Work rant

Now that I've semi-officially graduated, the job at the café becomes quite depressing. It's not really like I work weekends and go back to uni and studying on Monday morning... the prospect of doing a mindless job and losing all the brain power I've buffed up in the past years (well, whatever the alcohol has left alive) through the routine of "Is that a small or regular coffee? Black or white?" makes me feel like I gradually flush the BA down the toilet. And if I stay there too long, I will begin to feel so pathetic, I won't have the nerve anymore to aim for bigger and better things.

I totally gotta get a new job. Simon, my workmate, can't believe I have been there for 2 1/2 - 3 years now. He hates the place with a passion, and I can't blame him. Well, I need to save up some money, because Dad and Sabine and I want to go on a road trip across the United States next year, which will be tres awesome. Except that the thought of US immigration getting my fingerprints and retina scan freaks me out. I mean, for fuck's sake!


I mean, don't get me wrong, there are lots of good things about my job now... but the piss-take level is increasing dramatically each year. They keep increasing the table numbers, but don't give a shit whether the staff can actually cope with it. Not to mention that the kitchen doesn't get bigger, nor does the stock room. And what do we get for working our arse off? A 3% payrise/year (which is pennies), maybe time-and-a-half on bank holidays, but not on Sundays. If days like Boxing Day fall on a Sunday, we still have to go, but don't get extra money. Same goes for Easter. And every other place does! At every staff meeting the management tells us how wonderful we are and that each year we're breaking the profit records, but the only thanks we get is a damp handshake. A handshake doesn't pay the fuckin rent, mate!
Plus, we have to pay for our food. Even with 50% or 25% off it is still frickin expensive. But we're not allowed to heat our own food in the microwave, and who can do a job like this on a sandwich?
Ah well...

Yesterday another thing happened which just illustrated what a fuckin retard our general manager is.
Since I am moving in three weeks, I have started to collect delivery boxes at work. Admissions offered me to keep the boxes from the shop deliveries, as well, so I could take them. All good.
Then James walks in. James, you must know, has zero people skills. There isn't a single person working there (at least on our level) who respects him, because there is simply nothing respectable about him. He is one of those guys who doesn't know jackshit about how the cafe is run, but still has to constantly assert his authority over us and keeps coming up with the most ridiculous ideas, and messing about. It's just incredibly patronising, and it stops us from doing our job properly.
So a few weeks ago, we got these new trays delivered. A hideous poo-brown. But the really annoying thing about them is that they are slightly differently sized from the other trays we have, so you can't stack them properly. I know, you probably think, why is she whining about that? Well, imagine having to listen to James' patronising talks about Health and Safety issues all the time. And then this happens, and I am just waiting for the day when a kid will be buried under an avalanche of slipping trays. Guess who will get their ass kicked? Exactly.
Anyways, I digress. James walks by and I jokingly ask him whether the trays were his idea.
James immediately switched into teenager mode (he's in his mid-30s!) and got defensive, saying he didn't. I was like, ok dude, chill. Jeez.
Hours later he walked past me again, and I hardly registered him, and suddenly he turns to me, and in an overreacting nervous-defensively laughing way says: "By the way, it wasn't me who ordered the trays, it was Vicky, so you can't blame me and take the piss of me!"
I'm like, whoa. Have some valium. Nobody is taking the piss here.

That was weeks ago. So yesterday he walks in, wearing this glow-in-the-dark green shirt.
"Nice.. shirt!", I said.
And ding: immediate transformation into angst-ridden Teenie-James. "Are you taking the piss again? Because I am in a sacking-mood today!"
"Feh", I grinned back at him, teasing, but not unfriendly. "You can't sack me for that!"
He giggled and wandered off.

When I went to collect the boxes from admission just before I finished my shift, Justin told me: "Sorry mate. James told us to bin them!"

I mean, what the fuck? So I have a manager who is so pathetic and insecure, he resorts to little vendettas to assert his authoratah?
Holy Mother of God.
What a retard.

But at least I know he won't be wearing that shirt again. Loser.