Something that I always am on the hunt for is a good prompt to work from as sometimes I just want to write a response to something. Thankfully, I discovered that WordPress does offer a daily writing prompt. I doubt I’ll tackle these daily, but I appreciate the resource.
In any case, I decided to knock one of these daily prompts out for an update. Please let me know if you enjoy these sort of explorations. Hell, feel free to pitch a prompt in the comments if you feel so compelled.
Running on Empty
Is it a little strange that I don’t remember a lot of firsts? I am not sure how common it is to have a lot of memories of firsts like jobs and school. The kind of things where the day-to-day becomes pretty routine quickly. If I am taking on something new, my intent is to make it a part of a reliable pattern in my life. Especially when it comes to jobs or education. Like, maybe it is more about settling in quickly and not necessarily taking in the experience from the start.
Is it bad that I had to spend a few minutes to consider something, and not have something locked in for this? It feels like a social failing to me. Maybe a social unawareness of something that might be seen as “normal?” Me not processing life the way that is intended for me?
I do have something though: when I started working as a food runner at a casino restaurant for six-months.
Desperation
The food runner job for the (what will remain) unspecified casino, came at a very challenging chapter of my life a few years ago. I had wrapped up grad school and defended my thesis, and was more or less lined up for a job teaching at a community college. Things felt pretty good until they weren’t.
The college had low enrollment for the upcoming semester and had to cut the classes I was to teach. This left me with no job and no income. My partner was not working at the time either, and if you’ve read some of my recent poetry, I have anxiety about money.
It was not a pleasant time.
What followed then was about 4 months of desperate job searching. I was fortunate to land some work with a tutoring company helping kids after school on the nearby reservation, but that was not sustainable. Beyond that, commission work and freelancing helped, but it wasn’t equaling more than a tank of gas a week – which I spent heavily driving to just about every place I could find that might have work.
I even applied for work with a plumbing company which laughed in my face when they saw I had no experience, but the desperation was real.
Thankfully the local casino had expanded to a larger resort complex and was in the midst of hiring for a grand opening – especially for the dining. So I took the chance and lied about my experience. Had I run food before? I mean, I helped at a couple of public Thanksgiving kitchens and a couple of Elk Lodge spaghetti dinners. But that was the extent of my experience.
But I landed the job.
Relief
The job itself was enough to barely get by, but not very much wiggle room beyond that. I still had to lean on credit cards and loans to survive. But on the first day of the job, being walked through my duties, I felt relief.
I absolutely am not together enough to not go through unholy panic regarding finances, which is doubly rough because I am the book keeper for my household. I have gotten better at not panicking as badly, but it’s akin to exposure therapy I suppose.
But that job was a lifeline I desperately needed to feel human. And it was a job I only worked for six months. By the time I quit to move into teaching, finally, I was one of 3 runners hired from the pool of 10 on the first day. Beyond that, my food service experience rapidly accelerated. I went to being the lone “morning guy” and expo on the line, to, during my last month there, the room-service office.
For someone who had never worked food service before, the learning opportunity at the job on day one was something I had latched onto right away. I feel like somewhere I may have my notebook from my job. I had learned just about everything about food service on that job.
The specifics of the first day at that job are a bit of a blur. They in no way match what the job became for me by the end. But I do remember one thing.
I remember the overwhelming feeling of relief.
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