Hi, my name is Natalie. I have a pretty extended story, and so I decided to start it at the beginning of my own introduction to my independence.
I was graduated from high school, and finished with the zero week course I attended on Philosophy of Art. The 7 day course started at 8 am and ended at 5 pm counted as a full term of credit, and the content dealt with the role of commodity culture in suppressing the transformative synthesis i.e., 'the journey' of the audience, artist and medium; in exchange for the pursuit and domination of the object.
However much I was not willing to admit it, the guiding motive for my decision to be at the University was informed by my parent's advice. I assumed survival in some way was inextricably tied with consent to the broader cosmological structure of the society I was born into, and while I did not avoid the scars of being a human trapped in the dilemma of society, I never until this first summer out of college began to experience my life free of the influence of the dependence I had on their ways of thinking. Perhaps it was the result of me repossessing the means of my own identity production by getting a job.
Survival quickly would come to have a COMPLETELY different meaning for me, but that's life. At that time, I had no idea those concepts I encountered in the Philosophy of Art zero week course would create such far reaching influences in my life, and the conclusions I learned there hadn't had time to ripen in my awareness before I myself fell into the gears of capitalist human application.
My last day in Eugene I remember vividly: my heart beat with depth as I packed up my things, said goodbye to the skylight, said goodbye to the bluebirds, to the confident and nieve, easily bubbling over with laughter, sheltered and uncertain but eitherway and anywho carrying on with the shell of expectation of a 'successful' way of life. I had to get a summer job, of course, finishing my freshman year at college. There was a deep sadness that bore at me the whole drive.
I drove into my hometown and went to my interview the next morning; I had the most unusual stomach-ache before that interview. Not just nerves, as they say. It was kind of like every scene in Runaway Bride. No amount of grandmother's well-wishes and advice could prepare me for the boss that laid ahead. And so I went to the interview and got the job. The guy was tall and lanky, full of smiles as he handed me a clipboard full of I-9 and W-4 and the Handbook! It was over 100 pages! I was supposed to memorize it all. Then, when my first training period was over, then they would test me and if I passed the test, then I could begin serving tables on my own and by that, I mean then I was able to collect the tips that I earned. While in the training period, the waitress training me pocketed all the tips I made. A sweet introduction indeed, watching the hard-earned dollars scraped by the fur of my dignity stripped teeth go to someone else while I continued to starve. Week One.
After that, I came to learn about the nepotism, the favors, the outright unorganized understaffed long hours, the jealous and zealous pulling rank and the complete lack of abandon for the infractions made that define modern day business practices, but for the sake of the song, lets direct this one to the food service industry.
This location I worked catered to weddings and events with 500+ in attendance, and I came to realize the rate of anxiety people in the service industry are required to be constantly enduring, as a matter of the job qualifications- communicating at extreme volumes and rates of speed, with extreme lists of demands, from extreme crowds of people was a little like... getting swallowed by a wave. Always performing the role of 3 of myself, I was often responsible for scheduling reservations, setting up the tables and buffet, plating dinners, hosting bars, DJ tables, wedding chairs, champagne service, cake service, prime rib service.
The physically challenging aspects of this job were immense, from carrying wood for the various fireplaces to their storage cabinets, to bussing the trays with 6 5-lb. plates stacked 3 high, to running food to the several dining rooms, it was a beast of a labor. But the physical labor was nothing compared to the psychological degradation I experienced as a budding independent millennial in the utterly misogynistic atmosphere of the workplace, constantly being berated, sized up, and screamed at by the staff who were supposed to be on my 'side'. Or on the other hand, dealing with the out of town well to do highly entitled but never opinionated ass clowns with their orange spray tans and their jersey shore dreams, with their gigantic families, taking up 16- 23 seats without a reservation, tracking sand all over the place. These people never had any customs of their own so how can we call them customers! They keep us alive, we say, but they start screaming at you for their beer and their fish and chips, extra vinegar, and their burgers and diet dr. pepper, and their fries, and their catsup, and it was like a wave... a wave of catsup. For several years I allowed myself to drown in the wave of catsup but I myself have always loved mustard. So it is.
I would start my shift at 4 pm and sometimes wouldn't be off work until after 3:30 am. 14 hours was the longest shift I ever worked in my life, and it was at that first out of the nest job. It was brutal.
There were a few regular groups that came annually, and they got out of control. The car salesmen and the runners who brought their whole self-improvement brand of sadism to the table with high expectations and plenty of patting their own back for under tipping and over drinking because they were avoiding calories...or whatever, they were some of the most obnoxious. None could compare with Leland, a very interested old perv who never knew that I was not interested in his bullshit because he was so high on it. I still see that guy sometimes, and every-time I do I run for the hills, because he is so stubbornly arrogant in his belief he has some kind of bullshit baby boomer charisma that NEVER EXISTED and he carries on like he is the Dude from the big Lebowski or whatever... so impressed with himself.
