A few posts ago, I mentioned my theory of how I Love My Job Like A Woman Learns To Love An Arranged Marriage. I decided, in light of certain events, that this would be the perfect time to explain what it is, and why I developed this theory. Let me begin with some background:
-When I worked at another restaurant in town, I was told that CP was just an apprentice factory (meaning they take on a large number of apprentices, damn the concequences). And because I'd never known anyone who'd worked there, slash I had never even been there, I believed it.
-I was also told they treated their staff like crap. And believed it.
-When applying for jobs after the aforementioned restaurant had been closed, I applied anywhere but CP, because of what I'd been told.
-I landed the interview through what seems like something I can only say was God smacking me upside the head telling me 'you're supposed to be cooking, you idiot' (only in the most loving and gentle of ways, of course...), and the whole way to my interview I prayed that I would bomb it and not get the job (not even thinking about the fact that I needed a job, like yesterday).
-Somehow (Jesus?) I landed the job, and despite absolutely sucking for the first 6 months I worked there, and through some kind of miracle, they kept me on and helped me grow into a better cook (read: beat me into the person I am today).
So, onto my theory:
-I've only ever personally known one arranged marriage, and in all the time I knew them, I never would have guessed neither of them had planned to be married to one another. Let me also say that they went to my church (kind of important).
-I've only ever seen an arranged marriage ceremony in movies, which generally (and to my recollection) involves a much older man, a young girl fighting against everyone to get away, and a scorned lover of the girl somewhere at/near the ceremony.
In my mind, it would go a little something like this: She is dragged up the aisle by her betrothed's groomsmen, and the ceremony begins while she's fighting tooth and nail to get away. Then after a while, the girl loses her will to fight, gives up, and thus the men who were employed to keep her from running away loosen their grips. She sees her lover, plots silently, then at the perfect time, makes a run for it, knocking down someone's Grandmother/Granfather/elderly relative in the process (so that people will run to them and not her). More often than not, she'll make it to just outside the tent/building/hall/place of ceremony, see her man, bid him an emotional goodbye (or not be able to find him and just stand there and cry) and pause long enough to be recaptured by the groomsmen, dragged back into the ceremony and married to the other dude, much to her dismay. After which she is assigned to a life of being shaped into the perfect wife, and beaten into submission every time she tries to voice an opinion. Most of the time, she just loses her will to fight, begins to believe that she deserves the abuse, and bides her time silently until she dies.
Which brings me to my theory of CP and me:
-CP is an old restaurant. I am a young cook.
-I didn't want that job. I wanted any other job but that one. I got that job.
-I fought tooth and nail at the beginning, because I hated my job.
-They wooed me with talks of raises and special events, only to give them to other, more loved, employees.
-I developed the theory of Seeing Your Job As A Relationship -- and putting as much hard work and dedication into it as possible, and some day (if you're lucky), love will follow.
-I finally began to conform to their ways, and every time I tried to do something out of the ordinary, they'd verbally beat me into submission, and make me conform to their methods.
-Eventually, their methods became second nature to me, and soon enough, their ways became mine. (So, in other words, I drank the Kool-Aid and joined the cult.)
-When I left this past summer, I discovered what it was like to love and be loved by a job, and I fell in love. My CP standard-issue rose-coloured glasses were thus surgically removed.
-I returned, was handed my job/a full-time schedule, and was once again thrust right back into the thickest of the hatred that reigns at CP. (Let me also say that at that point, there were 5 people above me on the totem pole.)
-Then E left.
-Then D left.
-Then A left.
-And K was never around.
-Now I may not be a math major here, but it seems to me like I'm the second on in command?! How the junk did this happ... Oh crap, it's Christmas. Trial by fire, here we come. (Trial by fire/sink or swim seems to be the CP way of training, for the record.)
-Aaaaaand then B turned into a power-hungry psycho, being all paranoid about losing that which he's fought hard to gain. (Cue the song Paranoid Freak by The Trews.) And I started losing my mind, having to work with him every day. I never fought for anything I have gained at CP (except to keep whatever sanity and personality they haven't beaten out of me yet), so he automatically got it all when everyone started leaving, and I got the scraps.
-Now, let this be known: in my time at CP, I have gone from hating it with a burning passion, to not so much hating it, to liking it, to absolutely loving it so much I can't imagine working anywhere else. I still love the place, the kitchen (with all its unique quirks, staff not included), the everything. Except the staff.
[Sidenote! Now D had a theory of his own (and one that I've come to experience is completely true): when a cook at CP stays there long enough to learn how to work around and despite all the broken equipment, fix it on the fly*, swerve around/duck/dodge people and things without thinking, and instinctively adjust the correct use of something to work around how broken/old/rusty/slow/cold-when-it's-supposed-to-be-hot/hot-when-it's-supposed-to-be-cold something is, they become an Unknowing Super-Cook. When that Unknowing Super-Cook gets a job in a kitchen that has equipment that works the way it's intended and is regularly maintained, the USC will automatically become 10x faster and more efficient at everything he/she does, and wonder why everyone else is has issues with stupid little things, like a dripping faucet on a Saturday (duh, grab a wrench and fix it yourself?). I have a feeling this is what I experienced at TnT (although I have zero qualms about why they loved me, because they loved me at all/let me know they loved me).]
-Now, speaking as one who has always had a hard time understanding metaphors, I feel like a woman who once knew love but is now trapped in an arranged marriage, and whose husband drinks like a fish and beats her into submission and back into the kitchen whenever she speaks her mind. Huh.
...or maybe I'm just being dramatic. Wednesday will tell one of two things: an amazing story of courage, or just another girl who lost sight of her dream because of a job she doesn't like. I think Spiritual Growth Month couldn't have come at a more perfect time.
I hope for the best, despite the worst.
-L
*'On The Fly' is a restaurant industry term for RIGHT THE FUCK NOW (please excuse the language).
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