Whoa probably no one still reads this because I haven't updated in forever. That's because...school.
And while I actually have so much homework I could be working on now. I thought I'd take a break from it and as per my lovely cousin Jamie's request, give y'all an update.
I can't believe it's nearly November already. Yikes.
So, life in Chicago. First the bad-work.
I thought I was being responsible when I moved to Chicago. Because I only have class on Monday and Tuesday, I kept working at PQ on the weekends, until I had a job here. Around the end of August, I got a job at a Julius Meinl. Julius Meinl is a coffee shop/cafe, based out of Austria but with three locations in the US, all in Chicago. I was really excited for this job. The one I was hired at was pretty close to my apartment, and closed at 3 pm, so there would be no late nights. On my first day, I found out they changed their hours and were now staying open until 8. It seemed a little strange, since their menu is very much breakfast and lunch food. But I thought "Okay, no big deal. 8 o'clock still isn't that late." They told me in my training that on an average weekday shift they usually leave with around $100. So, less money than PQ, but still enough to get by on. So I put my notice in at PQ. What they didn't tell me at JM was that the "$100 per shift" was for breakfast/lunch shifts, and since I was the new person, I would not be getting those shifts. Instead, they scheduled me for all closing shifts. So I'd arrive to work at 2 pm and stay until 9. As I said before, their menu is all soup, salad, sandwiches, and some breakfasty things. It's very good food, but not most people's idea of dinner. So I'd get a few customers in my 7 hour shifts there, but for the most part it was just people stopping in for an evening tea and sometimes dessert. I was lucky if I got $3 per table. So at the end of my 7 hour shift, I'd leave with around $30, and the hugest list of closing sidework I've ever seen, including scrubbing out the toilets. So I ended up quitting there. I actually liked the place itself. It was super laid back. The managers were nice enough and pretty much left the employees alone to do our thing. But, $30 a shift and scrubbing out toilets wasn't going to cut it. So after I left JM, I interviewed at a temp agency. She could have gotten me some work, but because my class starts at 5:30 in River Forest, and most temp jobs were downtown and lasted until 5:00, it wouldn't work out schedulewise. I interviewed with a family in River Forest for a nanny position. I got along well with them. They were super nice, but they emailed me a few days after I interviewed and said they wanted someone who could commit to longer than a year. I started waitressing when I was 16. I am now 32. Of course I took a few years off from it when I was living abroad, but for the most part, waitressing has been how I've paid my bills for the last 16 years. I have been a waitress for half of my life...(Pause while I go cry and reassess some things)...I don't want to do it anymore. I am so burned out on it. I could start listing the reasons why, but then this would just turn into an angry waitress rant. And it's not all bad. The money is decent. The hours are flexible. There's no way I could have up and left for 5 weeks to hang out in Thailand and India if I'd been working a 9-5. But I just am tired of it. I want a change. But, I needed a job. So when my sister offered to get me a job the restaurant she works at, I knew I should take it. At least I knew the money would be better than JM and it'd get me by until I found something that wasn't serving.
Being the new person at any job is not fun. I've worked in a lot of restaurants, and in every place it takes the managers a few months to realize I'm a great employee. At every place I've worked, my bosses love me. But for the first month or two, I have to prepare myself for being told to "be more outgoing" "don't be so shy" "you have to talk more" and so on. I resent being called shy. I'm quiet (though I prefer to think of it as selective about what I say) and often keep to myself, especially around people I don't know very well. But I'm not shy. But at every place I've worked, my bosses see me not talking much around my coworkers and assume I do the same with my tables. Not true, though I suppose I understand why they make that assumption. This new restaurant I worked at is more of a foodie place than the last couple restaurants I've worked at. They also have a large wine menu. Here's a secret-I think knowing about wine is boring. I like wine. I like to drink it. But as far as perfectly pairing wine with food, or being able to talk about its tannin or knowing what a bouquet, not really my thing. So part of my training included wine training. I've never actually been to a real wine tasting, so maybe this is how they all are.(?) But my training here wasn't training so much as being given small glasses of wine followed by this conversation:
Trainer: What do you smell?
(Smells wine)
Me: Wine.
She would then list some random things like stone fruits or earth. I would pretend to agree.
Trainer: Now taste it. What do you taste?
(tastes wine)
Me: Wine.
