What I Learned This Summer

It has been AGES since I last wrote. This is not for lack of horrifying/awkward/hilarious things happening to me. No indeed, my life has continued to be a mixed bag of such events. However I simply did not have the time/motivation. My boss at the club decided to start scheduling me 4 nights a week aka ALWAYS friday/saturday/sunday nights till close so I had three nights off and would always be with my gorgeous friends as I am soon to leave them for school. Also my inability to say no to people meant I was stuck at the club until after 10pm every night I worked. Also also Ten Chimneys got crazy so I had no time to write while at my desk as my ear was glued to the phone.

BUT I am now done with both internship and work and want to share all the things I learned this summer:

1. I am really good at being polite to people.

2. Answering a telephone for 8 hours a day is why some people go coo-coo-bananas in offices. It is so frustrating sitting babysitting a phone while everyone else gets to talk/have fun/go to the bathroom/drink coffee/eat food.

3. I can carry big heavy waitressing trays of food.

4. With the help of google maps, I can navigate anyone to the inner depths of southern Wisconsin.

5. People will not give you zip code unless specifically prompted to do so.

6. Going out with your co-workers is rarely a wise decision. Just go home to bed.

7. Given a bullhorn and large orange baton I am really good at parking cars.

8. I can operate a walkie-talkie.

9. I know what Gnocchi is.

10. I am much better at serving trays full of beer than of food.

11. I am a master at apologizing.

12. I need a cup of coffee to function properly in the morning.

13. Entitled people are in all walks of life and are equally frustrating to deal with.

14. The actress Laura Linney is super nice in real life.

Some fun math from the summer:

Interning full time = 37.5 hours per week or 412.5 hours total

Working part time = 22 hours per week or 242 hours

For a grand total of = 59.5 hours per week or 654.5 hours spent being polite/gracious/running my ass off or answering a telephone.

Telephone calls answered for Ten Chimneys: 1,063

Tour reservations made from those calls: 532 aka saying the same scripted thing 532 times

Informational calls answered: 272 aka answering the same questions 272 times

All of this boiled down to be about 5 additional lines on my resume.

16 hours aka the amount of time I spent at Ten Chimneys as a PAID employee after my internship was over.

AKA all of this was WORTH IT times a hundred.

not my real life

"Not my real life" - what I repeat to myself over and over in my head/under my breath while waitressing these days.





The country club has successfully broken my spirit leaving me crying in the wait station multiple times/days this week. The tears were for many reasons stemming predominantly from being completely overwhelmed with tables/special food requests/lack of knowledge of menu and computer system/being passive aggressively reprimanded by the manager/lack of sleep aka the general failure of my waitressing attempts this week. I don't do failure well. What's the point of doing something not to the best of your ability, I say.





While being in a state of pre-breakdown, ridiculous things continue to happen to me/around me:


-I was serving drinks at a 50th wedding anniversary party and the old man gave me a hug when I gave him his coke that lingered too long and then when he pulled away his hand grazed my boob. And I didn't even get tipped. God dammit.





-One of waiters was fucking up so bad that the head chef said he couldn't have any more tables so he sat in the waitstation the rest of the night. And got paid the same amount of money as me. Maybe I need to stop teetering on the edge of complete failure and just allow myself to slip entirely into the abyss.





-We now administer detailed comment cards to the members of the club so that they can rate us. Our boss then puts all the data into the computer and posts a weekly service rating of all of us in the wait station. It's like the god damn stickers for good behavior system in my 2nd grade class.





Ergo I cope by chanting 'this is not my real life'

STELLA!

Last night I took drink orders at a party from 6:30pm - 10:30pm. Straight.

I stopped for 30 minutes to drink some water and take away empty glasses. I took trays of 12 beers with some wine glasses mixed in back and forth from the bar to the party pausing only to beg someone to open the door for me. I learned to tell Sierra Nevada, River West Stein, Sprecher Special Amber, Spotted Cow, Stella Artois and Miller Lite apart by color. I kept losing the people who ordered Stella and subsequently got to yell out "Stella" multiple times ala Street Car Named Desire. I made $60 in tips that I had to split with the girl serving the food.

