It's not the worst job I've ever had. Far from it. Working for the bookstore I've befriended some very cool people, encountered a lot of great books, solidified my atheistic grouchiness and my intellectual steel, I've become an expert barista, and-- best of all-- I met Jenni, the love of my life.
These days, though, the days run together worse than they ever did before. Early each morning Jenni comes home from work at the hotel, physically tired and mentally drained from dealing with the avalanche of human stupidity that cascades through her workplace every night. We sleep together as much as we can, and then in the early afternoon I start at the bookstore. Jenni takes the car and comes home to crash a bit more before leaving to start another shift at the hotel. Somewhere in that never-ending cycle we fit in showers and meals and preparations for moving. Repeatedly in that never-ending cycle I resist the urge to throw coffee in the faces of rude, stupid, ignorant, racist, misogynist, misandronist, homophobic, fundie ass-kiss, wealth-flaunting, tightwad, insipid customers, but I try to be sweet to every one, no matter how undeserving. When I see massive trails of foody garbage strewn over the floor of the bookstore, or when people are downright mean, I want to ask them what arrangement they think there is, here? Are we actors in some ludicrous economic play, them portraying power-holding superiors, me and my wage-monkey ilk portraying a lower caste, destined by innate belonging to be servants? I do not cease to be the good person I am outside of my workplace, I do not cease to be the intelligent person who can see exactly what's happening just because you want to exercise this formal falsehood that I serve
you. I am getting paid to provide a service, a service which makes money for my employer. I don't live to serve strangers, and neither does anyone else working behind a counter, or operating a cash register, or bagging your groceries, or making your drinks.
Customers assume that I’m stupid. I’m sure everyone in a name-tag job has had this sort of thing happen to them plenty of times. There was one guy pretty recently who bought a stack of science magazines from me. I’m always happy to see people departing the bookstore with science-related material, and I usually tell them so if I get the chance. I said to this particular guy, “Ah, I’m always glad to see people buying science stuff.”
He looked at me as though he were examining the “reveal” on a home pregnancy test. Cue stuck-up, nasty attitude: “WHY do you say
that?”
I was thrown for a second, but answered, “Well, it makes me happy because I like science and in Alabama there’s a lot of ignorance about it, and so-- I like to see that there are science enthusiasts around here. I want to encourage that.”
His expression became one of someone who realized the hamburger he had just slowly relished was formed of processed dog. In an utterly dismissive tone, he said, “Yeah, right.”
Obviously I was just talking out of my ass. Clerks do not read. They do not possess any intellect or knowledge, and the very idea that a clerk could be a science enthusiast is laughable. Anyone with half a brain ought to be intimidating people and making underlings feel worthless from behind the desk at a power-business-job, of course.
Aside from occasional distressing episodes of disrespect, my job is pretty non-eventful, enough so that every night there blurs together into one master work-night mold. I can make you any damn coffee drink imaginable far better than you could ever get from the reigning mega-chain (with a fearful efficiency borne of doing so for years), and I do so for hours at a time for all the people who can still be bothered to get out of their cars to buy coffee.
I am a coffee virtuoso. I shall coin “barristuoso” to use now (though I will likely never use it again). Feeling good making coffee is about constantly establishing an active set of cascading event-sequences, their starting points staggered by the amount of time necessary to maintain each task, allowing for flexible points in the whole framework to clean up my equipment. All the while I’m at work I try to pull together the various odds and ends that need to be wrapped up so that all of us staff at my severely understaffed bookstore can go home at an hour approaching reasonable. I can usually get a ride from a coworker to Jenni's father's apartment, not too far from where I work. It's a lot harder to get home to where Jenni and I live, since it's a long way and since my scooter died I've been dependant on the kindness of those around me to get where I need to go. I creep in very late and eventually crash on Jenni's father's sofa. It's a good sofa.
We bought our tickets, to LA first to visit my family, flying out on August 15th. Then on August 25th we fly out to Fairbanks. Jenni and I will probably both try to soar free from our jobs by the 8th, so we'll have time to tie up loose ends and get rested up for our big jarring change. Termination date: less than a month from now. I could handle stupid coffee buyers for years if I knew I was going to a better life at some point. Now I know, and the time remaining is an extraordinarily manageable span. How the fuck did this happen? How did I get so lucky as to manage an out from this land of rednecks and humidity? To aid in our exit we decided to pick up a tangible, something to aid the great getaway. We each got a suitcase. That makes two apiece. Our material belongings, limited to what we think we’ll actually
need, must fit into this space:
I think that's more than enough for anyone. I'm packing already. I'm ready to work too hard for too little money someplace else. Oh, and I'm ready to go back to school. The university said I may take classes there. I'd say "Woot," but I'm too tired to make it convincing.
Good day. Treat your server well!
