what am i doing

my sentiment is far from cheery right now. i'm just dragging my ass behind me and can't really seem to do anything. it looks like i'll be starting a new job on monday. this is excellent news, it actually is, but i find that i'm devastated at the thought of entering the corporate world again. i'm going to have to communte to work, i'm going to have to wear a dress shirt and tie and i'm going to have to work a full shift, none of this 4-6 hour crap that i had at the olive garden. its not that i'm looking back fondly at the olive garden, i can say with full authority that i do not miss that job at all, but there was a certain purity about the work. what a stupid dilemma to be in because either way, whatever job i'm doing, i'm not going to like it.
i was digging though suzanne's parents', neighbor's garage today, looking desparately through all of our boxes to find my assortment of ties, when i realized how miserable i actually was that my life was boxed up and hidden in someone's garage. i mean, obviously i'm living my life, but i'm living it in someone else's world right now.
suzanne and i have talked about this countless times, the fact that we have no space to call our own, which is what has lead us to so many discussions about public space, but i've never really felt the pang of remorse quite as acutely as when i was looking through our boxes. i just want to have a home again. i feel like i'm back in college again living in the dorms. i have one room to call my own, and in that room i have to try and fit all of the stuff that's most important to me. the difference is though, this isn't a dorm, this is someone's house, someone whose wishes i need to respect, so i don't get to decorate the way i want. i don't get to move the furniture around so that i feel the space is most efficiently utilized. i hide my clothes and posessions in the closet, and anything else that doesn't fit either goes in the garage or in the trunk of my car.
can you see how i feel like even though i know that i'm in california i don't really feel like i'm anywhere at all? while this should in some ways be a liberating experience i find that it is actually quite stifling. i feel like the prisoner who has just been released after 25 years of confinement. there's a limitless array of possibilities ahead of me, so much so that i'm overwhelmed and instead of delighting at my newfound freedom, i'm compelled to recoil and hide like a cocroach just exposed to the light (talk about mixing metaphors. maybe i'm a cocroach in a prison who has just been released).
i don't know what to do anymore. some days i wish i never moved out here, and on rare occasions i'm grateful that i did, even if i am living at my girlfriend's parents' house. i've got one more year here before i go to grad school, so the optimist in me tells me to make the most of it. of course, the pessimist is a fat, obnoxious, angry little bastard and tends to color my opinion more often, so i'm often confronted with overpowering fear and hopelessness. its never going to get better, and even when it does get better, that's going to suck too.
i'm ok, things aren't that bad, so i'm going to be ok. i'm going to be ok.

fuck the olive garden: the third and final time

so, i quit the olive garden tonight. they opened the back door to take out the garbage, which is usually our cue to drop everything we're doing and go suck down as much nicotine as we can before the door closes again. tonight, as i tried to walk out the door, i was informed that because the service staff didn't work well as a team tonight, they weren't allowing any of us outside to have a cigarette. since i was already having a horrible night, and felt like i was running around with my head stuck up my ass for most of the night, all i wanted was a cigarette, and when i was denied it, i maybe got a little bit too upset. i argued with the manager, pointed out to her that i had worked my ass ragged all night long and ass i turned away, muttering not so under my breath, "this is absolute fucking bullshit," I heard the manager tell me to transfer my tables to someone else and that i was going home. i didn't quit right then, i clocked out, left the building, had a few cigarettes, found suzanne and then called the olive garden to inform them that i wouldn't be coming in ever again. what follows is the letter that i decided i needed to write to the management so i could leave that god-forsaken place with a clean conscience.
enjoy!

To the management,
You may find yourselves wondering why one of your most laid back, fun, easygoing and reliable servers would quit over something as insignificant as a cigarette break. Don’t be fooled, this actually couldn’t be farther from the truth.
The truth is, ever since I was first pulled from the floor in the middle of a rush because I failed to bring a bottle of wine to the table during my greeting, and then sent home and placed on final warning, I have been harboring the seeds of resentment toward the management. At the time I was tempted to point out that Italy, under Mussolini’s rule, was a fascist state, and that this was the only way in which the Olive Garden achieved a 100% Italian dining experience. Instead, I bit my tongue and quietly pointed out that trying to quantize the 100% Italian dining experience was a futile exercise. I’d like to take the opportunity now to further elucidate that point.
You can have as many mandatory server standards as you want, but the more you try to impose, the less control you will have. As people who have worked in the restaurant industry for some time, I would expect you to understand that our trade is a dynamic one, and requires several degrees of flexibility and fluidity. When you try to standardize your employee’s behavior, all you achieve is a denial of your true goal, in that you turn us into robots rather than allowing us to be the colorful individuals with the capacity for independent thought and problem solving that we really are.
So, to get back to the point, I did not quit simply because I was denied a cigarette break. I quit because I found the working environment at the Olive Garden to be stifling and frustrating. Too many times I found myself turning to the management for help with a simple problem, only to be turned away to find someone else to do it because you were too busy. I’ve butted heads with the management previously regarding cigarette breaks, specifically times in which a secret password was imposed for those who were privileged enough to have a cigarette. I found such rules and games to be demeaning and to be a cheap power play by the management to further reinforce the separation between management and employee. I cannot sit back and listen to a lecture about how I am being denied the simple right to 5 quick minutes of freedom while I smoke a cigarette because the staff did not work as a team, while the manager, the leader of the team, is standing outside having a cigarette. If there was ever a double standard that could be more glaring, I’d be hard pressed to find it.
If there is a problem with teamwork, I would hope that the management would have the clarity of mind to realize that as the leader of the team, they must have in some way failed. If you’re going to be a leader, lead by example, and realize that as part of the team you must adhere to the rules you impose on your staff. A ten minute cigarette break is actually a right, and not a privilege, and we should not have to beg you for that right.
So, I thank you for finally pushing me to the edge of sanity. You found my breaking point and broke me. I cannot work for people that I don’t respect, and I don’t respect people who abuse and overexert what little power and control they actually have over the people that work for them.

was this over the top a little bit? probably, but i feel so much better having written it, i can't wait to drop it off when i go pick up my last check.
now, to address the small problem of unemployment that lays before me. i'm not going to let myself worry about it too much yet. its my birthday on saturday, and i think that i probably couldn't have gotten myself anything better than finally quitting the job that has made me miserable time and time again.
i now, officially, feel awesome.