I have had a lot of jobs in a fairly short period of time. I've done fast food. I've done retail. I've been a call-centre monkey. In the space of three years I've managed to carve my way through more than my fair share of shitty jobs.

By far the worst of all of them had to be Mary Brown's.

I got my first job when I was seventeen years old. I lived with my girlfriend and I was desperate to support us. She was on a visitor's visa from the UK and we were (still are) working on getting her permanent residency in Canada. As such, she couldn't work. This is how I ended up at Mary Brown's.

I put out about fifty resumes and I got a callback from Mary Brown's the next day, to come in and do an interview. I wasn't too thrilled that they were the first to get back to me. Mary Brown's is essentially Eastern Canada's answer to the colonel, even though we've already got our fair share of his stores clogging our arteries, and, at that point, taking the best view of the harbour from more deserving independent companies. 

Thrilled or not, I showed up the next day at the tiny restaurant. I introduced myself at the counter and was told to take a seat at one of the tables and wait. I did just that, and was soon greeted by a hulk of a woman with netted salt and pepper hair who sat down in front of me, resume in hand. She asked me if I was willing to work very hard and very fast, and if I could bring her back a clean police record check. Yes, yes and yes. She told me to get to the police station, get a check, bring the receipt, and I could start work at six. This probably should have been a warning sign to me, the immediate need for employees and the instant need for speed.

Nevertheless, I managed to get my receipt for the record check and showed up at six. My first shift was without her, the manager, who I'll call C. I met the key-holder, supervisor and fry-cook. I was to work on the register. The night shift was slow and I got along well with the others, I had help learning how to work the cash.

The next day I came in to work at 11:00. If only I had known that my baptism by fire was going to be taking place in just an hour, I would have turned around and ran back out the door. I was quickly informed that the girl who was supposed to carry on training me on the register wouldn't be in today, and I was going to have to do it alone. I stared down at the cash register in front of me. For whatever reason, the owner of the store never did decide to upgrade to a computerized system like everyone else. The vast face of the register stared back at me. 10 inches by 10 inches of buttons.

Before I carry on, let me just explain exactly how the register worked. There were probably about 40 or 50 individual buttons, each entailing a specific menu item, some with multiple purposes.  For each meal you needed to designate fries or taters, drink size, side, and if a burger, what went on it. Lets say you want a chicken sandwich and it comes with lettuce, mayo, and a pickle. You don't want any of these toppings. There was no specific buttons for these special orders, just a single one which said "NO". Sounds simple enough, right? Well here's the catch. Gravy as a side had no indication on the machine either, but was necessary on the receipt so the cook could serve it. So if a customer wanted gravy, I had to hit the "NO" button for that as well.

You want a chicken sandwich and taters with a small gravy on the side and a drink? Here's your receipt.

BIG MARY MEAL
NO
NO
NO
TATERS
NO
ENV (environmental tax for the drink, which should have been automated but was left for us to include)
*IN*

Oops! I made a mistake. I should be able to reverse that though, right? No. No I couldn't. As soon as I hit a button, it printed on to the receipt. That means if you accidentally order just a Big Mary instead of the Big Mary meal, there's no way I can take it off the receipt and charge you for the meal without doing a refund, which I was not allowed to do. So now your receipt looks like this.

BIG MARY
NO
NO
NO
*VOID*
BIG MARY MEAL
NO
NO
NO
TATERS
NO
ENV
*IN*

I don't even want to begin to discuss the semantics of using coupons, ordering extra sides, or the near-impossible task of upsizing.

Needless to say, when the lunch rush started at 12:00 I was in way over my head. A cheap fast food place in the middle of a busy business district is a popular spot, and we had customers piling out the door and spilling onto the street. I was so slow I was nearly in tears. The cook tried to come out and help me work the till but he was worse than I was. Eventually half the people got fed up with me and left. By the time things slowed down at 1:30 I was on the verge of a nervous breakdown. Along with trying to figure out the buttons, there was the memorization of every drink flavour for every order, the required condiments, and making sure the customers memorized the number for their order - which of course they did not like to do.

