Working Stiff

Fact: I wait tables.

Fact: 90% of the time, I like my job. Not in the way that I want to do this forever because it’s my calling like my job, but like it better than a lot of other things I’ve done like my job. I get paid to socialize. And I get paid more when I socialize well. 90% of the time, I socialize well, reading my tables with ease and delivering a satisfactory experience that facilitates a good time and good tips.

90% of the time. The other 10% of the time, I’m having the kind of night that makes me want to ball up my fists and stand in the middle of the dining room and scream at the top of my lungs. 10% of the time, I’m enduring an 8 hour stretch that has me desiring a good session of throwing glassware at a brick wall. 10% of the time, I’m contemplating striking a match and letting the entire establishment burn to the ground.

Last night was one of those nights.

I was thrown off of my game early by a group of bubbly blondes. Given our $10 martini prices and heavily European wine list, we’re not the kind of bar that typically caters to Boulder’s sizeable college population. I wasn’t exactly expecting, then, the entire senior faction of Alpha Chi Omega to reserve our large table for a birthday party.

I smelled them before I saw them. The heavy cloud of intermingling expensive perfume wafting up the stairs announced their 5:30 arrival, and then they emerged: straight crispy hair, orange skin, white teeth, and cleavage strapped into tight white shirts with strategically placed ruffles and lace.

“I hear if they explode they leave glitter and Diet Coke in their wake,” a co-worker whispered to me. The backwaiter was hovering. The kitchen staff offered tours. I handed our bartender a fresh bottle of Smirnoff and took stock of the lemons and limes. They were Boulder’s fabulous freshly 21-year-olds, and they were all mine.

Plastering on my shiniest smile and flipping my hair a few times to “empathize,” I interrupted discussions of which girl was the most “naturally smart” of the bunch (I thought about suggesting an inverse correlation to natural hue, be it skin tone or hair color, but I thought better of it) to round up a drink order (11 vodka sodas with limes, 3 with lemons) and dinner requests (the vegetables and hummus were the most popular, the lardo pizza the least).

In the end, though, they were the least of my worries, content to blather on without attention unless they required more alcohol. They weren’t eaters, so after every girl passed on a course two and then dessert, they were splitting their auto-gratted check 14 ways and ducking out for the rest of their night, which I expected would include young men with spiked hair and tight abs and a dramatic fight or two.

In the meantime, a couple of tables away, I had a different kind of gaggle of girls, this one comprised of brunettes wearing sweater sets and orange lipstick. One of them was incredibly confused about the concept of the wine flight. Is it 3 wines mixed in one glass? Or 3 3 oz. glasses of the same wine? Why wouldn’t we just pour 9 oz. of wine in one glass? The entire conversation was upsetting her, and she ended up ordering the wrong thing, sighing in surrender, plus a basket of that “bread stuff” (bread, actually).

As I navigated the confusing world of women, feeling like a masculine amazon amidst the feminine qualities that comprise the elusive mystique of girlishness, I found myself picking up some of the ladies’ traits on my table of old school businessmen. Brain filled with the vodka soda lime or lemon dilemma, I nailed the Balvenie one rock order, but butchered the man’s man’s Ketel One tonic with an orange request, serving instead Ketel One and soda with a lime (apparently my mind is not complex enough to grasp twists on classics). Luckily, their brains were equally addled by the cloud of scent that hung over the restaurant like a dense fog, so they spent a few moments winking in commiseration before tucking quietly into the garlic fries and calamari.

I couldn’t quite recover after a start like that. I’d been reduced to my elemental human form, romancing some tables and alienating others with the brutally honest inner personality that, like a phoenix, was trying to rise from the ashes. I was off, and I was comping a lot of desserts to make up for it.

Service is an art.  Unfortunately, last night, I was a cheap Mac photobooth imitation of Andy Warhol.

As self-indulgent posts go, this one might take the cake, so I apologize. Unless you count irony, it’s not even going to be funny. I’m writing it for me, and for anyone who might contract me out as a writer (or, odds against odds, hire me for a full-time position, complete with a benny plan) that doubts my commitment to the field based on my erratic resume and musings about law school on this here blog (yep, that political). I imagine I’m about to lose a lot of you. See you later. If you’re still reading, here goes.

The little note pad on my iPhone never fails to amuse me. This amassed collection of random thoughts is usually simultaneously predictable and cryptic, saying things like “pumpkin acetate” or “parsnip gnocchi with beef cheeks.” Presumably, these were either items on a menu or random snippets of an envisioned meal, flashes of literary or culinary genius long forgotten, never to be enacted or commented upon again.