Lesson learned: I make a significantly better bartender than a waitress.

I am not a janitor

"I am not a janitor": what I wanted to scream when the hostess turned to me and asked me if I wanted to clean up the old man vomit all over the patio at the club, along with "of course not you crazy girl-who WANTS to clean up vomit?" Don't pretend like you are being nice or accomodating when you ask me if I want to do it, really what you are saying is "Hey you are being paid and as a waitress are lower on the employee hiearchy than me so get a mop and clean that shit up because you are too nice to refuse like the other employees." God dammit.

Also "I am not a mind reader": so when you mumble what you want/don't want on your burger and when I repeat it back to you (or at least what I think you said) and you nod your head don't be surprised if it is not correct. Oh and by all of sudden becoming completely articulet when I bring out the wrong burger just pisses me off so why don't you try annunciating your request the first time instead of pissing me and the kitchen off, eh? Jeez.

Lastly "I am not in high school anymore": ergo I don't want to listen to your high school problems fellow employees. So take your "oh my gods" and "I can't believe its" and the whole "I'm only to going to do exactly what you ask of me and not try to help you out one iota even if you are clearly struggling and I'm doing nothing" attitude and get the hell away from me. And stop pretending to me shocked and offended by my off-color language/bad mood. I'm a waitress and by the time I get to the club I've been interning aka being super polite for 8 hours already and am a tad bit tired/frustrated.

she can't help how adorable she is

Precursor: this story is not nearly as good written down as it doesn't include the "oh my god I like to flip my hair and sound idiotic" voice that I so love to imitate.

I waitress with a girl who is a self-proclaimed adorable girl that everyone loves (she is 19 years old going on 15 I'd say). When I say self-proclaimed I literally mean I was in her physical presence when she said this, "I don't know, I think it's like just that I'm really pretty and nice so boys get these crushes on me really easily and I'm like I don't know what to do because I'm too nice to be like mean to them." YEAH. I mean how does one react to a person that says things like that? I just walked away, I see denial of her existence in my reality as the best way to keep an optimistic view of the world.

It gets better.

She spent this entire week subjecting me to her gushing about how attractive the host is. (Sidenote: he isn't that attractive. He is tall but he is not rugged/lumberjacky aka there is no way he could fix faulty pipes or cut down a tree. But he is quite funny so he is one of the two people that make waitressing bareable.) Literally the moment he walks away she stops mid-sentence of whatever inane thing she was telling me and says every single time "oh my god his ass is so hot" or "oh my god can you believe how cute he is" or "oh my god seriously how cute is his butt?" I respond with indifferent mumbles and walk away. I will not indulge such silly behavior.

Up until recently I hadn't said anything against her to Hunter aka the male host with the alleged nice ass because he seemed to enjoy the attention/think she was in fact as adorable as she declared herself to be. This was quite frustrating for me as I very much wanted someone to make fun of her with. Well what happened recently is this; she especially pissed me off one day so when she left the waitstation I starting ranting about her i.e. "I'm annelise and I'm adorable oh my god everyone loves me what am I to do, I'm so cute" barf. Well this is when Hunter laughed and started also making fun of her. It was delightful. So now I have a fellow sarcastic person to make fun of people with and it makes this waitressing a little bit more tolerable.

it's Friday Friday

Today I successfully managed to forget my socks at home so had to rush from the internship to my house to change super fast (in my haste I manage to stub my toe, knock some things over and liter my room with clothing/stuff) and run out the door to get to work. Half way to work I thought I forgot my name tag, resulting in a 5 minute frantic phone call to my brother and search of my purse, only to realize it was in my pocket. All of this adds up to hopefully convey a certain frantic/stressed out mind. But it is Friday so I put that most awesomely bad song on my iPod, rolled down the windows and blasted that shit two times on my drive to work.

