The cover sheet of my TPS report

Well, I quit my job yesterday.


I literally took a nap after I wrote that line.

I cried when I told my mom I was thinking of quitting because I didn't even make it a full month there. But just trying to meet the physical and mental demands of the job  would have been hard enough, if they didn't run counter to every other aspect of my life.
Let's pretend you're a new recruit.  First, don't worry-you'll get two days off a week, not Saturday and Sunday, mind, but any two days off in a row if they can swing it. The other days you would go in at 10:45  have a coffee and start work at 11. You would work till 3pm, have a big lunch and come home. You are now off until 6:30 when sit down to eat and start work at 7. You're probably not hungry, but there will be no more food options until after midnight so get some protein in your belly. Work from 7 to 2 AM, at least three times a week, though on the early nights you'll be home before 1 AM.
Remember: 10 drinks, three normal cokes with no ice, two Zeros with no lemon, 2 of one kind of beer, two of another--one of those is only a demi, and the rest easy to spill martinis...you remember which burger is well done, right? Is that tartar préparer or poêlé?  How many people need a sharp knife? Did you really forget to put bread down on table vingt-deux? They want the ribs, but no pomme au four, substitue frites. But just for one-- Je sais qu'elle a dit, "aparaît" mais, elle vas prendre haricots verts, supplémentaires !
You got that?
The quesadilla comes out first, but they want the soup with the meal. Wait, have three people told you yet: He wanted a large salad, but you tapped a small.
Is there really no new silverware on table trente-deux? Their second course is almost done, reclaim it! Table quarante-cinq is just drinking tap water, lots and lots of tap water. When you have a second, can you bring them  more of that? Great, the total bill comes out to cent quatre-vingts-neuf et cinquante centimes, split it four ways.
They are not tipping.

But if you've got a good sense of balance and a good mind for factorial trees, you'll rarely screw up. Don't expect anyone to care if you do your job properly, they will only notice the times you fall short of that mark. And no, you're not changing lives, you're serving lunch, so pretending that what you do ultimately has any meaning and is therefore worth stressing out about may be difficult for you. It certainly was for me.

It was also really hard for Sebastien who suddenly had to be in charge of cleaning, laundry, all the dishes ever as well as cooking for himself....which means he ate soup nearly the whole time I worked there. Sometimes he laid down to cuddle with me for my midday nap, but that was really all I saw of him.

Look, I know I have basically been on a two year vacation in France. It's made me feel pretty shitty about myself, but jumping off the deep end into extreme physical labor was not (apparently) the answer. Not while I live in a colocation with six other people who have normal day jobs and don't care that I have to work brunch on Sunday morning--because if you haven't gone to sleep yet, it's still Saturday night, and if they want to play guitar in the kitchen to impress a trio of girls at 6 am that's just what they're going to do.

I could always move out. But that means that my days off are spent looking for new places to live and then moving there....something I couldn't really put on the table as an option until I had a full contract with this company--which would only be granted to me a few months from now in the best of circumstances.

So anyway, I have a part time gig a few days a week for more money per hour than I ever made in the States. I can read and write blog posts again and take short trips on the weekends. I can cook with my partner and have a social life in the evenings. Obviously, I still feel bad about giving up...but I'm sure I'll get over it, I have a lecture to prepare..

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