Believe it or not, after a few days of this I did memorize all of the buttons. I had to. I could clear a line out the door in ten minutes and I was one of the fastest servers. Keeping sane meant getting irate, overweight, demanding customers out of the store and happy as quickly as possible - in order to have time to sweep and mop, clear the tables, wash all the trays, clean the bathrooms, wipe down the counters, replenish stock and make more sides before the next rush.

I soon found out that the customers were going to be the least of my worries. It was not long before I realized that C was going to be the biggest challenge of all. This woman had worked at Mary Brown's for six years and it was telling. I have since been fortunate enough to never have to deal with a manager at quite this level of crazy.

She would demand that I be as fast as possible at all times. She was proud of her 32 second average in serving customers. She could not abide laziness. And by laziness, I mean any human weakness. You're tired? Hell no you better not sit down, whether the restaurant is empty or not.

She was a rude woman and she had little regard for the people around her. She would yell at customers as quickly as staff, and refused to take responsibility in situations where customers had obviously been done wrong, as in the case of food being dropped and returned to plates in front of customers, a pregnant woman who had been given food poisoning by rancid gravy, etcetera. At one point a customer called HQ and complained on my behalf because she heard C threaten to beat me with a broom if I didn't hurry up. I was so terrified of the wrath of C I laughed it off and told them to mind their own business.

I haven't yet gotten to the crowning glory of my time at Mary Brown's, the icing on the shit cake.

Late in August, our walk-in freezer broke down and stopped cooling. We got someone in to fix it on the same day, but he was missing a part and had to leave it. It would have been all right for the rest of the day, but the repairman didn't return for a week.

And so in that week, did we hire someone else to do the job? Did we freeze the chicken elsewhere? No. It was left there. Buckets upon buckets of chicken in water, at room temperature, for a week. Did it get thrown away? Nope. That would be a waste.

We used it. Battered it up. Fried it. Served it to people.

After three days the smell from the back of the store was unbearable. My supervisor would retch while she was battering chicken. Walking into the cooler was asking to puke. Customers were starting to complain about being able to smell something nasty from the front of the store.

I was terrified of my manager but I had to call her and tell her what was going on. My supervisor was too afraid of her to do it. So I called her and said we couldn't carry on serving people this stuff - it was green, it had a layer of slime for God's sake, it smelled like bad eggs.

It's not my problem, she said. Keep serving it. We can't waste it, the owner will be furious.

I may have been young and and terrified, but I had a conscience. I called the health department and left a message telling them what was happening. I heard nothing back from them. The next day I called again. I heard nothing back from them. By the evening of that day I couldn't believe that we hadn't been rushed by health inspectors. I picked up the yellow pages and left messages at every number I could find that could possibly have anything to do with health.

I never got a single call back. Not one. From anyone.

By the end of the week the cooler got fixed, and I never heard anything from anyone I had called. I was amazed that nothing had happened.

I carried on working there until I got offered something better. I hung up my Mary Brown's visor and said goodbye to fried chicken forever.

blsAHDFBKDFJB.

If I don't have something to entertain myself every second I become restless very quickly in this house.

I am starting to feel better, coming to England was a good idea after all I think. Since being back I have picked up journal writing again, decided to start drawing and I've also developed an interest in embroidery. Naomi and I have got a couple of bikes now, so though I miss my Kona Smoke, I'm dealing.

I think I may pick up running. I took Phil's mothers dog for a walk a couple days ago and the poor thing strained so hard at the leash I thought it was going to take my arm off. His mum says he's eleven years old but he's awfully strong for a dog that age. Apparently he only gets walked once a week. :( He's a pure bred border collie so I can't imagine how bored he must get, they're so active and have such good minds. He's also the first fat border collie I've ever seen. Phil and Sharon joke around about how he brings things for them to throw constantly, but it's sad as well because you can see he's so keen to have a task and if he could just be given something to do he'd love it to pieces.

I forgot I was going to mention about running. Well the dog started dragging me along so hard and was hurting his throat so much I couldn't bear to go slowly, so I ran with him for a while and it felt great. My only problem is shoes, my trainers are no good for running. I might see if I can borrow a pair from Sharon for a bit and just go for a swift jog down to the lakes and try to build some stamina. My knees pop at the moment, which is embarassing. Goes to show how inactive I am.

