Patrick complains about his job, goes to bed angry

Hm. It might be because I am new but my manager is just completely insane. She is constantly over my shoulder. Nothing I do is the way it should be done, because she changes what she expects on a regular basis. Like, say, every 20 seconds. I made two nachos, very similar in size, and one was too small, because it came back with the bowl scraped, and one was FAR too large, because there were still nachos in the bottom of the bowl. I've also noticed that most of the other employees have worked there for an average of a week and a half. Whether this is due to an irrational need to fire people, or whether this constant irritant (her) is causing people to quit, I don't know. Nick, the head chef (four months, a cafe-high number), says that she doesn't understand that people need a couple of shifts to figure out how things are done, and, as a result, is always disappointed in the work of new employees. I'm partly glad it's not just me, but, also, I am concerned about job security. Since she has like four interviews a day, and there aren't many days in the week, I'm also concerned about hours. I'm looking around for something better. Oh, and I was quite concerned on my double shift, because she told me that I might have to 'whip up a batch of hollandaise' because we were almost out. Apparently the title of 'chef' makes me an expert, regardless of whether or not the want ad said 'experienced cook'. So I was stingy with the hollandaise, and spent an hour today online researching how to 'whip up' anything that I might have to. I'm more confident now. One final note: On my first shift on my own (15 hours) she brought in a new employee and had me 'show her the ropes'. I thought this was particularly funny. This new girl was a pastry chef at her old job, so Anne (manager) asked her to whip up a batch of pancakes, and was VERY disappointed when the panckaes weren't as fluffy as she wanted them to be. I thought they were great, but Anne has no concept that some other restaurant or cafe might exist that has different standards for food appearance than her own. Gak. Oh, apparently she has fired Nick from the head chef position because she found some 50-year-old Italian guy to do it. Nick is a great chef. That place was losing money every week before he came on and turned it around. Now it is, somehow, profitable. And she wants to fire him because some old Italian guy is apparently a better person for the job.

When she did leave me alone, the job was great. If she starts to trust me and lets me be, and doesn't fire me, and I get a decent number of hours, this place will be great for me to work at. But that's three 'ifs', which is a few too many, considering I ran a kitchen, washed dishes, prepped all the food and picked up the nuances of the kitchen by myself and never had any food sent back or run long in the fifteen hours that was my first real shift. I would think that she might be a little impressed, but she just seemed 'less disappointed in (me) than most" according to Nick.

Bitch.

On the house front, I have put my faith in David and cut rope on the room in the house. I'm nervous. I hope it works out. After Christmas, I can stay in hostels, but I don't want to impede on the generosity of Josh and Carol (English couple) for too long.

In other news, I found a better internet cafe, made myself a delicious lamb shank with spinach salad for dinner, and spent yesterday bitching with Josh and Carol about how terrible our jobs are. Josh is working for a guy who takes moving contracts, (like furniture moving) but is too tight-assed to hire anyone else, so Josh and him do way too much lifting and work way too many hours a day. Like me on Wednesday, but on a regular basis. Carol had a job going door-to-door trying to get people to give money to the Salvation Army. 100% of her pay is commission, and she was lied to about this (both the commission and the door-to-door) from square one. She worked three days for these people and made no money. She was unhappy. She just got a job at a Gelato place close to where I work. So wish us all luck. Oh, I won the trivia thing and got drunk that night. The night before my 15-hour shift. I don't think it affected my mood that day, though, so all my above comments are valid. At least I get free food. Which I would now be taking even if it was not given, because I hate Anne.

HATE! HATE! HATE!

Miss you all,

-P