Emotions felt when listening to "Friday"
1. Annoyed at the auto-tuned awfulness of it all
2. Stupid as the lyrics say nothing but simply stating obvious facts lik 'tomorrow is Saturday'
3. Ridiculously happy as it is so bad it makes me giggle incessantly
4. Like dancing as its simplicity is so damn catchy that I can't help but jump up and down
5. Embarassed that I ultimately really like it (shamed)
6. Finally just happy like how Robin Sparkles makes me happy-so kitchy/awful/basic that one can't help but revel in the possibilites to make fun of it

For all of these reasons; naturally I then had "Friday" stuck in my head while walking into work. And being me, I was singing it, which then caused the two gingers I work with to start singing it too since they love/hate it as well. Everyone else looked at us in disdain (sidenote moral: gingers just know what is good quality entertainment).

As the night progressed one of my closing duties was to check the garage door was closed and it is in a fenced in area blocked from view by everyone. Ergo when one of the gingers aka Jenny showed me where it was we closed the door and had a mini dance party while singing 'Friday'.

Then we got cut early so we went to a bar down the road, got beers and bitched about work/talked about her impending wedding (I swear I draw gingers and the engaged like moths to a flame).

Twas a lovely Friday evening.

waitressing sucks (shocker)

Although last night I was in quite a ranty-type mood over the waitressing I feel quite indifferent about it all at this point. Ok well just one quick observation/rant: by far the worse part about being a waitress is not shockingly enough the bitchy women snapping their fingers at you for attention and the snooty men expecting you to remember some overly complex drink (put down that vodka gimlet with 2 olives and a lime and be a man and order a glass of fine whisky or scotch on the rocks-that i will remember). The worst part about waitressing is the co-workers. There are of course a few stellar people I enjoy working with, but for now let's just forget about those lovely people and focus on the shitty ones. If they are not just standing around being useless or making a fucking mess (put your damn dishes on the dirty dishes tray NOT in front of the computer, gah!) they are bitching about how we can't leave yet. Hey what if you stop complaining and actually DO the work and then we could go home, what a novel concept. Or there is just mass miscommunication between what actually needs to get done and no one knows the answer. It is so so so so so frustrating to ask simple questions like where are the table clothes we need and have no one answer resulting in me wandering around in aimless circles of angst. Oh yeah and getting dirty dish water splashed all over my hands/shirt is truly my worst nightmare. Phew.

Ok I am done ranting because I had a really lovely moment last night. So one of my greatest paranoias at this job is that I won't be able to handle carrying one of those giant trays and will subsequently drop all the food/dishes on a member and get fired. Therefore when I successfully carried one full of dirty dishes with just one hand without dropping it I was really excited. But more importantly the guy who was training me and spent time trying to teach me how to do said carrying saw me doing it and gave me a thumbs up. I was ridiculously proud and simultaneously ashamed that I was so proud of such a thing.

There is nothing of note to report from the internship: I get to read historical documents and drink coffee and talk about how wonderful theater is. It is just plain great.

second day

Work: Got trained by the super waiter Stephen tonight. He has been there for 7 years and is in my mind the wise guru of waiting. Compared to what happened to me last night, I would say he actually trained me. Meaning he first sat down and went through the entire menu explaining everything to me, then gave me a tour of where everything is kept, then introduced me to the entire kitchen staff and essentially is the man in my book right now. He also explained all the computer stuff (that shit is crazy complicated-damn abbreviations) and introduced me to all the tables we had. Then I told him I'd never tried to carry one of those big trays so he took me to a side room, loaded one up with silverware and made me carry it around. Yeah I'm terrible at that too. It is so friggin hard to not only hold it up since it's so heavy but keeping it level? Forget about it I can't do it. Then he replaced the silverware with 6 plates and covers all stacked and it was (shocker) even harder. At this point I got a little better....well nothing fell off. Still can't get through doors though.

Nothing else of note happened. Next week I am all on my own. I am not optimistic about the results. At least I haven't spilled anything on a member yet.

continued from the previous post

Ok being trained by a ginger (forgot to mention that): it was a bit insane and we only had 4 tables and I basically became the drink orderer/deliverer which wasn't so bad but all our tables were on the patio aka farthest from the well anything (wait station, computers, kitchen, air conditioning, water). The first table we had was delightful, they all had the buffet meaning no work for us and between the three of them they ordered enough glasses of wine to total 3 1/2 bottles so they were no trouble at all. Love wine-drunk rich people. BUT the second table we got was scary. It the was man who owns Kohler furniture (um YEAH) and his super bitchy wife. Basically we had to kiss some major ass and be on that table every second to make sure everything was peachy.

