I Got A Job
About a month ago I sat outside a cafe with my friend, the one that does my favourite coffee, and noticed a small white note on the door saying “we are looking for staff”. I thought “I bet it would be nice to work here”, and then we got on with our day, and then I spent the rest of the week thinking about how much I would actually like to work there. The next weekend I psyched myself up to go down there, work on my laptop for a bit, and enquire about the job, only when I arrived the note was no longer on the door and I spent the hour feeling dejected about it. I asked, on the off chance, whether they were still looking for people and, well, now I work there.
This all begs the question, why? Well mostly because I have been dreading this winter - short days in an extremely cold house, isolated and without regular company now that I am no longer seeing someone. Last winter was difficult, mentally and emotionally, and I wanted to put things in place to avoid a repeat. The idea of spending two days a week in the warmth of human connection, in a cool little place with interesting people, felt like exactly the way I wanted my winter to go. I wanted to build some community in my community, to know people to say hello to, to start making local friends. And also, honestly, I needed the income. It’s not going to pay my rent, but it will be a big help.
There are a number of interesting things about this development. The first is how quickly it all came back, the muscle memory. I found myself clearing a large table of plates, automatically stacking them up my arm like I used to in the restaurants, only realising as I walked away that I hadn’t done that in ten years. The dance of orders, cutlery, trays, taking, collecting, wiping down; I knew all the steps, after all this time. It felt natural.
What also feels natural, and really nice, is how much I like it. How much I like making people’s day. How when someone asks a question I enjoy going out of my way to get a milk carton from the back to talk them through it. How I like making little jokes and comments with the customers, how I like making sure they have everything they need, how I enjoy giving walking suggestions and spelling corrections. It just feels good.
The most interesting thing of all, however, is that just a few weeks ago I would have considered this a failure.
It is nearly ten years since I left a service shift for the last time. I had been working in restaurants during my Masters and while applying ferociously for my first “grown up” job. This was meaningful to me then; at the time I was the only one of my friends still waitressing, still not salaried and office-based. I longed to have a “proper” job. And when I finally got one, and I left the restaurant, I did so promising myself that I would never wait a table again. Those days were over, and now I was an adult.
And while this has not exactly been front and centre in my mind in all the years since, I have always felt that getting a second job would constitute a failure. It is something I have resisted, not even doing it right at the very beginning of my business. I think a lot of this belief was the effect of toxic ambition, that anything other than more was a failure. For me, going back to waiting tables would have been a regression, not just in terms of my career but as a person - it would have been a sliding away from adulthood.
When really, what is more adult than this? What is more adult than doing what you need to do to pay the bills? What is more adult than identifying a want within yourself, a future threat to your wellbeing, and finding a solution? What is more adult than seeking community and connection?
What is surprising is just how much I don’t feel like a failure. Ok, slight backtrack - there is 1% of feeling a bit fail-y when your friends are getting married and high paying jobs and having babies and you are… getting a job in a cafe. But that really was a fleeting moment. I felt excited to tell my friends about it, felt really good about doing it, I was excited to write this post and tell you about it. It feels like a really positive thing, in a way that kinda baffles me but I also love.
So that’s the news. I am currently adjusting my time management because going suddenly from five working days to three has been more impactful than I’d imagined. I am trying to get things done whilst simultaneously figuring out how to get things done and drowning just a little bit. I am still getting used to the fact that now I have somewhere to be twice a week when I’ve been used to doing whatever whenever for five years.
And also, after the bashing my confidence has taken the last few months, I am getting used to being relied upon, trusted, well thought of. I am getting used to the me these strangers see and like. I am getting used to arriving, doing my job, and going home - and the peace of that. And, I am looking forward to what this might start in me.