I wake up. I have an English lit. exam in 1 hour. I have not read the book. (I think its the Odyssey or something). This is so stressful. 2 of my old school friends call (who I haven't thought about in ages) to ask me about something to do with the book.
My alarm goes off. This turns out to be my dream - I don't even take English lit and I have read the Odyssey. But I do now have exactly 1 hour until I'm due at the 'job trial' at Dave's Deli- this is basically trying out for a waitress job there by spending one day working. I spend some time changing tops, grab some breakfast them run for the bus. I make it just in time and take this as a good sign. I make my way upstairs to the back and eat my breakfast up there like a tramp. I change bus, I brush my hair and tie it up in a pony tail. I do not look good, its way too early (its like 8:20 am). I put concealer on to try to cover up the sun-glass tan lines I unfortunately acquired yesterday I use my phone, so I have no idea how it looks. (Luckily I found out later that its fine!! :D )
People are strange - one man on the bus is loudly telling someone on the phone a lot about his personal life with unnecessary details like the fact that he'd missed a call from someone... because he had been in the bath. Maybe its because I'm British, but why would you say that!!? Anyway... the bus stops right outside the Deli, I am surprisingly 10 minuets early and I have to admit: I did wonder to take a walk around the block but I decided not to.
The Deli is brown and friendly looking. It has a variety of healthy looking pastries and cakes in the window, it is quiet for the minuet, but that is because it is 8:50 am, on a Tuesday. I introduce myself and the rather hostile waiter introduces himself back with a name that I couldn't even hear. He was very small with cat eyes and he gets me to make a coffee, which goes disastrously wrong because basically, the thing is, how are you supposed to get experience without experience!! In other words; you learn to make coffee but using those machines that are only in coffee shops, you can only use those if you work there, they don't give you a job unless you can already use them, so how are you supposed to learn without going out and purchasing one of your own!!???
Anyway- my initial reaction was that it was a total disaster, I was struggling with the coffee, and it seemed the waiter I was shadowing hated my guts for some reason, even though he had never met before and had no reason (but it turned out that he was just having a bad day, and hated England and couldn't wait to go back to Italy. I think he quiet liked me in the end). I also met Dave - who was quite a scary individual; he was big, very big, with little piggy blue eyes. He was the sort of person that you could sit in silence with and it not to be awkward. You could get used to him but his withdrawal was quiet scary - he was basically the opposite of friendly. And another reason why he was scary is because he spoke really quietly and rarely and came out with things like this to the waiter ''you cant keep fucking up the till like that - thats another 60p'' and to the chef ''do you know how to cut a fucking lemon!? This is how to cut a fucking lemon!!!'', so yeah, joyful bundle of fun, although later he told me he hadn't taken a day off in 3 years because things didn't function without him - and it did look like they would!! So I guess that would drive you crazy!!
There was also the problem that I couldn't seem to hear anyone. It wasn't that the Deli was extremely loud, and it wasn't an issue of their accents. I was just that they were speaking very quietly, and didn't turn up their volume in response to my increasing ''Sorry, can you repeat that''s or ''huh!? What did you say??''s. It got really annoying after a while so I quit trying to understand and just did my own thing. That also got annoying because when I didn't do something they had supposedly 'asked me to' they got impatient, which was unfair, especially as I was being really helpful and he was just asking me to do the crap jobs that he couldn't be bothered to do.
The chef was SO STRANGE and also scary - but in a different way. Dave seemed to be controlled and that's where he was so scary, but this guy! This guy seemed to have some screws loose. I did sympathize with Dave when he showed him how to cut a lemon, because he was cutting it in an absolutely absurd way. He kept asking me my name, and where I was from, over an over, until I stared giving him different names and places every time. Then I had to show HIM how to use the dishwasher which was not difficult (shut it and push the on button) plus, he worked there, so he should have known. He annoyed me too, with his slowness and in-ability to read simple words like 'chicken salad' and then his inability to make them properly/at all.
But I got into it and overall it pretty good fun and I am a pretty good waitress, and its a pretty easy job when you don't have to make coffee's. Plus the toilet was cool even though the lock didn't work! Oh yeah!!! I told the waiter I was going to the toilet and he said the lock didn't work so he would hold the door... I was like WTFFFFFFF!!!! and tried to pee as fast as possible!! That was strange. But yeah, the toilet was cool because inside the toilet seat were the words ''if you sprinkle when you tinkle, please be sweet and wipe the seat''... which is chuckle worthy.
The first people I waited on were 2 men. One didn't appear to want to be there, and one really did who kept asking me things about the food on the menu that I had no idea about. He was a young entrepreneur in the property market and was telling the guy that looked like he'd like to be somewhere else about his new business plan - and what he looked for whilst visiting houses - such as the walls. And at that; he began to dramatically spread his arms all over the walls of the Deli, feeling them, smelling them, and dramatically deducting that they were old walls, but had new wall paper on them, and if he were to buy the Deli he would put in new walls, because for some reason that would make a huge difference. The other guy looked mortified. Poor him.
Then I waited on a couple on a laptop. They stayed there about 4-5 hours in total!! It seemed they were moving in together and were looking for a house. Awww, how nice. An elderly couple that also stayed for about 4 hours because it was raining, and they didn't want to walk to their car. When I asked them where it was parked, they said ''just around the corner''. Just saying - they weren't that old or crippled in any way.
I had an 'interview' at the end, which was more like a chat with Dave about holidays and other non-Deli related stuff, but we basically figured out pretty quickly that I got the job - but because I go to school I couldn't work the hours he wanted (9-4 on weekdays), so that was awkward, but oh well at least I got the offer!!! :D I hope I have better luck with my next job interview... my last one was not good either... I'll tell you about it briefly;
It was for Gilly Hicks. I had been in the store a few days earlier and the manager had asked me to come back for a group interview with a few other girls my age (turns out they were not my age, but around 4 years older!!). So I was making my way to that and I saw a baby wondering aimlessly down the middle of a deserted road. I knew immediately that it was lost. So I tried to help her find her parents by playing fun games like 'hide and seek: where are mummy and daddy hiding' and, 'where does little baby live', but the baby did not even say 1 word to me, so she was making me late, so I gave her to 2 fat friendly Portuguese guys I came across chatting in one mans doorway. I told them to call the police, and started to walk away. I regretted that instantly. She started trying to come after me and started crying holding out her arms in my direction. I should have stayed with her, but I didn't. And to this day I really regret that, its one of my biggest regrets in life actually - maybe my biggest, because it was so irresponsible!! But luckily I think she was re-united with her family as there was nothing in the news or any posters around!! :/ Anyway I spent the whole interview worrying about the poor thing and couldn't really engage in the enthusiastic-ness of the interview, which seemed pretty pointless, for example, we all had to go around and say ''hi, welcome to Gilly Hicks'' in a very cheerful way - everyone said it the same and it was stupid compared with re-uniting a child with its mother. Plus I forgot my national insurance number which they wanted RIGHT THEN and without it they legally can't hire you. So I didn't get the job by a long-shot.
But that next time I see a lost baby- I have vowed to re-unite it with its parents.
I went to the Travel Photographer of the year exhibition in the Royal Geographical Society in South Kensington. Its free (that's why I went!!), and it features photo's taken by both professional and non-professional photographers... of all ages - I was really impressed by the winner of the child's 15-18 category who has captured horses beautifully.
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