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Last night, taking tables. A 3 table section. 2 deuces and 1 four top.
There was no warning, and so I'm only rudimentarily prepared. There's still much to learn.
First table, a deuce. Muddle through it, and while "waiting" polish glasses behind the bar.
Now - here - this place - it's drenched in anxiety. No matter what you do, to the letter, following someone else's instructions, whatever transpires - it will not be good enough. Someone will come along and advise you're doing it wrong, could do it better, do it this way, and as every server/bartender/sommelier has their own particular way of doing things you'd best to find the happy medium...
Folding napkins - 1/4 inch more this way, no, wrong, 1/4 inch more that way - no, try it this way...
Glasses go here...no, they'll get bumped, put them here...
Pour the wine - no, a millimeter too much, leave it - no - top it up - no - leave it. They're big glasses, a bottle poured into one would still leave a 1 inch rim, I'm having problems with overpouring,...
...and so on and so forth. A waiter is getting shouted at by the manager - 2 bottles of white, 2 bottles of red, for a party of 19, not even 2.5 oz per guest, he didn't gauge the pour correctly, ran out of the red before it could go around the table - he's in big shit.
...The trick is to look calm, unflustered, take every bitchy-snide-remark in stride, don't take it personally, fine-dining, after all, and adjust your performance to suit whoever is in the room at the moment.
My table eats - simply, pays - $300 bill, leaves.
It was one of the first tables sat, now, a 3 hour window where I polish other glasses, attempt to help out - attempt, because many servers don't want the help, are afraid you'll fuck it up, I get that - been there - and so, do what you can, stay out of the way...
Eventually, 9:30, I get 2 more tables, a deuce, a four top. The deuce, another $300 spent - and the four top - appetizers only, bottle of wine, $800 bill. The guest gets the bill, looks - ?? - shocked, he had no hand in the ordering, probably didn't know what he was in for when he asked for the bill...
Try to keep busy - only 2 tables after all - but I'm told, repeatedly - not to help others, watch my own section - one person ran out of wine, and I wasn't there to top it up, my bad,...
And so it goes, everyone trying to look calm, everyone so tightly wound up that their ass is puckering in the back of their throat.
I've never had a job where I was expected simply to be "on-hand" - "on-call", "just in case", and their definition of fine dining could benefit a great deal from a little more cooperation, nonetheless everyone's too wound up, engrossed in their own thing, and so it goes - the place is relaxed for the customers, living terror for half the staff, and I have yet to see a proper paycheck, tip-out, probably not until January, but - if I can make it until then - maybe, just maybe, given the fullness of time, I'll be able to get another jeep and get back on the road...
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The hostel, beginning of the month, largely empty. Steve, bunkmate these last couple of weeks (amongst others) last night decided he'd had enough, announced that he was off to stay with his sister in Kelowna. And spent until 3:00 AM light on packing - me, after 9 hours of work just trying to fall asleep, lights on, always, always on the cusp, and then he makes some noise and I realize I haven't slipped away...
I'm half sad to see him go, only half, I'll save a bundle on cigarettes, for a guy who'd quit he still had a taste, and his mental health - increasingly frail, he would over 4 or 5 hours on a sunny or at least not rainy day go down to the street and sell 30 of his chapter books, enough to pay up the Hostel fees for a couple more days. But the rest of the time, lying in the bunk, earbuds in, just there - 5 hours on the street, 16 or 18 hours in the bunk.
And rainy days he wouldn't leave at all.
Me, I'm up, about, first for coffee, then to grab my bags, do some writing, other things, study menu, then shower, off to work, home at 12:00 or 1:00, other residents here often never leave their rooms.
So, yes, his mental resources were exhausted, he had tried to keep a cheery outlook but it was becoming increasingly tough in view of the Vaccine requirements, in view of the weather, in view of his diminishing well-being.
***
No one left in the Hostel - most, the long term people, found permanent digs for December 1st. The others moved on to other travels. So - you would think it would be quiet, go to the common area, and write, but it never is, it's the Hostile Hostel, those few residents that remain, the fewer new ones that have arrived, they play their games louder, converse louder, play their blues louder, fill the space with themselves - louder, and East Indian Gentleman, earbuds in on loud Skype calls, perpetually, overly loud, doing tech-support or something, he doesn't need a microphone, he's speaking loud enough in that thickened accent that his clients can hear him wherever they are in the world, and - the upside of an empty hostel, fewer to no bunkmates, are countered by the increasingly verbose and loud guests.
***
To the Vancouver Public Library, a 7 minute walk away, 5th floor, quiet area, here I can do some thinking. Here it is quiet. And here there is nothing else to focus on but the work in front of me. I'm slowly but surely acquiring some good habits.
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Working, private parties all the way to Christmas. Or - the 19th anyways, when they close.
Tonight, private party, an IPO, bunch of doctors soliciting investors to buy into a bunch of digital medical products.
Questions like: "does it use an AI" and "how do you intend to monetize this?..."
Medical miracles forecast daily, the cell-phone, internet, AI - all set to bring medicine into the 20th century - and - more importantly - bring those wise investors who buy in early unbelievable riches...
This software analyzes the speech of babies to identify possible developmental issues - licensed to a baby monitor manufacturer - X$ per month, per license.
