperate for a job, even if you think that this particular job looks shiny and exciting and particularly so because it's a 4-minute drive away from your house, ask up front what you're likely to make each week, and ask things straight away like, Hey.  So.  This is the dead season, yeah?  When does it start to pick up around here?

Ask these things directly up front, like normal people do, and you can avoid the surprise of "I don't think I understand what you're asking me right now," coming at you 2 months in.

I mean, I just presumed that this was our dead season?  So.  I didn't know when we were going to start picking up business-wise.  Ish.

You ask these things up front, then "Oh, Honey.  It always looks like this," won't smart quite as much.  And you won't feel like quite as much of an asshole.  And you won't panic and desperately scramble to find yet another job to cover your ass and help you afford the world.  

There are few instances in which I've ever felt more foolish or generally floored in my life.

Fucking hell, I have to start this whole search all over again and I cannot afford to start this search all over again fucking. hell. puking. jesus. criminy biscuits oh my-lan-ta god. DAMmit.

And I jumped back on Craigslist, rehighlighted the "food / bev / hosp"-section, and proceeded to tear out approximately 17 clumps of my hair.

Fortunately, it (somehow) took me only 72 hours to be saved from myself.

After eventually sending out a slew of hyper-panicked "I'm gonna try to play it reeeeeeal cool, though"-texts to a large handful of folks who had various Ins to various serving opportunities here in LA, SUDDENLY.  LIKE A HAPPY LITTLE BEACON IN THE SMOGGY SMOGGY NIGHTTIME SKY.   My dear sweet friend informed about an opening at his badass, crazy busy, crazy LUcrative all-steak-all-the-time-restaurant.  They had an obscene wine selection, they had LOBters, LOTS of them, and they were located directly across the street from the Staples Center, which meant all the Lakers and Clippers and Kings games I could handle and it was Corporate?  But.  Whatever.   In other words, this new restaurant looked something like this:

$$$!  $$$! $$$$$$$$$$$$$$ $ $ $ $ $!!!!!!

And I was psyched.  I GET TO LIVVVVVVVVVVVVE, and presumably, live WELL!!!! SWEET JESUS CHRISTO!!!!

And I screamed like an ecstatic little banshee in thanks and praise for this dear sweet friend of mine, and then, I got an INTERVIEW, and THEN!   I got HIRED!!

Sort of.  Rather, I got "hired" to train.  For a month.

(... ... ...That's a reeeal lonnng time.)

"We suggest that you hang onto your current restaurant job while you're training."

(Oof.)

"I only say that just because, I don't know, you might not like it."  (Pfft, well, THAT won't happen.)  "Or, you know, we might not feel like you're a great fit.  ...THAT won't happen."

I mean, that won't.  But, sure.  THANK you!

"Thank YOU!" 

(HOORAYYYYYYYYY!!!)


And I thought, Sure.  I can vacillate between two restaurants for a month.  And, do this third job.  And, hopefully, audition, and, maybe, have a life.  ...It's only a month, yeah?  It's totally fine, it'll all be worth it.

And why?  Because $$$$$$$$$$$$$$ $ $ $ $ $!!!!!!

$!

And I began making plans as to how many credit cards I was going to pay off at once and whether to get a pair of Frye's or make a substantial run to IKEA first.  Aw god, I HAVE been wanting to go to Brazil...Are Frye's cheaper there? Huh.

First day:  GREAT!  Great fun!  Cute little lunch shift, 5 hours long, busy enough, we sold a nice bottle of wine, and then a second one (Yessssssss $! $! $!).  And then, I got yelled at.

"You need new pants.  You need a new shirt.  You need new shoes, you need to tie a better double windsor, and you need to do something about your hair."

About...?  About this bun?  (I regularly pile my hair on top of my head with an arsenal of bobby pins, just to...I mean, just to do SOMEthing about it.  Bitch has a crazy head of hair.)

"Yeah, it's too much.  Too crazy."

Oh.  (Oh.  Well, this feels shitty.)

"It's off-putting.  You have to learn to be presentable."  (Oh.  Wow.)  "And study this."  And I was handed a packet of steak info/lobster facts/liquor list/wine/beer, and sent out the door, fairly shamed.  I began my hour-long drive home, stopped to drop $100 on my new work wardrobe, and then, drove straight to my other restaurant.

This is fine, thought I.  Par for the course, I'm sure.  And it's allllll gonna be worth it.

