May 1st, 2017

After work last night I drove into town and met up with Jeremy the lead bartender, and Sean, one of our regulars. I got to the restaurant right as Jeremy was finishing up and we went to his house for cigars. I got home around 4 and fell asleep on the couch.

I woke up at 11 and started getting ready for my bar shift. I realized I have only worked behind the bar 6 times since the beginning of the year. 

The shift went well, but I’m glad I only have to work there when I want to. I spent the night entertaining tourists and showing ultrasound pictures of the baby to anyone who would look at them.

I am excited and terrified to become a father. Someone is going to depend on me to survive. I realize as an EMT, most of my patients depend on me to keep them alive, but having a baby seems like so much more than transporting sick or injured people.

We finished around 02:00 and I drove home and spent a few hours pacing around the condo. My feet, legs, knees, and back are killing me  from running around for 9 hours, but I’m still not tired. 

Sept 21st, 2015

I was at church by 10 and helped out with security. There was a guest speaker so I didn’t really have to do much. I went home afterwards and read before going to work early to watch the Seahawks game from outside the bar next door. My shift started at halftime. I spent the rest of the game trying to look like I wasn’t watching the game.

It was a slow night, but people came in late making me stay late. I got home around 11:30

Sept 20th, 2015

On my way to school, the accelerator on my moped was stuck in the on position, which meant the moped was constantly trying to propel itself forward. I took it in after class and walked home to read up on toxicology. Just as Rebecca was about to take me to work, they called and said the moped was fixed. I got a ride to the shop and rode to work. I was bartending again. It’s nice to be able to do something where I can just turn off my brain and go on autopilot.

I got home around midnight and went to bed.

September 14th, 2015

I was at work by 8:30 to open the restaurant. I had a trainee show up at 10:30 so I let her talk to all of the tables while I kept a vigilant eye on everything else. It was her birthday, and they still made her come in to train. We were supposed to finish at 4, but a table came in at 3:45 and decided to hang out. At 6 I was finally given permission to transfer them to another server so I could go home.

I rushed home and rad over the 7 chapters and all of the quizzes from the week to prepare for the exam tomorrow.

August 31st, 2015

Sleeping in until 9 am was such a great feeling. I was at work with 15 minutes to spare before my training shift. It was way too slow to accurately gauge the trainees progress, but he did a pretty good job. 

I got home around 6 and studied until I went to bed at 9. 

Aug 24th, 2015

I woke up at 7:30 and got ready for my shift. It started raining around 11 last night and it hadn’t stopped. At 8:15 I was outside in the rain trying in vain to start my moped. After 20 minutes I had killed the battery. I ran inside to call work an let them know what was going on and that I was going to take the bus. I missed the next bus by seconds. I arrived to work 15 minutes late and soaking wet. 

There were two of us scheduled to open the restaurant at 9. The other guy forgot he was working and finally showed up at 11 after the manager called. 

I left around 5:30 and took the bus home with water still sloshing around in my boots.  
I made dinner and then went to the store for breakfast foods I could make and eat quickly. At 8:30 my restaurant called. I didn’t get to the phone quick enough to answer so I waited for the voicemail. The manager was asking me to come in and bartend  because both of the bartenders were gone. I didn’t know what happened, but later found out that they both cut their hands open on broken glass at separate times and they both had to get stitches. 

I have my first day of class at 7:30, and didn’t want to be working until past midnight. I didn’t call back and went to bed around 9:30. 

August 18th, 2015

I slept until 10 and got ready for the day. I didn’t do a lot before work except read. 

The shift started out very slowly, but picked up a little around 7. I had a table with a $61 tab leave $100. As I was getting their change they left. I felt bad because they didn’t speak English, and I’m not sure they knew what they were doing. I eventually decided that I was just getting paid back for all the non English speaking tables that leave nothing. 

I got home around midnight and watched The A-Team before going to bed. 

August 16th, 2015

I woke up a little before noon. Rebecca had already gone to church, and the service was early over so I made breakfast and watched the A-Team. Rebecca got home around 2 and made lunch and then I headed off to work.

It wasn’t a moderately busy shift, but my brain was telling me to keep moving fast like I had been doing in the bar last night. The only problem with moving so fast, is when other people don’t have the same speedy movement and they get in my way. I can’t remember how many times a customer would stand in the aisle right in my way and either move at a snail’s pace, or not at all.

I got home around 11 and watched the A-Team for a while. Around 1 I heard someone banging on the door of a nearby apartment. I turned off all the lights and listened to see if it was going to be a problem or not. I crept outside to investigate, and based off what I had heard, one of the teenagers came home late for curfew and was locked out and trying to wake someone to be let inside. Once I determined there was no threat, I went to sleep.

August 14th, 2015

I got to work 10 minutes before my shift. While in the pre-shift meeting the manager was talking about selling souvenir glasses. When she said “We aren’t just giving them a souvenir glass, we are also giving them a memory” I held in my laughter. I still had a smirk upon my face which she noticed. She plumed me aside and asked me not to mock the pre-shift meetings because I am a trainer, and like it or not people look up to me. I apologized for the disrespect and went to work my shift behind the bar.

It was slow and hot, the best part of the day was when I got to go into the beer cooler to stock up on bottles. When I was doing my register drawer at the end of the shift, the manager and I were joking about the incident earlier, she says that she gets my humor, but there are a lot of new people who look to me as an example, and then gave me an application to be a corporate trainer at new restaurant openings.

I went home, showered and then had dinner and Rebecca and I watched a movie and she went to bed while I filled out the corporate trainer application and watched The A-Team.

August 12th, 2015

I woke up at 9, not because I wanted to, but because the maintenance guys were scheduled to arrive at 10 to fix some water damage to our bathroom cupboard from last summer when the water from upstairs was leaking in to our bathroom. They never fixed the cupboard no mater how many times I called to ask about it. Finally Rebecca got so fed up she called and got things done. They showed up at 10, and were gone by 10:06. They told me they would come back tomorrow at 9.

I spent the rest of the morning studying. I left for work around 2:30 and spent the rest of the night running around taking care of my tables. I was getting upset that I wasn’t getting any English speaking tables, but then I looked around the restaurant and saw that almost everybody in the restaurant was non English speaking. This was about as much fun as getting a pudding pop from Bill Cosby. Japanese tables don’t really care who their server is, they will flag down anybody and tell them what they want. They will flag someone down to hand them a dirty plate, they don’t understand that food takes time to cook and will not come out of the kitchen faster my glaring angrily at me. I had a table ask for two kids apple juices and 2 beers, while I was putting lids on the apple juices, this broad waved me over and asked for “free water”. I went and got them waters and when I brought the water to the table she demanded to know where the apple juice was. I tried explaining that I had been getting the apple juice when she demanded water, it was no use.

I got home around midnight and went to sleep