Monday.
Showed up to the Country Club about 40 minutes late. Which is about average for me now. I stopped setting an alarm clock. Can't sleep right knowing I have to go there anyway. About once every hour and a half I look at the clock. Missed McD's or BK's breakfast by about one minute. Assistant manager gets mad but quickly realizes being mad about that is stupid. I shouldn't be going at all.
Lot of stupid crap. Oil lanes for high school matches. Then again for the leagues. No real maintenance nor repairs. Just babysitting machines and telling them to work when they stop.
There is a guy that bowls every Monday. There is usually a point where he is the only customer in the building. He always talks with me about my job and random crap. There is no one else around. He is retired. Not sure why he goes there, not sure why he is alone, nor why he wants to talk with me. I try to treat him like I would treat a customer at the other center.
[Over the years I have met a lot of customers that go out alone. A lot of employees get annoyed by them. I figure they were stuck home alone and couldn't take it anymore. I talk to a guy people refer to as 'Creepy Dave.' Comes in all the time. I usually don't have time for him, but talk about random junk anyway. You can't expect a 20-something year old waitress to understand, nor care, what he is going through. Their mentality is: Take order. Serve food and/or drink. Take money and tip. Repeat.]
ANYWAY: Nearly eight hours into a twelve hour shift at a place that I didn't want to be. Just finished getting the lanes ready for the league. Up until last week, I had them done hours in advance. These two weeks, lane usage prevented that. A girl said to a guy "Where are my balls?" Twice. It was all in the tone. It was both; 'you are responsible for bringing my bowling balls, where are they?' and 'why don't I have balls?' ('quick, find my balls!') I had to smile for the first time ever. I didn't offer to help her find them in my office.
That made my day.
At the end of the night Counter Girl said "See you next week." I don't remember her ever saying that before. I said "I hope not." Looked a little shocked at first, then realized what I meant. "...probably will." she said that I would be there. I am not lucky enough to get fired or die before then. I can smile about this now because I know the end is coming. I just hope I don't miss the place when I am out.
----
I went through some 7-10 year old entries at random. My favorite ones are the random 'this was the highlight of my day.' posts. Little things that you wouldn't normally consider worth writing about end up being the best. I sort-of remember them happening. Memory would be gone forever if it weren't written on LJ. Wish I had a record of who some of these people were. Maybe some more details about the stuff that seemed completely un-important at the time, too.
Lot of stupid crap. Oil lanes for high school matches. Then again for the leagues. No real maintenance nor repairs. Just babysitting machines and telling them to work when they stop.
There is a guy that bowls every Monday. There is usually a point where he is the only customer in the building. He always talks with me about my job and random crap. There is no one else around. He is retired. Not sure why he goes there, not sure why he is alone, nor why he wants to talk with me. I try to treat him like I would treat a customer at the other center.
[Over the years I have met a lot of customers that go out alone. A lot of employees get annoyed by them. I figure they were stuck home alone and couldn't take it anymore. I talk to a guy people refer to as 'Creepy Dave.' Comes in all the time. I usually don't have time for him, but talk about random junk anyway. You can't expect a 20-something year old waitress to understand, nor care, what he is going through. Their mentality is: Take order. Serve food and/or drink. Take money and tip. Repeat.]
ANYWAY: Nearly eight hours into a twelve hour shift at a place that I didn't want to be. Just finished getting the lanes ready for the league. Up until last week, I had them done hours in advance. These two weeks, lane usage prevented that. A girl said to a guy "Where are my balls?" Twice. It was all in the tone. It was both; 'you are responsible for bringing my bowling balls, where are they?' and 'why don't I have balls?' ('quick, find my balls!') I had to smile for the first time ever. I didn't offer to help her find them in my office.
That made my day.
At the end of the night Counter Girl said "See you next week." I don't remember her ever saying that before. I said "I hope not." Looked a little shocked at first, then realized what I meant. "...probably will." she said that I would be there. I am not lucky enough to get fired or die before then. I can smile about this now because I know the end is coming. I just hope I don't miss the place when I am out.
----
I went through some 7-10 year old entries at random. My favorite ones are the random 'this was the highlight of my day.' posts. Little things that you wouldn't normally consider worth writing about end up being the best. I sort-of remember them happening. Memory would be gone forever if it weren't written on LJ. Wish I had a record of who some of these people were. Maybe some more details about the stuff that seemed completely un-important at the time, too.