Three weeks, two work shirt/three hairstyles/fifteen double windsor-failures later, I found myself sitting down to take four tests in the manager's office, the first two of which were redos that I had failed miserably the first time around.  When has there been any kind of time to study?, I thought.  And I was anxious.

"You have to know the steaks," the GM had said.  "You have to know what's in casino butter.  You have to know what garnishes all of the different fish and what's in each salad and, you're a really sweet girl, but you have to care.  And if you can't pass, and if you can't care, then I don't think we can continue together."

So, I sat there.  Filling out factoid after factoid about steak cuts and molting and French-service, and answering each and every question completely and thoroughly and perfectly and, simultaneously, asking myself Fuck.  Do I care?  Do I care this much?

And I walked out into the dining room in a haze, and was passed off to my trainer, a lovely Argentinian lady who smiled at me all tired-like.  "You ready, Mami?  Let's go."  

And as we paraded around the room, water pitchers and pepper mills in hand, I looked around the room at all of the other servers on the floor.   They were all of varying ages, but all in these identical, pristinely pressed jackets with their names embroidered on the front, and a different number embroidered on each person's right sleeve:  8, 9, 12, 15.  These numbers stood for the number of years that they'd been with the company.

My trainer had been with the company for 9 years.  9.  Years.

And I realized, Oh god.  This is a career.  And, suddenly, an entirely new kind of panic flared up inside of me.

I understood that I needed to live, and I understood that I needed to make substantially more money than I had been, but, I also understood that I had not moved to Los Angeles to start a career as a Server, and I didn't want to fake my way around that.  And, then, I thought back to the promise that I had made myself months ago while still in New York.

And I thought about the grander reason why we had moved out west.  It wasn't just to find a place to make a good and decent living as an actor, although, certainly, that was an enormous part of it.  Really, at the heart of it all, we packed up our lives and moved out west to live in a place where the living could be incrementally better.

I didn't want a life as a Server, not anymore, so what was the sense in starting in somewhere new?  Why not start a new thing altogether?  A thing that I could be proud of.

Oh god, I thought.   It's not just that I don't care.  I don't think that I can do this.

"Mami.  Careful with that table.  They're very nice, but they get fresh with the ladies when they've been drinking.  And.  They're in the you-know-what.  Their bookie is over in the bar."

(I can't do this.)

And I went home, stewed, and secretly started looking at other jobs (because I couldn't tell my boyfriend yet, HE'LL BE DESTROYED).  And then, continued to debate with myself whether or not I was doing a stupid thing.

Two days later, I ran home from restaurant job #1 with 20 minutes to change and depart for the train and head 40 minutes downtown to start my last week of training at restaurant #2 and I just stood there.  And something snapped.

And then, underneath the wide-eyed and confused (and horrified) gaze of my boyfriend, I quit.

"I mean, Angie, this is entirely up to you, this is your call, this is your job, but.  I mean.  You're almost done training, and this is, uh, this is a lot of money."

I know.

But, I was done. 

Money, suddenly, wasn't as important as...as, well, everything else.   I'll figure it out, we'll figure it out, I told him, We always always doLet's just get happy first, and find something fulfilling to do instead of this.

"Yeah."

And we went to the movies.

And the next day, I picked up more film permit-gigs.  AND had a particularly busy day at the restaurant (that really isn't terrible and it's only up the street and is fine as supplemental income.  And definitely isn't forever.)

And, the next day, out of nowhere, I giddily became a tutor.  And, suddenly, I felt like an adult.

I understand that to most people, this won't sound like much of anything.  "Yeah, great, way to almost not be a waitress anymore, Lady."  First of all, eff yourself, the correct term is 'Server'.   Secondly, listen:

It's about breaking away from a certain way of life.  Breaking away from a thing that you have come to know, and have since decided that you are better off without.  It's about finding a day-job that will help you grow as opposed to remaining grossly stagnant (and perpetually smelling like steak).

(As long as you need a day-job, that is.)

It's about finding something else that will bring you joy.

And it's about understanding when enough is enough, understanding that you and your own convictions are far more important than acquiring a jacket with some numbers embroidered on the sleeve.  I mean, unless that's your particular end goal, in which case, that's awesome.
  
It's about recognizing that the key to achieving world domination, or, at the very least, just getting by & with a flourish, is by working hard, and not compromising ourselves.




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