I am no longer a restaurant manager. I didn't get fired. I don't think. But I also didn't really quit.
Well, I kind of quit. My coworkers have chosen to describe it as "demoting" myself back to being a server, which is mildly offensive and illogical - my "demoted" salary has increased $100-$200 per week.
That's shocking, right? You would think an increase of responsibility would come with a significant pay raise. I've learned from my PR/Marketing days that this is rarely the case. At least, not in the beginning. It's called paying your dues or you are pretty but have zero qualifications. Actors: think of it like Non-Equity theatre (which I never had to do but heard it was terrible for the rest of you).
Remember the next time you ask to speak to a manager at a restaurant, they are making very little in comparison to the waiter's dignity you just disregarded. Really consider your bitch level before you expect anyone to sympathize.
I'll miss the job. I was good at it. I won't say great at it, because I don't think I was. Mostly I didn't have the mental capacity or patience for learning to be great at it. But I learned an awful lot. For instance, one boss taught me that just because you can be really good at something doesn't mean you should do it. Again, I was not fired.
I would say the most important lesson I learned, which I wish I had learned before 25, is that we really do get only one life. I want that to sound more morbid and less uplifting. Thanks.
I was trying to live two lives. During the day/night/times-I-was-getting-paid, I was this really cool/hip fine-dining career schmoozer who pretended to know what I was doing and sometimes ordered napkins (and only once in an emergency on my last day) waiting for guests to comment on my cheekbones so I could buy them a drink. During the times I wasn't getting paid, I was a writer/actor/singer/
So, instead of continuing to dream about getting fired or worrying about a baked fish taking longer than expected and continuing to pretend that I had any business running a restaurant at 24, I did everyone a favor and pulled the plug before 25. Was it a quarter life crisis? No. I know this because I have no intentions of living to 100, and I had a quarter life crisis YEARS ago. The piercing didn't last and I almost declared a Gender Studies double major.
Teachers of artists are known for saying, "If you can imagine yourself doing something else, do something else. Life will be much easier."
I can finally say at 25, after having been A LOT of things for what my mom thinks were very short periods of time, I can't imagine myself doing anything else. Not now. Maybe never. Sometimes boys.
Would you like fries with that,
TJB: Making It
