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- Written by: Rod Boyle
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Thursday, shirts into dry-cleaners, maitre-d approaches and advises I need to use more deodorant.
It's not the deodorant, my shirts are a bit stale, I've no way of pressing them, never-mind, I buy a new shirt between shifts, double up on the deodorant, Necessary expenses if you want to make money and keep your job.
Evening, Chef pulls me aside, gives a couple of his shirts, new, still in the bag, a neutral IT blue, it's a kind gesture. Somehow I have the feeling that they're all seeing through me...
Now, Friday, another split/double shift, and I need shoes. These shoes I've been wearing, Jon Fluevogs', they've been damp/wet ever since leaving the Kootenays, wandering Hope, now downtown Vancouver, always wet, damp, never dry, and I fancy I can smell them, even a full six feet above them, have taken to filling them with kitty-litter in an attempt to dry them out, remove the smell, to no avail. So - before work, off to find another pair of shoes. My budget can't afford this, but I'll have no budget if I'm unemployed...
I sniff them. I can't smell them, not up close, but hold them a bit from my nose and it's there...
I find a pair, they fit perfectly, they'll do.
And - like any shoe that fits me perfectly within four hours into this 12 hour shift my feet are screaming. Not smelling - not anymore, but if they could talk you'd hear them.
I shut my mind up. Stand like a stork - one foot up, then the other.
FUCK FUCK FUCK
The shoes, I should note, they do fit perfectly, only I've never bought a pair of shoes that didn't require some breaking in. Some take longer than others.
The shift - Friday, lunch, work a small party of 20 people with another waitress. They spend $8000 - $9400 service in.
And a short break for an hour before back for dinner - another party, this my own, 9 people, they spend $6000, $2000 food, $3100 Wine & Cocktails, $920 Service.
This is insane. This is - note - not mine, not even a portion - there's expeditors, hostess, bartenders, sommeliers, a myriad of people with their fingers in this pie - but - there's no faulting the system, everyone is doing their job, better than me by a long shot, but as a waiter used only to tipping out a kitchen that kvetched about every order, where ringing out even $5000 in a day was a once-in-a-summer occurrence where I had quite literally to run 20 or 25 KM at marathon speeds without time to catch your breath, to doubling your ringout and doing nothing, merely topping up wine ...
It's crazy, and contributes a lot towards the surreal air that fills my days.
Tonight, the hostel has once again filled with tourists, largely Mexicans, it seems, returning at 1:00 AM to discover every bunk full, people rolling over while I discreetly change, charge my phone, have a drink before crashing...apparently - fingers crossed - they'll all be gone by Monday, we'll see. It's no great pleasure, this hostel, when it's empty, when full it's positively unlivable, what makes it bearable at the moment is that I'm so seldom here. This week, time to start looking for a place to live, permanent like...
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This is it. The days, cool, rainy, the streets perpetually wet, the junkies, addicts, homeless, the rats, the hostel, a 5 day run of sobriety - and 8, 9 hour shifts with no cigarettes (and I've adapted to this surprisingly well, which goes to show how much of it is in your head).
Last night, sitting at the fountains in front of the CBC, a quartet of burly raccoons pass me by, wading through the water, nonplussed at my presence, so many of the people here are out of it, shooting up, preoccupied, they have no fear of people.
But - there is that feeling that this is all a bad dream. I'm unsettled - how can it be otherwise? The Hostel, itself temporary, the job - a great job that somehow I'm just not fitting in to, finances, as precarious as any junkie on the teetering brink before his big fall, EI - overdue and under review, books, reading - not enough, studying menu, wines, practicing writing out dockets, ...
I'm in a different world, completely, this city - I remember it from my childhood, pass places that cue dim childhood memories, Deja-Vu, but the wet and the rain and ...
Peculiar. I'm in a form of purgatory, a suspension between two worlds, and - this waiting that it might pass, that I might settle in and find time to evolve, it's breaking me.
Days off - explore, thrifting, every thrift shop here filled with abundant treasures that I can't afford to carry with me at the moment, can't afford period, merely upgrading my wardrobe, train to New Westminster, Seabus to North Vancouver, Bus to Kitsilano, I'm logging my steps, passing time, exploring places I've been once before a long, long time ago...
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I am forever on tenterhooks, this job, it's the sum of all trifles and causing me no end of anxiety.
I've never had so much the feeling that I wasn't getting it in my life. And it doesn't help to be living out of a hostel, where never can you find a moment alone or peace of mind.
Saturday evening, I've a small party of 12. Largely non-drinkers, of an ethnic group popular in the lower mainland. Friendly enough, 12 around the table. It's a staff party for a (support group for a doctor).
So they are sat, the room is tight, everything is set up for them. Only - for some reason the Doctor himself, a slight, perhaps mid 40's gentleman, has occasion to feel dizzy and faint in his chair at the head.
There's panic - pandemonium - everyone is dipping their napkin in the Champagne bucket, cold wet cloths, trying to revive him, Is it a stroke? A heart-attack? Low blood sugar? He just recently had dental surgery! And now everyone is ordering their own family quack remedy while he lies sprawled upon the chairs, everyone has a family secret, potion, cure, elixir that we're to make up and use to revive him - a lady, ordering me sternly to have the bar prepare a mixture of salt, sugar, lemon & water for him to drink, another has another suggestion, someone wants an Aspirin, Chef appears, wants no Aspirin passed out, we're not a hospital, perhaps they should cancel their reservation and take him away...
At this he miraculously revives, and I can't help but think, if he's fainting now what's he going to do when he gets the bill? And I'm suspicious of this whole thing, that maybe, just maybe he wanted a little attention from his employees, a little appreciation, I'm a cultural outsider but I'm getting the idea that this is how they do things...
The night progresses, I make a botched order sheet for the kitchen - didn't leave enough room for the variety of steaks they wanted - largely medium well or well done, in itself a crime, didn't account for the gluten free, the spice free, the vagaries of each order, my ordering chit - frankly - sucks, and Chef is pissed at me in a quiet way.
This is not good.
The beginning of the shift I had received instruction on the seat numbers for each large party - my order sheet the night before had been incorrect - "not my fault" - but - it was - tonight - the dread of work and I will receive instruction again.
The job, in itself, reasonably simple - technically there is nothing here I can't do - but overcoming the anxiety that stifles me, drenches the place - this is another thing entirely, and I'm not sure I'm up to the task. If they keep me on it's merely because another trainee is not working out, overheard that he's too often not available when needed, has to leave early, and this is not the sort of job where you make other plans.
I loathe that I need this job; my circumstances - bleak, but doubly so in that I cannot fault the restaurant - it's me that needs remedying.
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Marching to the beat of a different drummer Or not. Maybe we're all merely marching to the end of the world...
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- Written by: Rod Boyle
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In Nelson, it was the skunks and raccoons, depending on how late you were up.
In Vancouver it's the rats. Late at night, after work, step outside the hostel - and - blind now to the misery of the staggering and teetering drunks and junkies you begin to see them.
Big as gophers, swarming underneath the dumpsters, running across the street - rats. There must be a rat-king under the dumpster in the alley, they're forever coming and going, huge, 3 or 4 at a time, the next plague is gestating here...