This job. It's built into it - a staff meal, consisting of a bit of salad, and a pasta of different shapes tossed in oil.
The contrast between what the staff are fed - and what the customers eat - is huge. It's an abyss, a gulf, a chasm, and the meal, it's a way of reinforcing it. This food, you wouldn't feed it to dogs, yet -
Well, it's war, really.
And the service - the maitre-d breathing down my neck the whole night, telling me I'm not keeping up, if I just offered water to a table and they declined, and he - on my heels, offers and they accept I'm at fault. Everything is my fault. I can't tell if he hates me - personally - or this is just the "break your will" portion of it. Every night I expect to be fired - and - really, apart from the immense financial inconvenience - I'd be grateful. I cannot recall a job I've hated as much as this, that so preoccupies me with the despair of having to go into work. Better, by a long shot - to work at a Denny's or Smitty's than here.
My section - 3 tables. 2 deuces, 1 four top. They're drinking - each of the deuces spend upwards of $1500. The four top - in excess of $4000. It's spending money for the sheer joy of spending money, there is no correlation with a real-world economy, no amount of "foody" justifies this - every course left partially unconsumed, the wine, the liquor goes.
This - I would once have considered $150, $200 a pretty good "date night", but here - well, that gets your coat checked. It's - quite literally - a full order of magnitude above anything I've experienced.
So you struggle on, night after night, hoping it either gets easier, or just ends. My preference - well, I know - the end would be a damned sight preferable - but - I need wheels and so I would prefer to drive onward, as I still apparently have a little too much baggage.