doomed: the diary of an hourly partner

"you r'member that?"

do you ever have one memory that is just nice to think about? i have one. i think about it all the time.

kate

posted by kate @ 10:04 PM 0 comments

first night in.

i hate moving. we have so much shit. we also did everything the wrong way. kris was on vacation in north carolina, so we didn't really start packing until, the night before? ugh. it was the worst. we packed and simultaneously unpacked. it took forever. and a lot of walking down the block and across the street and then up three flights of stairs. we still have so much stuff to get.

the good news? when i brought pentium over after we were done for the day, i fed him a pellet of food. i saw him eat it. this can only be a good sign. i love my fish and i love the fact that now he can stay with me in my room because of the sunlight in it.

but now we're in our new great apartment. my room is huge. and slanted. the whole apartment is like a walking roller coaster- nothing is level. this will be the first time in a couple weeks since i've slept in my own bedroom, you know, on account of the shit falling on me in my old stupid bedroom.

snore, kate

posted by kate @ 11:31 PM 1 comments

i miss you guys.

what a stressful few weeks. well, summer, actually. i'm done at my cosi. done and done. it makes me really sad. i miss angel. i miss elfego. i miss john! and my evil twin sister sondra. sigh. i miss them. lots. if anyone sees them, tell them so, okay? as of yesterday, i started working at the orland park cosi. suck. it's weird because the customers are snobby suburb people and they don't know what they're doing in the store. or in life. and the people working there are okay. the huge difference? sales, baby. sales. (it was funny, i was talking to ali-who is working there for two weeks with me-and i asked her about sales. while i was on my cell phone. in my lexus.) the closing barista leaves at 8. we close at 10. there is virtually no coffee business. for around 2 hours yesterday i was the only one with a cash register and i was still able to sit in the office for a good half hour before i was needed. there's lots of things that i don't like about working there. it's too much like my cosi was before john and ali came in and made it right. i just want to go back downtown!

the stress continues. not only was i freaking out hardcore about the new cosi (fyi: i'm only there for another 1.5 weeks and then i'm off... elsewhere. also an interesting tidbit: the drive there will, on days, take me two hours with traffic. another two on the way home. that's a drive to st louis people. fuck.), i'm also freaking out about moving. kris and i are moving and i hate moving. because you think you don't have lots of shit until you have to move all of it. fuck. but i feel al ittle better after spending more and more time over there and seeing kris paint her room crazy colors. it's awes.

and to top it off let's be realistic by saying i'm nervous about going to miami and seattle. less now since i've conquered my first day at orland park, but come on. it's me. i'll be a wreck the last 3 days befor ei leave.

i wish i wasn't a spazz about change. because let me tell you, i fucking hate it. fuck. ing. hate. it. i don't like the change to adult, i don't like the change of stores, and i don't like how when i go home for a weekend it fucks my shit up. like i come back to chicago and i have to take a week to remind myself why i love it here.

i'm also out of internet until kris and i are in our new place. so... thanks for your compy shandogg.

posted by kate @ 2:46 PM 1 comments

i can't sleep.

and i should be out like a light. all week i've been getting up at 4 to be at work by 5:30. work is getting stressful. i like that i'm learning new things and i make maybe 2 lattes a day and i'm actually challenging myself and doing things wrong, but it's still hard to be out of familiar waters. man i could run my side of the restaurant, but now i've got safes to count down and produce orders and i can't for the life of me remember how many pounds of chicken are in a case. today, john put the keys to the store in my hand as soon as he saw me this morning, he didn't even unlock the front door, and didn't touch them the rest of the day. i'm kind of nervous. mostly because i'm about to go to another store, and i don't think they'd be so forgiving to the fact that it takes me 20 minutes to count the safe because not only do i miscount it, but i miscount it like 3 times. i'm also nervous because i don't know what i'm doing. my dad told me that his boss thinks i'm "wasting my time" with this job and even he said he'd be disappointed if i stayed working for cosi instead of grad school. it's ridiculous, but it really upset me to hear him say that. and it's all i can think about.

plus, cosi is so corporate. i really hate working for the Man. i hate it. i hate that 3 different people will come in -three "shirts"- and tell us all the things we're doing wrong and sit around the store taking up space in our office with their stupid emailing and talking on their cell phones analyzing our labor percentage and telling us we need to go from 19% to 15%. i want to work for kim and jim again. i want to be kim and jim, for shit's sake.

mostly i want someone who makes a lot of money to take care of me and make me dinner and let me work in a kim and jim type restaurant for fun. ...or maybe i still want to be an art teacher.

love, kate

posted by kate @ 10:19 PM 2 comments

he's my favorite fish.

pentium update:

he's still not eating a whole lot. when i first got him, he never ever ate and i was certain he would die, but he's still here. i don't know how he does it. i'll put food in one day and then the next day the food pellet would still be there, floating at the top, all bloated with water. it worried me because computer ate the 3 pellets i gave him twice a day with gusto. but not pentium. he doesn't need it. he's pentium.

i bought him a new plant today. i bought computer one once, but the guy at the store was like, "you should get him a real one. they're better." so i bought a real one. and it fell apart. well, floated apart. it did nothing but clutter the bowl for a day before i threw it out. stupid guy. the one i bought today, though, is fake and looks like a water lily. er, it is a fake water lily.

but i still feel really guilty about how much time i don't spend with pentium. i know why i don't feel as close to him though: it's because we don't take car trips together. i always had to take computer home with me whenever ryan wasn't going to be home. computer needed to eat! pentium doesn't. he's like a camel. i'm going home this weekend, maybe i should bring pentium home with me. i used to sing weezer to computer, maybe i'll sing beyonce to pentium.

he's a good fish though. we do our own things.

love, kate

posted by kate @ 9:52 PM 1 comments

bienvenido a miami

well here i go. i'm off to miami. then to seattle. i'll be training to be a team leader for commandos, which was my previous title which means that i'll be training people how to train people. cosi is sending me to miami for two weeks. then pretty much right after that i'm off to miami to do the same thing only this time i'd be an official team leader and not a team leader in training. which is basically a manager. like, doing payroll and shit. i'm really excited. really really excited. this all happens in august. probably.

and goodbye hat. i picked up my cosi shift leader shirts from franklin and washington today. actually, i didn't even wear my hat today even though i was in my same old uniform. we were so busy with catering orders al day that i didn't really get a chance to learn a whole lot, and tomorrow will be about the same since we have even more catering orders than today. plus a huge truckload of shit coming in.

but i am liking being a manager. well, a sort of manager. it makes me feel like i'm actually using my brain. and it makes me feel good to have some authority.

sometimes i catch myself being ashamed of my job, and that makes me angry. it's true, i was really sick of cosi for a while, but now i'm moving up. and my favorite jobs beforehand were the ones where i worked in a restaurant. true, not corporations, but restaurants anyway. i'd really like to have my own one day. hopefully i'll be able to. and i don't see how working in a resurant isn't considered a "real job." it's not making a difference in the world, really, but it is providing a good time to people who come in. and i'm kind of mom-ish sometimes, so it feels good making people happy and feeding them.

i dunno. i just like my job.

love, kate

posted by kate @ 7:27 PM 2 comments