tomshaggy.com

When was the last time you worked at 15 hour day?  I’m not complaining, so stop yourself right there, but I would like to know when the last time was that someone else did such a thing.  I have “L” to thank for this because without her need to leave early I wouldn’t have thought to write something like this. I guess I would have eventually, but today this really hit home when one of my cooks looked at me as I was passing by and said, “What are you still doing here?”  Then it hit me.  My life is my work.

I had arrived at work at 9 am and steady all day long.  We went on small waits for both lunch and dinner.  It was great to see so many faces, but then came the evening.  L requested that she be able to leave early and M would close the dining room, but that meant I would have to stay and close the restaurant.  How could I say no?  She stared at me with the sad puppy eyes with the need to return home as quickly as possible to finish a couple mid term papers.  After much debate with myself, in my head, I finally conceded and allowed her to leave.  When the question was posed to me, “Why are you still here,” I froze.  I looked at him and searched quickly for the wittiest answer I could find.  I responded, “Work is my life.”  He just smiled and nodded back at him as if, on some level, feeling bad for me maybe?  I live by myself, so there is no excuse that someone needs me at home.  My girlfriend, for 8 months of the year, lives 4 hours away.  Seeing as how I don’t usually get 2 days off in a row, it is very difficult for me to see her on “the regular.”  I’m paid salary, so no matter if I work 40 hours or 70 hours, I am still making the same amount of money.

It’s a sad day when you realize that you are okay with working 15 hour days.  I actually found myself, around hour 12, doing dishing in the back.  What the hell was I thinking?  Any normal person would be looking for any reason to be sitting on their ass trying to get out of there or making someone else do the work.  Something had come over, I don’t know what.  Then, suddenly, I was in a motivational mood and talked to my staff about being ready for the next shift and “setting up the next guy.”  I checked my pulse at some point to make sure I was still alive, and pinched myself to see if I’d wake up.  It was all real.  I was able to use my Olympic Race analogy from Day 67 to help educate my servers on running a successful restaurant/business.

I realized today, you can’t be real with anyone anymore.  People say they want the truth, but all they really want is to be lied to and be told everything is okay, when the world is falling apart around them.  The world should not work like that.  Professional and Personal opinions are like apples and oranges, one says nothing about the other.

side note: I hate finding out that cool people you know are addicted to drugs.