Labels: bollywooooooooood, we has us a job
i may have a job through june 8-possibly cleaning. we'll see.
the finalest work schedule ever:
sun: 10-6
mon: 12-8
tues: off
wed: off
thurs: 2-8
fri: 3-8
sat: 12-8
(bear in mind that the store now closes at six, not eight, but this schedule was written before that fact was made known. hopefully i'll get to come in earlier and get more hours, but i have a feeling that nothing will be left in the store after wednesday. hmm.)
i only vaguely remember the store opening, two years ago. i remember having to go outside and listen to some speeches, and view the ribbon-cutting. the only thing that holds clarity is that my stupid boss somehow discovered my delicious mocha latte from the superlative cafe across the street and binned it. i'd only been able to drink about a quarter of it before being called outside, and i seethed about my loss of caffeine for quite some time (of course, now if i really felt like spending $3.75 for a latte from that cafe, which i don't, i'd just pour it in one of our store's coffee cups and drink it like that. bingo! employee coffee.).
tonight was the deadest i've ever seen it, and i've been there for some pretty empty days. now that it's all out in the open, everyone really doesn't give a shit. pissed-off customer? fuck 'em, no more deliveries are coming in, so what the customer sees is what we have. besides, we only have to put up with this shit for a little while longer. they set a record in breaking the salad bar down early, doing it a full three hours before closing. not only did i close by myself, i was the only person left in the kitchen at close. i mostly spent my time over in bakery, eating gelato out of the case and those expensive little candies that they keep in big glass jars.
i fully expect tomorrow and monday at least to be jam-packed, once word gets out that everything in the store (except the sushi-when they make it, they bring their own supplies) is 30% off, they'll come in droves.
i've been told by many dismayed customers that they'll miss us, and i really don't think that janssen's is anywhere near as good as we are. they don't do prepared food made in their own kitchen. they don't have an olive bar. they don't have international cheeses. they don't have rotisserie chickens. they don't have gelato or baked goods from a french patisserie in chadds ford. they don't have a pizza oven, or cooked-to-order hot sandwiches and burgers. they don't have a catering department.
i could go on and on about all the stuff that we have, and they don't.
but we're closing, and they're taking over.
there are very few people who really and truly love their jobs, and i don't think any of them work in a grocery store. there are innumerable times when i've absolutely loathed my job, hated my co-workers, cussed out the bitchy customers behind their backs, just wanted to freaking sit down and not do anything. there were times when i wished that i had never worked there, or never made the choices that i had.
but there are also customers who come in the store every damn day (sometimes more than once a day), customers you know by name and sight, or customers who've never been in the store before but are genuinely happy to see you, express shock at the fact that they can get whatever they want, and are just in awe because they've never seen a grocery store quite as cool as ours.
i've made so many friends at that store, because while customers come and go, the employees are the ones who spend all day in the same place. and you can't not spend all that time with someone and not learn a little about each others' lives. all the cooks in the kitchen, all the clerks, many of the cashiers...diana, tania, stephanie, xavier, nate (our man in the bakery department), amelia, bern. even chef jim. terri the bakery manager. the people who are in there with you and make your day that much easier, just by being there.
am i glad to be done? hell yes.
but i learned a lot while i worked there (among other things, how to cut up a whole chicken, the recipe for a killer fruit dip, why you should never ever try to be too helpful, the correct way to hold a knife. and trini taught me how to count to 100 en espanol.), and hopefully some of it will come in handy later on.
...ok, i went on a little there.
but i think this pretty much sums it up:
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