"Licensing" - never a product you own, merely "rent" the app or software or hardware - the new model of business, how to keep the revenues coming in, why sell somebody something once when you can sell it to them month after month. The "Subscription based" economy - you're never done paying for as long as you live.
Their partners license apps and software on a monthly basis - per customer, $5, $10, $20 a month each, times a hundred million over-concerned parents, money in lieu of time not spent with child, pluggable cellphone scopes that connect you to a doctor who will diagnose and prescribe you over the phone - just stick it in your ear...your nose, up your ass...
Others, cellphones that track eye movements... detect flush, heartrates, excitement, boredom, breathalyzers that monitor CO2 uptake, make recommendations on diet, exercise - they call it "The Wellness Economy".
Never mind that the economy - this economy - depends upon you NOT being well, or at least believing you're not, and the fact that we even have this in large part explains why you might not be.
This is all techno-quackery of the highest order, and - note they don't have to any of them buy it - they merely have to believe they can make money selling it on to other, more gullible people....buy in for this venture a mere $50,000, for friends of the founders up to $250,000 will be permitted, they're doing the research, choosing only the best of the lot, strategically partnering with those companies they feel have the best chance of succeeding, only 15 or 20% of the best tech-medical get an interview with them, and of these maybe only 25% get a partnership commitment.
The founding Doctor, at the end of it all when most of the guests have left, been feted, demonstrating a pendulum to a loiterer, the ideomotor response, this - this - says it all - how to license and profit from this? Monthly pendulum rentals, no one will figure out how to make one of their own, the "Mind-Body Connection", he's rich already, going to be richer soon, discussing the restaurant, how expensive it is, they spent almost $300 per guest, and he's explaining to a friend how it's money well spent, to lure in the rubes and the greedy...
I have a few ideas of my own, once settled, that conscience long forbid me from acting upon but now, but now, look at this, these people are Doctors and should know better, there was once a time when you would be ashamed to have investments in anything so patently at odds with medicine, science - but - this is how the world is falling apart.
Money is the answer to every one of life's mysteries. Buy in now to ensure you have enough.
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This hostel, it's loud, I've had to change my hours to work around the din & hubbub of a largely babbling clientele.
The TV, frequently on and always too loud. People always coming and going. Smells, the kitchen, some good cooks for sure, accents, some more pleasing than others (usually in languages other than English), it's raining and I need to be writing, studying the menu at work, and it's a challenge here to stay focused, forever and always the burden of other peoples thoughts voiced loudly.
Bunkmates, Steve, still, forever marginal and hanging on by his teeth, selling just enough books every day in Gastown to keep him in the hostel another night. He's growing stressed, increasingly, the rain doesn't allow him to sell, can't make that connection with people, nobody wants to stand and talk to him in the rain.
A small town German boy, here to learn to Ski in Whistler, he's terrified of the city, no bloody wonder, step outside the door of the hostel and you'd understand pretty quickly why. No one comes prepared for this.
And we've a drunk Irishman, he's in all day, then leaves in the evening - returns at 5:00 AM, coughing in the bunk below, he's a tickle in his throat, insensate, drunk, he's come in from where? The meth has irritated his throat, he lies there coughing, hacking, sleep here is precarious, Steve is annoyed, telling him to leave - he doesn't want to get sick, Anti-Vaxxer Steve, how to reconcile this? Afraid of the virus, afraid of the vaccine...
Always here there's the Noise, the traffic, periodic sirens, engines and wheels ploughing through wet streets, the rats in the walls, scratching, and - while I've a place to live I'm missing quietude of the Kootenays.
Work has become an escape.
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And I mean, the longest 2 weeks in the world. I just realized it today - thinking - it was 2 weeks ago yesterday that I fled Nelson in a rumbledown jeep, blazing through floods and landslides on a wing and a prayer to...
Where?
Wherever.
And 2 weeks later here I am. Hope, the disasters, floods, meals at the church and matinees at the cinema. It seems like months, years ago even.
Followed by the trip to Vancouver, 3 days in the Hostel deciding, indecisive. And then - on the computer - looking for, finding a job - all - quite literally - in the same night.
My head spins. Work - a surreal fever dream, "The Cook, The Thief..." lived out in pantomime, imposter syndrome, wandering the Zombie land of East Hastings, Steve, the hostel, the memories crowd my head, make it seem like years have passed when really - it's only been a few short days.
Walking Vancouver, relearning it, I'm not sure I ever forgot, there are everywhere jogs for my memory, Seabus to North Vancouver today, thrifting - expensive, nothing I'm looking for, another white shirt for work, studying the menu...
Time passes.
Subcategories
Dating
OK. I've been on a few internet dates. I confess this with the same reluctance I would admitting to masturbating, adultery, or excessive drinking and drug use.
This is a list of some of my best -- AND WORST -- dates ever. Note that you gotta go on a lotta dates to get this kinda list, this kinda discouraged. And my online dating thing has been sporadic - an every few years kind of thing at best. Some of these dates go back 10 years, others are a little more recent. And to answer any people who might argue "It beats hooking up at the bar", well, you don't have to hook up at the bar, and at the bar you can see what your getting...
Anyways - apologies to the countless normal, decent dates that I went on but just didn't hit it off with. Memory is selective, it tends towards the extreme, and in this you will find the extremes...
Dear Osama
In which I write everyone's favorite advice columnist.
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