My mind is all over the place lately as I begin to take interest in things again. I've been depressed for so long and it's been so hard. I just haven't cared about anything. I could hardly even read. I'm now taking on about ten books at once.

Sup livejournal.

I haven't posted anything in a while, as usual. I don't really do the online journal thing a lot, to be fair. I write my own journals in pen on paper, for my own eyes, most every day.

My life is pretty upside down lately. I just have a whole lot going on and have been very stressed out. I am scheduled to go back to school in January, which would be fine as I wouldn't mind quitting my job then, but at the moment I am required to be making at least 18k a year before I can sponsor Naomi into the country, and she's sending her request papers for her visa out very soon, and I am most certainly not making that kind of money. This means I have to quit my active, interesting job working with active, interesting people, to go work in a call-centre, with boring, sit-down people who hate their lives.

Not that you're a boring sit-down person, Brad, if you happen to read this. You know what I mean.

I kind of had a breakdown today and flipped out a bit. And by a bit I mean I went into hysterics over not fitting into a pair of jeans and locked myself in the bathroom to scream and cry for a while, was horrible to my girlfriend, and did some other silly things. That being said, this has been a while in coming. I knew I was going to blow up at some point, I just wasn't sure what would light the fuse and exactly how it would come out.

It's not just being overweight that did it, of course. It was everything in my life right now piling up and that was just an excuse to get it out.

It's kind of funny. The whole time, all I could think was "let me die, just let me die. Why can't this end, why do I have to keep going through this every day of my life, etc, etc. I don't fear pain, let me end it, blaahhh blah." Then I accidentally cut the top of my finger off on an electric grater at work and was reminded of what pain really feels like. Ahahaha. Oh god my life.

On the plus side Stephanie let me go home really early (like 9:00pm instead of 2:00am early), because she knew I was in a terrible mood, and probably partially due to the horror of me being the first person to slice my hand on that thing. My finger is okay now, the skin has already started to form back over it. I didn't lose the flap so it's just clotting back together and should be fine pretty soon.

My latest musical obsession is Gackt. lubugackt.

My job is so very boring and unsatisfying. I wish at eighteen and a highschool dropout (as of now, not forever) there were better options. I really don't have it that badly, it just seems that way I guess.

Had a good day off, went downtown and got hot chocolates at Java with Naomi, went to Subway for lunch and then went to Carmynn's and watched To Wong Foo and Knocked Up. To Wong Foo was awesome and Knocked Up was okay. We watched Superbad the other day and it was awesome.

I wish I could say what I wanted to say without it coming out fairly garbled and full of nonsense. I guess I'm just in one of those situations and I'm acting like a bit of a youngster about it. It's frustrating. I guess wanting something is one of the best parts of life, but this time around I just wish I could cut off that part of me that wants it and be sensible and move on to something else.
Working tomorrow ten to six at Water Street. Thank God. I don't want to spend the evening at work, and Carmynn is doing a roast chicken and needs my help. I need to write but I just don't know what. I've been getting poetry in my head, but I am a truly awful poet and I'd rather not go down that path again. It is a frustrating form of expression. Matter of factness is just so much easier.

I could make this so much easier on myself and probably everyone. I know I have the ability to do it but I just don't...want to.

 God this is such a familiar frustration. I could almost laugh.

So I haven't felt this out of place in my own skin in a long time. You know when you just get so distressed over so many issues it feels like you're just a bag of idiot flailing around in some skin? That is how I feel at the moment.

I can do tremendously stupid things.

Pretty stressed out about everything. I have a feeling the bills coming up for me are going to be pretty overwhelming. I did just receive the papers I need to do my tax returns so I might actually get extra money out of that, which would be cool. I also am owed a helpful amount of money from another source so maybe that will work out in my favour as well.

If someone would care to explain to me why I make the decisions I do sometimes, I would appreciate it.

I'm in the mood to make things happen. I should clean up around the house. I think I would like to tidy the kitchen.

