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Sept 30th - 2023
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- Written by: Rod Boyle
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The last week, a largely somber mood at work. Friday, slow, Saturday, busy.
There was a vintage car show in Nelson, all the streets and side streets filled with hot rods and roadsters, vintage cars, while some of them are nice the streets are too busy for my taste, and so get out of town. Pass the homeless - all on the move, 10 shopping carts filled with possessions, displaced because the town didn't want the black eye of homeless encampments to tarnish the auto show.
We're beginning to look a bit like Spokane. And not in a good way.
To work early, SR is showing the property, this fatality, it's spurred them to want to get out of there even more, if possible. The basement, he's explaining, is off limits, he can't explain why, sealed off by the Coroner until the next of kin are notified, can claim his possessions.
JR, doing as little as possible, busy with the winter ferry schedule, unprepared travelers, and people coming and going from the car show in town.
Crows gather in front of the basement door. They're drawn in by the smell, hopping up to the stairs in the shadows, the bodies gone but they don't know that,...
You can tell the motor enthusiasts, they're trying to order the fancy cocktails, margaritas, martinis...
Sunday, JR is trying to get out, circumstances don't permit. It's half busy, busier than one waiter, not busy enough for two, and he's annoyed every time he has to pick up a table.
Then, in the kitchen, Mister Tickles, on his own, crashes and burns. Soon everyone is in there helping him, SR, JR, his mother.
A customer, older fellow, pays, tips well, and tips me again: "Pay for a haircut...I'm a barber!!!".
I didn't think I was fooling anyone, but I have to laugh at his frankness...
***
Monday, Thursday, I'm on my own. Doubles, open, close, this is to be my schedule for the foreseeable future. Having burned C**** and killed S*** it's me and Mister Tickles, 50, 60 hours a week. No fucking way. No fucking way. An hour commute to the restaurant, with construction, half an hour back.
They've moved the goal posts, removed the carrot from the stick, and this Donkey will be giving his notice. I need a goal, I need my own life back, these people, they are demons....
Monday - slow and steady all day. $3,000 at the end of it, never too busy, just a slow steady stream of customers. The easiest shift of the summer, made so largely by the absence of "help". Meaning T*** and L**** and JR.
Mister Tickles is crashing and burning in the kitchen the entire time. He's hysterical, he can't keep up, can't do it, he's in tears, yelling, all the customers can hear, I just smile and pretend nothing's going on. Mister Tickles, he's not used to doing this on his own, he's not S***, hasn't the skills. I stagger my orders, wait until he's cooked an order for two before I put the next order for two in, but he's not managing, not even fucking coping. He won't survive the next week or two, my notice will be a formality; there's no way they can stay open with Tickles in the kitchen on his own, it will kill him...
September 30th and I'm out. I can already hear the mock distress, appeals to my loyalty, the "we didn't know you wanted a life" and "I told you every time you asked me...", the "Why", the slow, careful explanation that I'm not a donkey, that I can talk and walk on two legs and dress in clothes should have been a clue, that it's September and I should be relaxing, business drops off, and instead they keep piling on the hay, there was no straw that broke this donkey's back, rather a dozen bales thrown carelessly on...
September, I've brought my own goalposts and let that fucking shithole crash and burn. Their problems are their problems, I have plenty enough on my own...
The August Long...
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- Written by: Rod Boyle
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The longest weekend of the summer. There will be more.
Whacked, nonstop, 7, 8, 9 hours running without a break, the restaurant, falling apart, customers firing into, out of the restaurant, 60, 70 per hour, seating themselves at dirty tables, it's crazy, maddening, you can't keep up with this. Monday, after all the shit that went before, by 11:30 is looking to be slower, by 12:00 is full, packed again, and so it continues, the same again on Tuesday. The smoke hangs upon the lake, the helicopters, water bombers are dunking and putting out a blaze up 9 mile, you see the red smoke like a volcano against the night sky on the drive home.
Tuesday, worth of noting, I ring out the most of all the days and do the least amount of work. The result of working with a competent team-mate, Saturday, Sunday, shit shows largely because you're picking up after others, bussing others tables, fetching others drinks, I'm ringing out $3, 000 on my own accord but bussing, bartending after $6,000.
Anyways, that was the weekend to be dreaded, and now it's over. Phew.
Snow and a Fire Lit Under my ass...
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- Written by: Rod Boyle
- Category: Blog
- Hits: 78
So, the days since New Years we've had the pleasure of snow and more snow, as if January were the catch-up for all the winter we'd missed. Some freezing winds and temperatures, the wind's have died, the temperature has warmed, yet still it snows, big wet flakes, a foot deep where unshoveled and untrammeled on the sidewalks, big piles at the edge of city blocks, the town, with the lights wound round the trees and pines, old buildings lit up from within, it's a Hallmark Movie.
Time, now, to be looking for work, I've scoured the internet for a 1000 places to go prospecting, places to spend the summer, but - for the moment I need money, some stable employ, an income that can accrue and buy me up the mountain...
And I find it, an ad for the old Cock-&-Suck, the trauma of which I'm still processing. They're looking for a cook. Of course they are, they always are, always have been.
But it sets the fire under my ass, get a job, don't in any way be so desperate that in the spring you're forced to go back there.
That won't do.
I suck it up, contact the mother-in-law, get the news. JR hasn't gotten a job, still, and the restaurant is reopening so he can work the summer. He's planning it on doing it with his wife.
This is - darkly - hilarious, you've probably read posts wherein I discuss his eagerness to work, earn money, take on responsibility, his ease with customers and staff, there's a comedy under way to be sure, the darkest reality TV series of them all.
It's funny, for the longest while the owners - JR's parents - kept the restaurant going because he was in school, they needed to pay for that, then he'd get a job. Only after school, and a typical - wham-bam-shit job it was, he was no more employable than before. SO now the restaurant, it's his living legacy, they're hoping somehow that he's going to grow up enough to take it over, only he won't, he'll sink it into the ground...
In any event I won't be there, just seeing the ad was trauma enough, I need to find something quick, then maybe something better...
Another Grand Idea Jacked...
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- Written by: Rod Boyle
- Category: Blog
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Something tells me these puppets aren't telling you everything. I wonder if I could sell them on my Character of "Mister Tickles"?
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