This is when I first biffed it in a major way. Their son had an ice cream cone that was melting while he was off playing and they asked me to put it in a freezer. Well I did that, but when I went to get it I foolishly tried to pick it up by the plate I had set it on. This is when it fell off the plate onto the ground. My train of thought "SHIT! shit shit shit shit shit, where is that ginger to help fix it?!oh crap oh crap oh crap. Why do I have this job?! gah!" Then I mentally slapped myself, picked it up off the ground, put it back on the plate and walked over to the table. I didn't tell them it fell, luckily it was melted beyond repair anyway so I told them I would just get another and bolted. My flight instincts are on fire these days.

Second biff wasn't my fault. The hostess never told us we had a third table so we never went over there and the guy got super pissed, complained and we got yelled at. It was scary. This lead to ever more ass kissing and hyper attention to make sure he didn't have to wait anymore.

Then after everyone was gone we had a set up to do in the main dining room and it was by far the worst part of the night. The entire wait staff was just standing around bitching while a few were actually working and it was crazy frustrating as I just wanted to get the hell out of there. Then it was finally over and I got to sleep.

Final assessment: even though I was essentially wearing orthopedic shoes my feet hurt like a bitch, not blister or cuts just more of a throbbing/on fire/aching kind of pain that didn't go away when I took off the shoes. I don't think my feet will ever recover from this job. Generally I'm just tired as all hell.

first day of everything

I actually have a bit of time to write about my first day as I seem to have 20 minutes to spare before I have to leave for the beginning of day two.

First moment of awkwardness at the country club: After parking my car I realize I have no idea which door to go in. This results in me standing looking lost in the parking lot and eventually darting for the loading dock door (I figure I know I'm not supposed to go in the front door-that's right I'm the help, not the member aka class divisions are still alive and well in Southern Wisconsin). Well I get inside and I am completely lost. This is because although I was given a tour it was when I was (to be blunt) really hungover from going out for Samwise's graduation and had just driven the 3 hours (construction) from Point. So I didn't remember any of it. Panicking I run to the offices (ok I didn't literally run, but I walked really fast), find an adult and she leads me upstairs to the kitchen where I walked right into the middle of the pre-dinner meeting where the entire wait-staff gave a once over (I wasn't in uniform yet) and it was not pleasant. The meeting ended right about then and I begged someone to show me the locker room where I changed and going back to the kitchen find that they make us dinner (YEAH no more pb&j in the car!). This is when I start getting pretty fucking terrified as well I've never served before and no one seemed to be understanding that I had no idea what the fuck was going on or where to be or what anything was. Then lucky for me I found a girl who was cussing up a storm and essentially I latched onto her (her bluntness "I'm not serving that woman she is a ho" and potty mouth endeared her to me), peppered her with questions and then found out who was training me.

The girl training me: LOVE her, she was spazzy (up working another job since 5am, SEE I'm not the only crazy one here people I was only up at 8am working), hilarious, sarcastic, nice and really good at explaining things.

(gotta leave now so this story will be continued in another post about all the crazy shit that happened to me)

I'm just bored

I have not yet started my internship or job, but I am quite bored as the forthcoming stories will explain and seeing as it is 9:40pm I don't want to go to bed (that's early even for me). So my day:

Precursor: my parents moved all of my stuff home while I was spending last week building the paper sculpture so I came home Saturday to a room I couldn't even walk into it was so full of boxes and the spare bedroom was the same. Excited to unpack? I think NOT. So I successfully procrastinated the entirety of Saturday making only a path to my bed by shoving things out of the way. This of course presented the problem in the morning of having to begin the unpacking in a serious kind of way.

