*02.01.2004 - 11:33 a.m.*

Work yesterday made me cry.

Really.

I came in early, at around 2:20 or so, and I'm about to sit down to eat my salad that I had brought for lunch when Melinda (a manager) sees that I'm there and says "Oh! You can clock in early and give Adam (the co-worker I absolutely despise) a 10 [minute break]." So, I clock in early, and give Adam his 10. He has left the cafe an absolute mess (again), no cookies made, and almost out of coffee. There's also a line forming. I get the line going, and about 15 minutes later, he comes back. He starts taking drink orders, and I think "oh no, not this shit again", refering to when we got into a fight the last time we had to deal with a line together. So, he starts heading over to where I'm working on drinks and I say "I'll make the drinks, you ring." He replied, "did you hear their drink order?"

"One large mocha, one medium moose munch freeze, got it."

So, he rings, and I make the drinks. It works out better that way.

After we get the line down, he offers to do some dishes before he leaves. And he does...he just doesn't scrub them, so I have to go back and scrub them again.

Later on at work I notice that all the cleaning, organizing, and scrubing that I had been doing to the cafe, has now been completely destroyed. The freezers were unorganized again, the food prep table was dirty and covered in non-food prep stuff, the dishes that I had organized and cleaned were now unorganized, and I thought "why the hell did I work myass off making this cafe better, when no one else helps maintain it?"

I burned myself 3 times because the espresso machine is on the fritz yet again.

Idiot customers spilled cream and sugar and coffee down the clean silverware cubbies on the condiments bar, so I can to scrub, clean, and sanitize all the silverware and cubby tins again.

Another customer spilled her entire 20oz hot coffee all over the cash register counter, nearly nailing me, and soaking about 150 paper bags, 200 promotional bookmarks, the peppermint cookies, and the carmel box.

Then, five minutes before I close, a lady comes up to me and orders a medium chai, a medium latte, and a cookie.

Erin (closing manager) wouldn't let me keep the three dollars that people had left for tips. We're not supposed to accept tips, but people leave them anyway.

Then he lecture me about how when food gets wasted at night, we have to throw it away. We can't give it out to other employees, because if the "wrong person" is here at night, I could get fired. Which is bullshit because the managers have been taking the food too!

As I'm closing, I've got dishes up to my ears, people are putting up chairs on tables I didn't wipe down, people are throwing trash in the recycling bin (which I then fish out), and I didn't even get to finish the dishes because I threw the last load in at 11:40, and Erin told me to leave a note and clock out. I left the note, and as I'm putting on my jacket in the back they turn out all the lights on me.

After the bag check, and getting to the car, I sat down, started the car, and started crying. I was so miserable, I could drive until I stopped. I called up Dave and talked to him about it. And he's not sure what I should do. I really hate my job, and I want to quit, but I'm getting good pay, a great discount, and it's an in to a possible internship (which I asked Erin about, and he had no clue as to what I'm talking about).

So, that was yesterday. I'm heading out to work again today. Thank G-d it's Superbowl...that means no customers.