Well, this guy was always hanging around and its beyond annoying, or imposing, because at some point it becomes harassment, to always frequent and direct your inappropriate considerations to well meaning females working hard like any other postal worker or landscaper, but because there is food, there is this mother - freudian primal instinct in so many men dripping to the brim with scotch and soda and something that faded a long time ago. Its become commonplace these creepy guys using coffee-shops, bars, and diners as substitutes for their own homes that they disowned or were exiled from...to direct the stream of experience that could benefit the people who are most impacted by their lives(wives, daughters, sons, selves), to the lives of well meaning but otherwise completely disinterested strangers!
Let me say that in my life until that point I had been well shielded from the glances, the slurs, the contact with these creepy old men. They had existed as teachers, civil servants, and otherwise old people I didn't care to know. Now that I served them food and liquor, I came face to face inches from the slimy squirming scum that the contemporary industrialist embodies. Came to know how miserable, greedy, racist, perverted, forgetful, vindictive and ultimately vulnerable they truly were and are. Perhaps at the time, my head was in so many different places about how I felt about what I was doing, waitressing, that I thought they meant well. But the conditions that they imposed upon the people they use to work are despicable, and so for this these people are despicable.
I recall being distressed by the news that the managers of servers were both men, but the head manager of the whole location was a manly bitch, who was even more set against her own interests than the two brawns she had hired to dole out her dirty work. The two male head-servers were in charge of several female servers looking for tables. The head-servers would give sections and tables to the female subordinates they found to be most amiable for the job, meaning it took more than skill to get tables, it took bribes and personal favors. Doing all the heavy lifting and no one lifting an eyebrow was commonplace at this job, as well as the palpable sexism, sense of superiority and self-righteousness that were constant high volume amidst this crowd.
I was assigned to the smallest section with the least traffic, and found myself doing inventory and stocking, doing the other server's work for them for nothing, or helping the over loaded dishwasher. Tables were for the elite class of servers, and I just didn't make the cut. Like so many other unwanted privaleges (volleyball team! prom queen! suck it!)
One day, I watched an enraged and belligerent chef throw a very hot pan at the dishwasher's pit with great force, no warning, and held the dishwasher responsible for his knee-jerk response to jump, feeling the extremely hot pan traveling by him before he knew that there was even something to see.
I went through this transformation that summer, and I began to question the long-term goals of these hoards of tourists. Why was I catering to the capitalist elite's ideal of "reality": ultra-manicured golf course planet with stepford-wife cocktail waitress as the fem-bot secretarial assistant sex-slave to the middle aged white dudes wet dream of corporate america?
Picture Of Gloria Steinem Here**
Well it took time to process how deeply brainwashed I had forced myself to become, just in order to cooperate with such a malicious corporate scheme: the fascist design of aristocratic authority, in other words, the hierarchy. Living life at the bottom, I had to effectively drown my good sense in a toilet of chemicals every morning as I mopped the mens piss soaked bathrooms and changed the front page of the paper and the sports section in plastic sheaths for their convenient reading and pissing.
After that smell was well worked into that permanent area of my memories, I was forcibly masking myself as though I was Leo DiCaprio in Man in the Iron Mask with a disposition as though I gave a f*** about how much ice the lady in the pink shirt wanted in her diet pepsi, or how rare the guy with the handlebar mustache wanted his burger cooked, or how table 9 is low on splenda because the freaks go nuts over that s*** and tear as many packets as they can rip open at once and drown their flavorless s*** colored tap water so it turns into dextrose filled s*** colored tap water, which is now cancer causing s*** colored tap water. Well. I have worn many masks. It feels good to take a few off now and again. :)
I noticed how the higher likelihood of a menu- item being contaminated, the higher a likelihood of people ordering that dish. If there was a special, or not, people always go for the shit growing worms. I wouldn't have believed it either, but this is my experience talking... its like people like to be adventuresome with the idea of their own parasitic probability. Rare Ahi Tuna, always sold out. Steak Tar Tar, also, a smash hit. Oysters? Up the WAZOO. Prime Rib, just sitting under that lamp, for how long??? Sushi, from an irish pub??? All I gotta say, I have seen a lot. Maybe I haven't seen it all, but the people like to gamble when it comes to the raw stuff. And not raw carrots.
I noticed over time resemblances in the eateries, the pubs, cafes, and restaurants. The stout and pathetic overweight industrialist slouched over his bucket glass
with the flickering of the 2008 football match in Beijing embellishing the sweaty glaze of alcohol shining from his blinding bald spot.