She would then list some random things like peaches or forest floor. I would pretend to agree. But in reality, my answer of wine for both questions was about all I could do. The only thing I could sometimes taste/smell was some wood for one of the wines that was aged in oak.
The food at this place is good, but more foodie food than other places I've worked. It wasn't enough to know that a food had onions or tomatoes. We had to know it was cipollini onions or campari tomatoes. And a whole bunch of Italian stuff I'd never heard of that all sounded the same to me, sopressata, capicola, salametto, and so on. So between the wine and the menu, there was a lot to learn. I studied the menu, but I had to make school my number one priority. So I couldn't spend all my free time learning the difference between Ca'Donini pinot grigio and and Colterenzio pinot grigio.
I was the student in high school and college that got horrible anxiety if I felt less than prepared for a test. Going to work feeling like I didn't 100% know the menu caused me the same feeling of anxiety. Plus, the managers were way more on us there, which added to my feeling of ill-preparedness. My stomach hurt before going there, and several times during shifts I'd go stand in the bathroom take some deep breaths, count backwards from ten, and remind myself I could do this. Shortly after I started at this place, I got a job as a nanny, but it unfortunately didn't start until the end of October. So I thought "ok, I can stick it out waitressing until the nanny job starts." A few weeks later, the family emailed me and said there was a problem with the closing on their house, and they had to push back the move in date until the middle of November. Shoot, but I reminded myself I had a job. It was a job that would sometimes cause me to wake up in the middle of the night and feel like I should go study the menu, but still, it was a job. Unfortunately, it was a job I got hired at right before the patio closed, cutting down the number of servers that needed to work each night. Soon I found my hours cut down to 2 days a week, and not just any days, I had 2 brunch shifts, which were the lowest money making shifts there. While part of me was relieved because this job stressed me out so much, the logical part of me was upset because I wouldn't be making enough to get by. But, I knew my nanny job started in the middle of November.
So this past Sunday night my boss emailed out the new schedule, like she does. My name wasn't on it. Huh. My name was deleted. Ok. A short while later she emailed again, saying she was sorry, she had to make more cuts to people's hours. I guess that meant my hours were cut completely. Thanks for the heads up, boss! Ok, my nanny job was starting in a few weeks. I'd be fine. So the next morning I contacted the family, and was informed that the house they were planning on buying completely fell through, and they're back at square one. The earliest they'd be needing a nanny would be the end of November. Shooooot. Cue tears. Eat ice cream. Calm. So I emailed my boss. I said I understood that it was a slow time, and since I was the last person hired, it made sense that my hours would be cut. But I asked if she could give me an estimation of how long it would be before I'd be back on the schedule. She didn't respond. At this point it was hard to feel like she wanted me to work there. I thought about going in to the restaurant to talk to her, but I had two big assignments due this week and I was annoyed she wouldn't even take the time to respond to me, if to say nothing other than "I'm sorry, I really don't know." Plus, I was AT work when she was making this schedule. It would have been nice if she would have told me in person that I'd be losing all my hours. Given the massive amounts of homework I had to do, and the fact my boss didn't say anything to me in person about my hours, nor would she respond to my email, I decided to not take the time to drive over and meet with her in person. She isn't the warmest, friendliest person I've ever met, so I wasn't super jazzed about talking to her in person. So I went to my old standby. I called PQ, and I'm now back on the schedule for the next couple of weekends. Ideal? No. But it's money. So I emailed my boss again, and said I was sorry, but I got a full time job (hopefully, but at this point who knows) starting soon, and I needed guaranteed and consistent income, so I'd no longer be able to work at their restaurant, but I would give 2 weeks notice if she wanted. 24 hours later she responded to my second email. My initial thought was to respond "Whoa, so your email DOES work!" But I didn't. She said she was sorry and she understood that I had to do what was best for me, and since I wasn't even on the schedule, she wouldn't require me to do two weeks notice. She then asked me if I would be available to work this coming weekend, since it's supposed to be nice and they are opening the patio. Huh. I emailed on Monday asking about hours. Had she responded to me then, I would have been available. But, she waited until Thursday afternoon to see if I was available on Friday. By Thursday, I'd already committed to PQ. I'm happy to be able to spend some time at home though. Fall in Chicago just isn't quite the same as fall in Princeton. I'm keeping my fingers triple crossed that there are no more hold ups with the nanny job, and thankful PQ is always willing to let me work.
The good-everything else! I love Chicago.
