Maybe it was just a summer romance. Girl meets job, girl falls in love with job, job is not necessarily truthful with Girl, Girl must either leave job or make big compromise. Any way you look at it, Girl is very disappointed. And sad.
The promises- much like, "I will leave my wife to be with you, because we belong together". They told me how right I seemed for the job. They were going to fire someone and I would combine my job with his. I was going to get a $20,000. raise when this happened. And I was ready to work. I was going to give 'em all I got. I was going to clean up that nasty and disgusting kitchen. I would throw away all those science experiments he has growing in the refrigerators. I would re-organize, re-do, re-vamp and re-energize the whole place. I was in love and I had the manic energy of someone half my age and twice my size.
The handsome Italian chef kept shaking his head though. She's not going to get rid of him, he kept saying. She's too insecure, she thinks she needs him.
Last week she told me face to face that he would be let go this week.
Well, it's Friday. And he's more there than ever.
He- being the big fat pastry chef with the bad attitude. Once again, me and the pastry chefs. He's quite enormous and can be quite underhanded and nasty. He had repeatedly set me up to fail and to look bad. I'm no dummy. I know when I'm getting screwed. Kindly buy me dinner first, Fatso.
Chef wanted him out of there. From the moment I got there that's what he confided in me. That they would make these changes. That I better get ready for when it happens. And I tried to gear up. When Fatboy wasn't there I'd try to do the two jobs. It wasn't easy. I had to work out of his creepy, disorganized area. I did not have a baking assistant (something else promised to me when all these "changes" happened). But I would pull it off, pull it off well. I put in the hours, I always kept a smile on my face and worked. I wanted to prove myself.
But time kept rolling by. And Big-boy was still there. He's not only there, he's there all the time. It's part of his diabolical genius.
Chef had said, this guy has no life. He comes in at 1 o'clock in the morning and stays forever. Meanwhile if he's here so much why isn't his work done on time? And he's got a whole Mexican army doing most of his work.
Even after his work is essentially done, he is still there. I don't believe in staying around after my work is done. Plus, I do have a life. Since I started this job I have had dinner with my son just about every night and it's made life a whole lot more bearable here at my home. I may leave at 5 am, but I'm behind the stove in my kitchen at 5:30 pm. The only pull I have on my teenage son these days is money and food. So dinner is a good way to get to know him a bit.
The Doughboy has a wife, supposedly. Sometimes she drives him all the way into the city to work. I resent this a lot as I'm fighting my eyelids to stay open while driving myself into work everyday. The wife takes care of his son too. I have always said I wish I had a wife.
Enough about him. It's the big picture I am sad about. Being the loyal Horton the Elephant type that I am, I mean what I say and I say what I mean. Which means that basically I believed that this would happen. And now I see that it's not.
So, the Fat Bastard won. Big "changes", etc. are not going to happen. I started browsing on the internet again to look for a new job.
One way to look at this however- I did not leave a job to come here. I was out of work and thought that I had to work for the Man. This job came along and touched a cord in me that was long lost. The city, Greenwich Village, a whole other life that could be out there for me. "Better to have loved and lost than to never have loved at all", isn't that the famous quote? I reached out and loved. This job changed me, I think forever now. Even if I must move on. I am a different person than the one who closed the cafe back in June.
Like the disillusioned lover, I am sad. I have some resentments and I'm angry that I have to start all over again. I had hoped that I had found a home.
I will go to work and I will do my job. Every day. And I will do it well. And somewhere out there, I'll find maybe not a great love right away, but a job that is kind, decent and pays me what I'm worth.
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