dream hunter

You wonder if you should take a step to the unknown. She leaped. You wonder if you knew how. She taught you. You wonder if you could. She did. A friend who's always there. A source of inspiration and admiration. Courageous, beautiful and full of amazing thoughts. She's someone so annoyingly perfect you'd want to hate her. But you can't help but love her. by iiris

Thursday, September 13, 2007

work work and work people

With my second job I have met some interesting people. The benefit of not having a real job but one that moves from place to place, sometimes stays in one place for a bit longer and then throws you elsewhere again is that you never get used to anything, not to a place, to the people or the work. This is especially good if you don’t like the people you work with but especially bad if you really like the people you work with. I usually like all the people I work with so at the end, I don’t mind.

We often say that at the bottom of the social hierarchy there are thieves, prostitutes, waitresses, drug addicts, chefs and other scum. But like into any set of parasites, there are a variety of characters in this class as well.

There is the crazy cat lady. She now only has three cats, as she figured that having 23 in a small apartment in the centre of Helsinki is a bit too much. She talks about her cats as if they were her children (she is also known as the spinster, but I did not tell you that), always by their names and if you ever make the mistake of talking about any of them as “it” you might just consider yourself dead. She only works day shifts (never after 20h) because the little ones are afraid of dark and can’t be left home alone at night.

The is our vatitaitoinen (dish skilled) - a waiter who has been in the business for years, well decades and is one of the rare ones who knows how to properly transfer food from a big serving dish to a customers plate, drunk and without making a mess. You know him as he usually stands in the corner of the restaurant stirring his coffee, and blowing to cool it down. It is a funny thing that, as I have never ever seen any coffee in that cup and as far as I know, vodka and coke does not burn your mouth. He will also taste every bottle to verify their quality. Except obviously when the old “viinuri” (and old Finnish word for a waiter) is around – then the wine is his territory.

And the “Käläkälä” (blaablaablaablaa). Her mouth moves constantly and I mean constantly. This lady never ever stops talking. She has something to say about everything, she knows everything, she has an opinion on everything and if there is nothing to say she will explain what she is doing and why. Who cares? But she cleans well – which is excellent, except when there are a hundred million more urgent things to do and she decides to take the crumbs of the table where we cut the bread. Surprisingly enough she is usually the one who is sent to polish classes (into the other room) or to prepare the great hall for the following night. I wonder if she talks to the plates and cloths as well…? I think I need to investigate this.

The man with the dog. This one is not as bad as the crazy cat lady but not far off. He has a dog, whose name I don’t know and who is really and extremely fuzzy. I mean this dog is not just picky and difficult but extremely demanding and fuzzy. Hence, every time there is some lamb, smokes salmon, chateau briand, left on a plate the waiter carefully picks the food into a small piece of tinfoil to take it home, for the dog. Apparently this is the only way to avoid bankruptcy. Fair enough.

And the ADHD (ADD or what ever acronym you know for overly active people). He never stops but he never finishes either. He is nice, funny and everything else you could ask from someone working in the service industry but he has 0 patience and his ability to concentrate is that of a butterfly. But the good thing is that because he is so busy with all his little projects he is doing at once, he is out of the way and we can do our job, and his as well.

And the sweet one. She is nice. She has been in the same job for over 40 years and still is not quite sure how the espresso machine works. She will need help if there are more than two tables of four but her customers always leave the place happy. She is doing the same English course in the folk high school for the fifth year in a row, but is too scared to try her language skills in practice (I am sure she speaks just fine, it just the confidence she lacks). But she loves her job…something I rarely see in what I do.

I think I could go on and on and on…

I don’t really like my job. Well I do but I don’t. I like that part of being with people and I like the atmosphere (sometimes) but at the same time I hate it and I wish I never had to throw plates around or make another GT in my life.

And I wonder how the others would describe me…

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