Now I really have to do homework. So I'm not going to proofread this.
And while I actually have so much homework I could be working on now. I thought I'd take a break from it and as per my lovely cousin Jamie's request, give y'all an update.
I can't believe it's nearly November already. Yikes.
So, life in Chicago. First the bad-work.
I thought I was being responsible when I moved to Chicago. Because I only have class on Monday and Tuesday, I kept working at PQ on the weekends, until I had a job here. Around the end of August, I got a job at a Julius Meinl. Julius Meinl is a coffee shop/cafe, based out of Austria but with three locations in the US, all in Chicago. I was really excited for this job. The one I was hired at was pretty close to my apartment, and closed at 3 pm, so there would be no late nights. On my first day, I found out they changed their hours and were now staying open until 8. It seemed a little strange, since their menu is very much breakfast and lunch food. But I thought "Okay, no big deal. 8 o'clock still isn't that late." They told me in my training that on an average weekday shift they usually leave with around $100. So, less money than PQ, but still enough to get by on. So I put my notice in at PQ. What they didn't tell me at JM was that the "$100 per shift" was for breakfast/lunch shifts, and since I was the new person, I would not be getting those shifts. Instead, they scheduled me for all closing shifts. So I'd arrive to work at 2 pm and stay until 9. As I said before, their menu is all soup, salad, sandwiches, and some breakfasty things. It's very good food, but not most people's idea of dinner. So I'd get a few customers in my 7 hour shifts there, but for the most part it was just people stopping in for an evening tea and sometimes dessert. I was lucky if I got $3 per table. So at the end of my 7 hour shift, I'd leave with around $30, and the hugest list of closing sidework I've ever seen, including scrubbing out the toilets. So I ended up quitting there. I actually liked the place itself. It was super laid back. The managers were nice enough and pretty much left the employees alone to do our thing. But, $30 a shift and scrubbing out toilets wasn't going to cut it. So after I left JM, I interviewed at a temp agency. She could have gotten me some work, but because my class starts at 5:30 in River Forest, and most temp jobs were downtown and lasted until 5:00, it wouldn't work out schedulewise. I interviewed with a family in River Forest for a nanny position. I got along well with them. They were super nice, but they emailed me a few days after I interviewed and said they wanted someone who could commit to longer than a year. I started waitressing when I was 16. I am now 32. Of course I took a few years off from it when I was living abroad, but for the most part, waitressing has been how I've paid my bills for the last 16 years. I have been a waitress for half of my life...(Pause while I go cry and reassess some things)...I don't want to do it anymore. I am so burned out on it. I could start listing the reasons why, but then this would just turn into an angry waitress rant. And it's not all bad. The money is decent. The hours are flexible. There's no way I could have up and left for 5 weeks to hang out in Thailand and India if I'd been working a 9-5. But I just am tired of it. I want a change. But, I needed a job. So when my sister offered to get me a job the restaurant she works at, I knew I should take it. At least I knew the money would be better than JM and it'd get me by until I found something that wasn't serving.
Being the new person at any job is not fun. I've worked in a lot of restaurants, and in every place it takes the managers a few months to realize I'm a great employee. At every place I've worked, my bosses love me. But for the first month or two, I have to prepare myself for being told to "be more outgoing" "don't be so shy" "you have to talk more" and so on. I resent being called shy. I'm quiet (though I prefer to think of it as selective about what I say) and often keep to myself, especially around people I don't know very well. But I'm not shy. But at every place I've worked, my bosses see me not talking much around my coworkers and assume I do the same with my tables. Not true, though I suppose I understand why they make that assumption. This new restaurant I worked at is more of a foodie place than the last couple restaurants I've worked at. They also have a large wine menu. Here's a secret-I think knowing about wine is boring. I like wine. I like to drink it. But as far as perfectly pairing wine with food, or being able to talk about its tannin or knowing what a bouquet, not really my thing. So part of my training included wine training. I've never actually been to a real wine tasting, so maybe this is how they all are.(?) But my training here wasn't training so much as being given small glasses of wine followed by this conversation:
Trainer: What do you smell?
(Smells wine)
Me: Wine.
She would then list some random things like stone fruits or earth. I would pretend to agree.
Trainer: Now taste it. What do you taste?
(tastes wine)
Me: Wine.
She would then list some random things like peaches or forest floor. I would pretend to agree. But in reality, my answer of wine for both questions was about all I could do. The only thing I could sometimes taste/smell was some wood for one of the wines that was aged in oak.
