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2014-02-27 - 12:49 a.m.
I'm finding that the most difficult part of my job these days is knowing that I am not helping people live a healthy life. Sure, most of our customers are quite healthy and make good decisions about what they put in their bodies. We have lots of fish eaters* and plenty of people who love their veggies and have a reasonable glass or maybe two of wine with dinner. But we also have those customers who drink half a bottle of gin before ordering their cheese burgers. It's starting to hurt me. There have been a couple instances in the past that have really hit me hard. Like, so hard that I almost packed up my stuff and walked out because I so didn't want to serve somebody any alcohol. There is a woman, for example, who started coming in with her husband. They are very, very nice people. I enjoy waiting on them. The first couple times they came in were really nice. He drinks water and she orders two martinis. They get dinner. I always ask her if she wants another martini, even though I know she only drinks two, because that's what you do...you always ask. So after a few times of waiting on her I ask her if she wants another martini and she says she can't have more than two because she has liver disease. Which hit me so hard in the gut she might as well have kicked me a hundred times. She has liver disease and I've been happily handing her martinis. It made me profoundly sad. For her and for me. I don't want to kill people. That's not what I am here for. So there's her. There are also the people who drink about a billion gallons of diet coke. They hurt me too. Or the couple who, in the last year, have gained so much weight that they are almost unrecognizable. They drink a ton of alcohol and order chicken wings and burgers and fried cheese. I can't do it. I try to talk people into vegetables. I try to get them to order a salad before their burger, not because I want to upsell things but because I want them to eat something good for them. So tonight...tonight one of my favorite customers comes in. He's such an awesome guy. He's followed me through three restaurant jobs now and he makes fast friends everywhere he goes. His children love him, he has a great relationship with his family. They do things. His grown children are always texting him, calling him, his grandkids facetime him all the time. Everybody really, genuinely likes this guy. And since he retired a couple years ago he just drinks. He drinks and he drinks. A few weeks ago he came in and said he had had a heart episode the day before and so he hadn't had anything to drink that day. But today was a new day and he wanted some vodka! So I just stared at him. He had a heart episode and he wanted me to pour him some vodka? It took me a minute. I had to step outside. But then I walked in and poured him his vodka. Then I tried to talk him into some vegetables but he ordered a burger. Sigh. So today he comes in and he's hooked up to this heart monitor thing. He's showing me all the wires and the receiver hooked to his belt that will send all the information about his heart for the next 21 days to his doctor and my heart broke. I just don't know what I can do. I can't just keep killing these people. I looked at facial lady schools again today. I just can't do that. I can't spend that much money on learning to be a facial lady. If I'm spending that much money on education it should be for actual education. I wish I wanted to be something realistic. I'm still stuck on the notion that someday I'm going to be an author. I've grown up enough to know that I'm never going to win the Pulitzer or anything, but I still really believe that I could write something. I still fantasize about being a functional author. I need to grow up. *although I think that eating fish is healthy, I still don't condone it. |
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