i was a waitress, taking orders for steaks and cheese fries and other such coronary-inducing "texas" fare. one of the unique selling points of the place i worked at was the peanuts. there was a big barrel that lived next to the hosts' stand, so you could scoop up armfuls of the stuff, take them back to your table and eat them whilst you waited for your super-sized texan meal to arrive. the "fun" part of the peanuts was, you were allowed to toss the empty shells onto the floors. it was a little privilege unique to our restaurant and was probably so popular only because it flew in the face of everything you were taught as a kid - don't snack before dinner and more importantly, always throw your trash into the bin. i mean, throwing your garbage onto the FLOOR!?!??! it was positively brimming with naughty-kid factor.
anyway. come the end of the night, the restaurant floor was covered in these things (and in light of the above-mentioned novelty factor, i'm FAIRLY certain it wasn't because every diner was a gung-ho peanut fan). guess whose job it was to tidy up? yep. come 10 or 11pm, the illustrious waitstaff all grabbed a broom and got sweepin'. i was never especially good at this particular task, perhaps it was the in-built princess in me refusing to stoop to such inferior levels, but i never quite got the hang of it.
anyway. that was my time at lone star, in a nutshell (excuse the pun).
fast forward 12 years. where am i?
well....
about 2 states away, just over a decade older, 2 degrees (and a LOT of student debt) under my belt....and i'm STILL tending to those damn peanuts.
ok. so i'm not physically sweeping them up of the floor anymore and getting paid a minimum wage.
no, no. i now charge about 100000% more an hour to essentially do the same thing: count peanuts. specifically, other peoples'.
my job NOW consists of sitting at a desk, but i realised i'm not really doing that much more. shuffling a few papers, counting up money, taking orders, being bored.
it's funny. you get told how "far" you've come along and how much better life is once you get a "proper" job and how important the uni piece of paper is. ok, so i'm not complaining about the million percent increase in what i earn, but is what i spend each day doing at my desk REALLY that different to my days as the 18 year old peanut sweeping waitress from last decade?!