This woman outside is being a completely mad bitch to her daughter. She's really flipping out. What a nutter. She just called her 12 year old looking a complete idiot for not waiting to be picked up at the same place she was dropped off. Someone's mommy needs a slap in the chops.

On a more positive note, another 12 year old girl came in and started singing along with the Simple Plan on the radio. So I turned it off. It made me happy.

I went to the gym this morning, that's the second time since signing up three days ago. I think I'm doing pretty good for a beginner. My first day I did 45 minutes of cardio, my second day I did 50 minutes of cardio and tried to get a handle on some of the weight machines. Eventually I would like to:

Know all the names of the machines
Know how to work all the machines correctly
Know how to use the free-weights safely and effectively
get to know some regular members
Work my way up to 2-3 hour work outs in a day (not including rest days)

That would be pretty ideal I think. I am willing to push myself and I know I can do well and excel at whatever I put my mind to. It's just a little intimidating at first. This guy was really awful to me today while I was trying to use one of the weight machines. I didn't fully understand how to work it and I was reading the instructions/attempting to put my arms in the right position, and he just kept smirking at me like "What a dumb fat bitch. I can't believe women think they can lift weights." Yeah, and I can't remember anyone bleaches their hair anymore, this is not 1999, fuck off.

Anyway, it is going well so far. I'm really enjoying myself and I find being there relaxing. I don't get a lot of time to just concentrate on me, me me, and I like having that time. At work I am alone most of the time but the mall is not exactly the ideal place to relax, especially when you have demanding and bitchy people to deal with all day.

At the gym I am freeeeee. I feel like I'm not just exercising, I'm unwinding, letting out frustration, relaxing. The great thing about it is that despite the random elitist jerks, the atmosphere is mostly positive because everybody is there for the same reason: Improve. Become better. Reach the goal. Nothing can stop me. And I love it.

It sounds bad to say it but I think I like Nubody's best of all the gyms I have been to because people tend to have more class than other places. It's pricier than a lot of other places and that means the people that go there tend to be...well...cleaner. And more civil. And I hate to say that, because I grew up the dirty poor kid. I'm still the dirty poor kid. It's just a better environment I guess.

I need to pick up a couple of nice sports tops though. Going in my spandexy black/brown tops is getting awkward. It makes my belly look...well, you can see it, and that's never a good thing (for now).

JANET JACKSON I WILL HAVE YOUR ABS.

Okay maybe not Janet Jackson's abs cut me a break.

That is the sound of everything going on in my head right  now. I have such a headache, and when you have a headache the mall is just about the worst place for you to be, especially when you are at the mall for an extended period of time and cannot leave.

I'm excited because Brad is coming home very soon and that's radical, just like Brad.
I'm excited because I've convinced myself to check out Nubody's tomorrow.
I'm excited because I now have the Internet, cable, and a phone, at a ridiculously low price.
I'm excited to live.

And, well, just between you and I, I have to poo a little bit.

I have this image of this person. I want to be her, but I feel like she is light years away.

I want to be light and bouncy and springy, but I'm tired and stressed and I ache. I'm eighteen years old and I feel like I'm forty sometimes.

I think I'm going to grow my hair out again just so I can stop feeling so old. I've been calling around local gyms and fitness centers too, I think I'm going to get a membership at the fitness center in the Works building. $50.00 a month. Wup.

Maybe I'll do Nubody's instead since it's so close to work. Or L.A Weightloss. They're close too.

Either way I'm joining a gym.

laterzz.

I have not slept on a solid, actual mattress in a year - up until last night.

Our air mattress got hooked on the heater the night before last, and promptly deflated noisily from the giant hole ripped in it. We taped it from practically one end of the bed to the other and we were still on the floor by the morning.

So we pulled up our socks and went out looking for a bed, at the Salvation Army (ridiculous prices, really ridiculous), Sears, and in the Buy and Sell magazine. We found nothing in our price range. We could have gotten a mattress alone at Salv. Arm. for about $300.00 but I haven't heard of anything that ridiculous in a while, so we passed. The best we could have done at Sears was no less than $600.00, and we almost went for it.

