Yesterday, the 24th, marked my two year anniversary of working at Red Lion as a dishwasher. This is the longest I've ever had the same job, and I owe that to the people that I work and have worked with. It also has a lot to do with the fact that I don't have to deal with the public.
Directly anyway. Yes, I'm aware that I'm essentially dealing with the food remnants left behind by groups of people ranging in size from small, large and why don't you all just go somewhere else?!, but it's still easier to deal with than people. I don't think I would have been able to put up with it if I hadn't worked at Amazon.com before.
I almost quit after a couple weeks because the previous dishwasher kept telling me how poorly I was doing. It's true that I wasn't the fastest dishwasher, but everything that came out of the machine was clean. It was this slowness that helped me to lose around 15 pounds. I never had time to eat, so I drank water which in turn was sweated away. Somewhat unfortunately, I got faster at my job and the weight came back. There aren't many healthy options when short order items are all you've got to feed yourself with.
Working strictly evenings also made it easier when I decided to go back to school. The problem with working evenings however, is that I wasn't always able to get out at a reasonable time. I had a strong motivator to get out before 10, but sometimes even
that wasn't enough. Like the time I worked a 13 hour shift.
One day, a couple months after I started, I was scheduled from 11AM to Close. When I left the house, nobody saw me go and I didn't have a cell phone yet so I couldn't call or be reached by anybody; this would lead to trouble. There were three events that day that each had over 150-200 people, and I would be handling it all myself.
It was hell in a poorly ventilated dishpit.
Except for a 10 minute break seven hours in, I worked non-stop. I just kept telling myself that it would be over eventually and to just keep going. To illustrate how long this shift was, KaTrina called the hotel around 11:30 and asked to speak to the dishwasher. She was transferred to the lounge because I couldn't hear the phone, and Summer (the bartender that night, who still works there and is a friend) came to find me outside, emptying the trash.
"Are you Kelly?"
"Yeah, that's me. Do you need something?"
"No, it's just you have a phone call."
I was too tired to be surprised or curious, so I followed her back to the lounge and took the phone. The following is kind of a summation as I was half dead at the time it took place.
"Hello?"
"Kelly, are you alright? This is KaTrina."
"Oh, hey. What's up?"
"What? Where have you been? Your family and I have been worried about you."
"I've been at work."
"At work!?"
"Yeah. Don't worry, I should be done soon."
"When did you get to work?"
"At 11. I've just been working."
"Okay, but you had us scared."
"I'm sorry. There's just a few more things to do and that's it."
"Good. Don't stay much longer. Good night Kelly."
"Good night. Thanks for calling, I should be fine now."
And then I worked another hour and a half, haha. It's funny to think about it now, but that day just sucked. I've gotten a lot better, so that will never happen again, but it can still be really taxing to clean up after so many people. The huge Mother's Day brunch is coming up, and though it's my third time doing it, I'm still worried. Maybe that's why dishwashers never have the job for more than a few months.
But I've always been an outlier when it comes to statistics :) Here's hoping I won't have a third anniversary post.
