The next summer I got a job at Marie Calendars working the register and seating people, though I was only their for about 2 weeks. I did my 2 weeks of training and then wasn't given another shift for a week. One day I came in to pick up my check and found out I was being paid a full $2 less than I was promised (which, of course, the Management denied ever offering me) and was then told I'd be working the Omelet bar during Sunday Brunch begining at 6am. "Oh, Hell no!" said I and handed in my apron. No more of that shite. Everything was smooth sailing until after I graduated. About six months after I graduated actually. Money had run out and I was pretty desperate for employment when a friend who managed the kitchen at the local ultra-hip 24 hour vegetarian cafe called. I jumped on the chance to join the crew of cool-kids employed by the Saturn Cafe, and I soon begun my shifts as a dishwasher. But not just ANY shifts mind you, the hardest of the hardcore, known as O'e (for over-easy.) O'e was the cool-kids lingo for grave-yard (11pm-7am), and was really hellish. Especially on (thirsty)Thursday and Friday nights (when i was up to my knees in filth-filled bus-tubs.) Not only was the work break-breaking and thankless, it was smelly, wet, and unrelenting. Dishes NEVER stop coming back from the dining room. Even after the bar-rush was over and there were only vampires and crazies in the restaurant there was all the kitchen and cafe dishes to do. Then after that it was hosing off the mats and moping the floor before the bathrooms had to be cleaned. I finished out my nights(mornings) by timing my final trash run to coincide with the sun-rise. There are few thing I have experienced in this world that were more sour-sweet than a cigarette as the sun rises over Santa Cruz during the last moment of a long shift, while covered in filth, drenched to the bone, physically drained, and carting a couple hundred pounds of stinking refuse to the dumpster. I might add that I was also working 2 10am-4pm weekday shifts as a disher. The cocktail of 2 grave-yard and 2 lunch shifts per week, my terrible ineptitude at the job, and the feeling that I didn't really fit in with the rest of the die-hard-work-aholic employees (a double shift was common place for these people. No one would bat an eye. TRIPLE shifts were not unheard of. A believe that the friend who got me the job once did a 26 hour stint ON THE LINE!) meant my tenure at the illustrious Saturn last only a month and a half. But still, I learned a lot about my self and my limits while manning the dish-station.

Well, I think I will continue this rant tomorrow, as my current job is demanding my full attention now...