We checked out online and found one woman selling hers, contacted her and made an appointment to see it the next day. double bed and boxspring, old, $150.00, decent deal.

Then we saw another one! Queen sized bed and boxspring, $200.00, might as well try them too! So we called, and she said it had already been sold and just as we were about to hang up she said "Oh oh my brother has one! He's been trying to sell it there now for a while."

So we called her brother and he said "Listen, we're here at the garage now and we'll let ya take it for $100.00 if you take it now." And I said "Can you deliver? We have no way to come get it." And he did! We paid $100.00 for a gorgeous queen sized bed and boxspring, and $20.00 for delivery.

It's an awesome bed. Very firm compared to an air bed, so it will take some getting used to, haha. It kind of smelled funny from sitting around in a bag in a garage for a year but fortunately I had some Oust "Fresh Linen" scent around and now it smells brand new. :)

I also now have all kinds of tea infusers so I no longer have to gag on the tea leaves at the bottom of my cup. And today I bought myself "Traveling With Wildflowers: From Newfoundland to Alaska" because I have this new mad thing for flowers and all kinds of different plant life. I used the gift card Naomi gave me for Christmas to buy "A Pocket Guide to Herbs" and even though it's Encyclopedia format I'm already about halfway through it. I can't put it down and I have no idea why I find it so fascinating when I never used to have any interest in gardening.

I think it's great though because Sam always wanted me to show an interest in gardening, and I really never did beyond the aesthetic, though I tried really hard to be interested for him.

I'm glad because the four things he probably taught me the most about were:

Tea
Gardening
Good food and cooking
Local art

And now I have a genuine interest in all of them. I'm so happy.

We're doing really well in our new place. Having a littttle trouble keeping up with the huge amount of laundry we had stockpiled from the last place, since we didn't have a washer and dryer and, well...no access to one for a long time.

We just need to pick up a few knick knacks for around the house. We need a garbage bin for the kitchen, a small one for the bedroom, a rack to hang on the shower head for soap/shampoo/whatevs, shower curtain hooks, a new set of cutlery, a couple drawer organizers for the kitchen and a wood block for my knives. I also need some new pants as I now have only two pairs that are wearable and both are filthy and ancient, and showing up to work dressed like garbage is soon going to start getting noticed.

I think we should also have a living room couch when I get home, a nice blue one that Naomi bought. Second-hand, but I think it's probably quite nice.  It's not like one of those nasty old ones from the eighties that you want to put in a fire and watch slowly burn.

If I had my way we'd be getting leather furniture, but there's no point spending the money on it now when I'll be wanting it for the house we actually own. By then it will be old and yucky. Plus we're poor. And leather furniture is pricey.

Wup wup wup. I love all the sales going on downtown at the moment. I got some unexpected money from Christmas and now I'm so happy and unstressed about money. We didn't even have enough to pay the rent (we were only $15.00 short, but it's still short) and then that money came and we got our bed and our couch and enough money to buy the small things we need around the house. And my book. :) Woo.

I'm running out of fingers to count the number of times I've moved from one house to another in my life. I've got 1 finger to go and I'll be counting on my toes.

In my whole life I have lived in nine different houses, which is one house for every two years of my life. Make no wonder I always feel like I'm drifting and out of place. Maybe in the new place I'll have a true sense of home and I'll feel in control. It'll be the first house I've lived in independent of family or a parental figure of one kind or another.

I'm moving into an apartment with my girlfriend, just a little ways up from downtown, where I feel safest and the most accepted. No more brother to pick up after, no gagging over pulling long hairs out of the drain, no more arguments to clean this or that or the other thing. No more family security.

I guess I get a new sense of security now. Naomi is someone I can actually depend on to be there for me, not just the illusion of a strong figure. Someone I can talk to as an equal and not feel the need to condescend or be condescended.

The new apartment should be really great. It was the last in a long line-up of shitty apartments, and turned out to be exactly what we were looking for. We put a deposit on it the same night we viewed it and we're moving in today. Actually, we're already moved in, but I'm still at work so I won't have any involvement until packing tonight.

