New Residency (workshop essay) REVISION!!!

I walked away from my first job interview and nailed it. I knew every question they could throw at me and paired it with a stunning answer. Ok, so what if my sister was the manager, and so what if she prepped me with the entire interview questions ahead of time. I was only 15 and I was hungry for some cash in my pocket. If I got hired I would be working in a dining room within a retirement home. It was the perfect job for a high school student with short shifts each day right after class.

Turns out I did get the job. It was a perfect job, for someone looking to meet some special individuals. The people I met and the things we did will stick with me forever. I remember walking into the dining room, first day on the job, I opened the door and was greeted by a short lumpy looking black man that gave me a warm welcome saying, “Are you the new kid? You want to work here? You suck!” This was my very first interaction with any of the co-workers besides my sister of course. To say they least, everyone who I worked with had quite the personality.

At first I hated this job because of the employees. Every single one of them were dicks. Completely serious, any question I asked boy, girl manager, didn’t matter they all had a tone of “hey kid go find a cliff and jump off it” with every answer. I couldn’t figure out why they all hated me, was it because my sister got me the job and then quite cause she moved? Because I was a few years younger then them? Did I just suck at serving? Didnt like my braces? Too skinny? It was tough at first no doubt, they had a little click going, that involved hanging with each other outside of work and having personal conversations about each other. I just showed up put my time in and left with minimal conversation.

It was about one year later when I started to really become close with these whack jobs. I don’t know what it was that finally made them except me, maybe just time but once they did, it was like someone said, “let the fun begin”

I got to know my boss a little better. Her name was Caitlin a short girl/lady she was about 27 years old, always wore her hair slicked back like the chick from the Matrix. She was a very laid back boss and I always thought of her to be on the same level of employment as myself. No one ever wanted to eat near her because she always had this weird orgasmic moan of satisfaction when she ate; disturbing, but extremely funny to imitate

Then there was Tristan a fellow server who was a white tall skinny guy like myself. Tristan was all about pushing the envelope with how much he could get away with. If you have ever seen the movie Super Troopers, they play a game to see how many times you can say meow to a stranger. Well, to say the least, Tristan was the kind of kid that would play this game at work as he went around to his tables and took orders “Ma’am would you like your soup right meow? Or after your salad?”. Tristan was also the kind of person who would make a bloody marry for a resident and each day he would pour more and more hot sauce into it to see how bad her taste buds really were. Many of my other server friends did the same type of stuff always playing somewhat harmless jokes on the residents.        

But Caitlin (my boss) was the one that taught me all the residents’ names. You’re probably thinking their actual birth names, but no, were talking food service nicknames, like ketchup lady. The lady that wont eat a meal without a full unhealthy slathering of pure ketchup on everything. From mashed potatoes, to a cup of coffee in went the lump of ketchup. Whip cream lady was another similar one. She was a little lower key and had a few of her marbles left but her taste buds were shot to hell. Whip cream lady always made us servers put an absolute mountain of whip cream on any desert she got. This ranged from ice cream (normal) to apples, oranges, cookies, and any type of cake. Being the young little shit head assholes that we were, we decided that we would play a little trick on whip cream lady. Some people may consider this old people abuse and it probably was but whatever I’m over it. One day we took two scoops of mashed potatoes at placed them in an ice-cream dish. Now I will admit the mashed potatoes really looked like ice cream, and when a 7-inch mountain of whip cream was swirled on top it was a beautiful masterpiece. So out went the mashed potatoes with a big pile of whip cream on the top. Her face just lit up and she immediately started to clap and laugh out-loud in joy and happiness. In tears and beat red faces after laughing for 15 minutes straight we finished watching her eat every last bite without even noticing it was mashed potatoes and not ice cream.

Every day I went into work it didn’t seem like work. It seemed like playtime. Yes, we did work up a sweat and get really stressed with all the things to do and at times we got yelled at by higher up managers for screwing up an order or not keeping something clean or leaving something out to spoil or get cold. And, one of the worst days to go into work is when one of our loved residents died the previous night. Even though we played jokes on the residents, it was all of our entertainment, both theirs and ours, and when one passed away the day was usually dull and quiet. To me, every day seemed like it was a new day to figure out something stupid to do to get laughs out of everyone and make the workplace seem fun.