Today: With these facts in mind and free time dwindling away, I began unpacking/repacking yesterday intensely. This type of thing i.e. change/ending of things/major life decisions, puts me in a funk of epic proportions so this morning I decided to finally go buy those black dress pants I need for waitressing (orthopedic shoes are already acquired). Well when I got to the mall I may or may not have taken a wrong turn and instead of heading directly for New York and Company and a speedy shopping trip I ended up in Old Navy and then H&M and then the Gap and well some damage was done. Honestly I never understood the concept of retail therapy before, but after this shopping spree that left me lugging 3 relatively large bags down the entire length of the mall I was nothing but giddy (sidenote for Dane dane: I bought a gold tank top-I couldn't help myself, it was on super sale at Gap and I wanted to be disgusted by it but was just completely in love with it. I blame you in the best possible way). Anyway this is the point where I was mentally prepared to quickly buy those black dress pants and get out of the mall (I went when it opened to avoid the people and this was now being thwarted by the excessive amount of time I spent buying everything except the main objective). So I get to New York and Company and BAM no dress pants to be found. Yeah. Standing there in wide-eyed disbelief I eventually came to and left. At this point I went to every single women's clothing store searching for long or tall pants and nothing was to be found. It is also the time when I realized it is May and not the season for dress pants. Well jeez people what kind of outrageous assumption is that, that women only where dresses/skirts to work in the summer?! What a bunch of bull crap. I did end up finding a pair in JcPenny, but I don't particularly like them. Actually that isn't necessarily true, I think I'm just bitter that I spent an entire hour scouring the mall for just one pair to try on. Honestly.

Shopping trip over: I returned home with a vengeance to organize my renewed bad mood away. It worked. Now I only have a bit more to do and I'm completely unpacked/repacked for the fall. And here is something random that I realized today: I have way to many pillows. It's obscene-I spend at least 5 minutes twice a day putting them on and off my bed because I can barely sit on it there are so many pillows. Where does one acquire so many pillows?! There are officially 15 medium sized pillows and a body pillow on my bed. I currently relocating them to new homes in different rooms.

Ok I will now stop writing random shit from day that is entirely of no consequence. At least it's 10pm now-a slightly more acceptable bed time.

blog revived

That's right the blog of Aimie's super awkward/hilarious life moments is renewed because I am now doing this volunteer thing that is resulting in too many weird stories to share with all of you individually. Therefore in the interest of not repeating myself incessantly I am bringing blog back to life.

Last Wednesday: It was my first day acting as the volunteer coordinator for the artist Steven Siegel's giant paper sculpture installation at the art museum in Wausau. This sounds quite fancy-all it really means is that I meet all the volunteers that stop in to work and tell them what to do. Or on this particular day it meant I was given 5 senior high school boys from an alternative school and had to open reams of paper for 2 hours in the morning. YEAH. Although listening to there conversations about their slutty cheating girlfriends and different drugs, I eventually got quite bored so this happened:

Boy using an exacto knife to open reams of paper "dude I almost cut my balls off!"

Me "I hope you wouldn't be able to manage that with such a small knife"

boy and friends in bug-eyed shock "oh shit!"

Boy "so Aimie what do you do?"

and thus ensued them peppering me with questions if Stevens Point is a good place to party. It was all very surreal.

Then in the afternoon one group of 8 middle school girls showed up who were super amped up and giggly and generally annoying as shit. This was bad enough to deal with, but then 8 Boys and Girls club middle schoolers showed up. At this point all of the really fantastically hilarious carpenter men I get to work worth looked at me in pity and the artist told to me it work. Which meant me rangling these little shits and generally running around like mad trying to find work for them. In other words it sucked. Mostly because it kept me from calmly working beside the aforementioned carpenter men making sarcastic comments.

The rest of the days so far have involved me working with old ladies, who I usually love working with since I am essentially a 90 year old woman trapped in a 22 year old body. BUT having to direct them and constantly re-introduce myself, explain the project and defend my career goals (why are older people so convinced that college students don't understand how to realistically get jobs, it's so frustrating). Anyway it's been well interesting and that's all I've got for now as I am friggin exhausted and want to go watch Parks and Rec or something equally hilarious to clear away all the tiredness of the day.

One last thing: I was taught how to use a nail gun by one of the carpenters and it was AWESOME and I exclaimed as much when using it, to which the little old lady next to me said "oh you are like a man!" Thanks lady, thanks.