lalalaaaaa

30th August 2009

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Yesterday was my first day of my first job. I work at a Pizza place in Venice, as a cashier/ server/ cleaner. I didn’t know that I was expected to do SO much. I thought it was going to be more like where my younger sister works (a pizza place in Westchester). Wrong. My shift started at 4 and I was told to bring a baseball cap. I don’t own any baseball caps so Alex let me borrow hers. Apparently her head is significantly smaller than mine because it kinda just lied flat on my head. It was army print, too, so i looked really amazing… I walked into work with just my hair in a ponytail, hoping I wouldn’t be told to wear a hat or anything, but then my boss came and said that I needed a hat, and before I told him that I had one in my purse, he pointed at his baseball cap and said something along the lines of “they all make fun of me here because of my baseball cap. I know it’s old fashioned, but I’m a dork like that. The girls you’ll work with usually wear cute headbands or scarves, so don’t worry about looking like a dork”. Then I proceeded to pull out my army print cap and place it flat on my head. Awesome. I wouldn’t look the customers in the eye for the first 30 minutes…then i forgot i was even wearing a hat, so I didn’t really care anymore. Everyone I worked with was super cool. really nice. Except for Tara. She reminded me of the friend in “Princess Diaries”, the mean one, who hates on Anne Hathaway for being a princess…yea. haha anyways, she started misinforming me, i swear it was to mess me up. Then my manager came around and told me everything and I realized what she had done. Whatever. I guess as long as I just shuffle along and do my part, it doesn’t matter to me much what she says/ does. As long as I have it right. At first they had me work as a cashier, to get used to the cash register. Then I started serving the pizzas. And when it was a little slower, I did both. I was supposed to get off at 12, when it closes, but one of the policies is to not close if any slices are still left to be sold. Around 11:45, we started cleaning up. I didn’t know I’d have to clean— I just assumed there was a cleaning crew (like where my sister works). Anyways, my manager was making fun of me because I didn’t know how to clean the dishes (come on, I know how to clean dishes, I was just confused as to how to clean huge bins of olive oil or crusted pizza spatulas). As they soaked in bleach, i started scrubbing with a sponge and some soap, and then i began rinsing with all of this dirty dish water shot into my mouth from the bottom of the bin that was soaking. yum. The sink is split into 2 sections, so i was putting the clean dishes in the right sink and the dirty ones in the left. My coworker didn’t know that they were clean in the right, so he rinsed a dirty rag over them, meaning, I had to clean them all over. All in all, I didn’t get off of work until 12:45 and thinking I had made so much in tips (because it gets REALLLLY busy), I had really only made $24.43— because there are so many people working, and the tips are (obviously) divided). I would be super bummed, but I realize that is an extra $20 separate from my actual salary. My plan: save all tip money. My parents are giving me money for school/ food, so I think i’m just going to save my tip money and salary earnings for other stuff. 

This year though, I’ve already told myself I can’t be selfish. I have to stay quiet. and i have to keep on track. Last year i swerved a little and it scared me at the end. All summer, I’ve been feeling guilt and regret for not being with my family as much. Now, i’m changing. New year. New major. New classes. New faces. Got a job. Have a car. New apartment. Own room. I’m ready to go, and i don’t mind changing a little to get things back together. 

My only struggle now, though, is really major to me. And that’s Nishad. I don’t know if I’ll have time for a relationship…. :/