It'll be my first apartment paying my own utilities but we had to go for it because it was everything we wanted in just about every way. A big kitchen with lots of counter space, a big, warm, cozy bathroom, a big living room and a big bedroom. All new laminate floors throughout the house and a washer, dryer and dish washer. It also includes the fridge and the stove and a kitchen table. Intense, I know. I haven't eaten off my own kitchen table in almost three years. No more worrying about sauces spilling all over the couch/bed/floor, my God, the glory.

The difference in the size of the kitchen we had at our old place and the kitchen we have now was enough to sell me. We're going from literally a hole in the wall covered in cupboards to a normal, family sized kitchen. The luxury.

I'm also crapping myself over the full set of Henckels knives that just fell into my lap. I'd been living at the old place for ages without realizing they were there. We just had so many damn knives (second hand from friends) that I had no idea until I looked at the blades a couple days ago. I almost threw three of them away this morning until I looked at the blades and realized what a crime I had been about to commit. I can't seem to find any information on the set on Google and the edges of all the blades are serrated, so that's a bit of a disappointment, but it's a nice looking little set and I think I may actually have the whole set, which is cool.

Also, the house is green. Green is a good colour for a house. I will probably be getting a cab home. I cannot remember for the life of me where the house is or what it looks like, other than that it is short. Short and green.

I'm so glad to be only working five hours a day. I want to go home and flail in my new house. Do laundry and set up the kitchen and roll in rats.

And maybe eat. Mmmm food.

I already had a livejournal account but I felt like making a new one since I never posted in my old one and I'm not interested in the name anymore.

My first journal entries are always around Christmas!

Well, we had a pretty good one. Naomi and I stayed at home together, and we had a really good time. We exchanged gifts in the morning, cooked a turkey and vegetables together, and then watched movies together - a Muppet's Christmas Carol and Home Alone.

Here's what I got:


Matching pewter starfish necklace and earrings, got this for myself!


A piece of original Staci Barron claywork that I've had my eye on for ages, I bought this one for myself too! I got it for less than a third of what it's worth - oh yeah!


Two more I got for myself, haha. Two prints, Patsy Gosse and Roy Pitcher. I have another one of Patsy's photos she gave me herself. I can't wait to get it matted and framed. I love it.


A beautiful sketch of Naomi and I together that Naomi had commissioned for us, it's up on the wall right now.


A fucking awesome tea Naomi got for me, it's so ridiculously good. I had two big mugs last night and I'm going to have a mug for breakfast. Apparently it's the Queen's tea, haha. Also pictured there is a gift card for Chapters/Indigo/Coles that I can't wait to spend. I will probably buy a book of recipes for baking since I don't do a lot of that and I would like to do it more.

What I got Naomi:


Lots and lots of candy


A Dean Parsons photo print (it'll go up on the wall in our new place with the others!)


Half-Life
Tony Hawk Underground
Hitman
True Crime: New York City

We both did pretty well for ourselves I think! We had to take pictures of the Beast as well. It was just the two of us eating and we now have three quarters of a giant turkey sitting in the fridge.





Hom nom nom!

So it was a good day and we had fun spending it together. Today we have so much to get done. We're moving in four days and we have to get this place emptied out, so we have to do laundry and find some cardboard boxes. We also have to go down to the police station. We called this guy to come pick up some stuff for us, paid him upfront and he never finished the job. We've been calling him every single day to come do it and he's said "I'm on my way" every single time but hasn't shown up. It's not a lot of money but I'm not going to get screwed out of it. It's not like we have money to just give away. So I called the police today and I'm gonna give this guy a call again and let him know if he doesn't get up here and return the money, I'm going down to the station to file the report. They already took my information as well as his, and I am totally serious about getting this cash back from him. Nobody is robbing me and getting away with it.

So today we'll be doing laundry, finding boxes, and hopefully getting our money back or heading down to the station.

For now Naomi is playing video games and we're listening to Paul Simon and hopefully going to have tea and toast for breakfast. I should finish tidying the kitchen. I did most of it last night after the giant feast but I got tired and left it.

No you don't have to lie to me
Just give me some tenderness
beneath your honesty

(pee ess, I meant to post this a few days ago but got side-tracked, this entry was written on Boxing day!)