The food at this place is good, but more foodie food than other places I've worked. It wasn't enough to know that a food had onions or tomatoes. We had to know it was cipollini onions or campari tomatoes. And a whole bunch of Italian stuff I'd never heard of that all sounded the same to me, sopressata, capicola, salametto, and so on. So between the wine and the menu, there was a lot to learn. I studied the menu, but I had to make school my number one priority. So I couldn't spend all my free time learning the difference between Ca'Donini pinot grigio and and Colterenzio pinot grigio.
I was the student in high school and college that got horrible anxiety if I felt less than prepared for a test. Going to work feeling like I didn't 100% know the menu caused me the same feeling of anxiety. Plus, the managers were way more on us there, which added to my feeling of ill-preparedness. My stomach hurt before going there, and several times during shifts I'd go stand in the bathroom take some deep breaths, count backwards from ten, and remind myself I could do this. Shortly after I started at this place, I got a job as a nanny, but it unfortunately didn't start until the end of October. So I thought "ok, I can stick it out waitressing until the nanny job starts." A few weeks later, the family emailed me and said there was a problem with the closing on their house, and they had to push back the move in date until the middle of November. Shoot, but I reminded myself I had a job. It was a job that would sometimes cause me to wake up in the middle of the night and feel like I should go study the menu, but still, it was a job. Unfortunately, it was a job I got hired at right before the patio closed, cutting down the number of servers that needed to work each night. Soon I found my hours cut down to 2 days a week, and not just any days, I had 2 brunch shifts, which were the lowest money making shifts there. While part of me was relieved because this job stressed me out so much, the logical part of me was upset because I wouldn't be making enough to get by. But, I knew my nanny job started in the middle of November.
So this past Sunday night my boss emailed out the new schedule, like she does. My name wasn't on it. Huh. My name was deleted. Ok. A short while later she emailed again, saying she was sorry, she had to make more cuts to people's hours. I guess that meant my hours were cut completely. Thanks for the heads up, boss! Ok, my nanny job was starting in a few weeks. I'd be fine. So the next morning I contacted the family, and was informed that the house they were planning on buying completely fell through, and they're back at square one. The earliest they'd be needing a nanny would be the end of November. Shooooot. Cue tears. Eat ice cream. Calm. So I emailed my boss. I said I understood that it was a slow time, and since I was the last person hired, it made sense that my hours would be cut. But I asked if she could give me an estimation of how long it would be before I'd be back on the schedule. She didn't respond. At this point it was hard to feel like she wanted me to work there. I thought about going in to the restaurant to talk to her, but I had two big assignments due this week and I was annoyed she wouldn't even take the time to respond to me, if to say nothing other than "I'm sorry, I really don't know." Plus, I was AT work when she was making this schedule. It would have been nice if she would have told me in person that I'd be losing all my hours. Given the massive amounts of homework I had to do, and the fact my boss didn't say anything to me in person about my hours, nor would she respond to my email, I decided to not take the time to drive over and meet with her in person. She isn't the warmest, friendliest person I've ever met, so I wasn't super jazzed about talking to her in person. So I went to my old standby. I called PQ, and I'm now back on the schedule for the next couple of weekends. Ideal? No. But it's money. So I emailed my boss again, and said I was sorry, but I got a full time job (hopefully, but at this point who knows) starting soon, and I needed guaranteed and consistent income, so I'd no longer be able to work at their restaurant, but I would give 2 weeks notice if she wanted. 24 hours later she responded to my second email. My initial thought was to respond "Whoa, so your email DOES work!" But I didn't. She said she was sorry and she understood that I had to do what was best for me, and since I wasn't even on the schedule, she wouldn't require me to do two weeks notice. She then asked me if I would be available to work this coming weekend, since it's supposed to be nice and they are opening the patio. Huh. I emailed on Monday asking about hours. Had she responded to me then, I would have been available. But, she waited until Thursday afternoon to see if I was available on Friday. By Thursday, I'd already committed to PQ. I'm happy to be able to spend some time at home though. Fall in Chicago just isn't quite the same as fall in Princeton. I'm keeping my fingers triple crossed that there are no more hold ups with the nanny job, and thankful PQ is always willing to let me work.
The good-everything else! I love Chicago.
Now I really have to do homework. So I'm not going to proofread this.