I happened upon a real gem today, though. I can only guess that it was a sentence I constructed for a pretentious future memoir, a note to a distant self who’d chosen the risky path and written a best seller, forgoing stable and responsible career options for the road less traveled. This was the sentence: “Like any self-respecting lover of the notion of financial security, I naturally dabbled with the idea of law school, but in the end, you know, the writer must write and all that.”

Ew. But apt timing, past Laura. I’m not sure how I feel about the idea of a calling, but I think it’s vaguely on par with the love-at-first-sight concept: maybe possible, but definitely not probable. I’d prefer to think that life is what we make of it. What I do have, however, is a dream job, and it’s been the same since days of childhood when I was scribbling descriptions of fictional characters in wide-ruled notebooks while the rest of my friends were doing normal things like playing house and chasing boys on the playground.

The truth is, if all else were equal, I know exactly what I’d pursue, and, I can tell you, it wouldn’t be law school. Those lucky few who have made it in the writing profession, particularly people like David Sedaris and Jeffrey Steingarten, who are writing on subjects that incite no small amount of enthusiasm within my silly soul, are living my dream life. They’re writing, something I do compulsively and for free, and they’re being paid heftily for it, all because people think they’re worth reading. So dream job I’ve got, success within the field others have proven possible, but do I pursue it? Me?

The logical side of me has a problem with that. After all, this ain’t the final stage of Marxism, it’s the real world, the capitalistic world, and statistics come into play here. And frankly, statistically speaking, I’m not going to get rich by staking my bet on the written word. To that side of me, calling myself “a writer” is absurd. Writers are people with smoking habits and drinking problems. They wear black and make undecipherable philosophical comments, sometimes speaking entirely in metaphor. They have no money. They live in coffee shops. They have livejournals. They own cats. I don’t like those things, except maybe black and maybe coffee shops. Definitely not cats, though.

Reconciling my idea of writing as a viable career is something I’ve never been able to do, choosing instead to toss volumes of my thoughts out to the universe and see what happens as a result (a thing or two, but not the accidental name-in-lights success I secretly hope for every time the clock strikes 11:11). Not surprisingly, conversations with writers who have made it work reveal the truth: there’s something to be said for talent, but just like everything else, the successful writers are those driven people who relentlessly pursue publication.

Terrifying and pompous as it feels, I’ve reached a juncture: I can’t not give it a go, and I don’t mean just one-off freelancing. If I don’t try to make a stable living in this field now, I’ll never do it, and given that I’ve proved time and time again that I’m a subscriber to the philosophy that it’s what we don’t do, rather than what we do, that we later regret (no really, Laura? How many careers have you had at this point?), that’s simply unacceptable.

If I don’t try to walk this path, 20 years from now, even if I’m sitting on a mountain of money in a veritable palace forged by long hours in a law firm and pursuit of a noble higher goal, I’m going to wonder “what if?” By the same standard, if I give it a shot and realize that I simply don’t have what it takes, I can always go to law school later, and the lost year(s) won’t be even a blip on my radar, part, instead, of a distant forgotten past. And if, odds against odds, I do make it work, I doubt I’ll ever look back (at least not until I’m facing foreclosure on my home because print died and no one will buy my work).

So there it is, end of the crisis of faith 2010, end of this self-indulgent rant. Words of wisdom appreciated, especially from other writers. Words of berating appreciated, too, since that’s what I’m expecting from editors.

Hugs and kisses.

I first became aware of the sweatiness of my armpits in 5^th grade during a Saturday afternoon when I was supposed to be napping but was instead lying awake listening to my father converse with his childhood best friend via telephone just outside of my closed bedroom door.

“She’s about to hit puberty,” I heard him say, “She’s started sweating in the armpits of her shirts.”

I was uncomfortable. I’d never really noticed my sweaty armpits, and I found myself dragging a couple curious fingers through that particular spongy region of my body. At that juncture of my life, puberty was some mythical stage of being, something I’d seen on film but with which I’d yet to have firsthand experience. I was vaguely excited about it because it meant I could join the popular girls in showing off the straps of my training bras; I was also vaguely terrified because it might mean I would have to start drawing on the information I’d gained in sexual education about pubic hair and periods. I wasn’t ready for that. I yearned instead for simpler days of Barbies and bloodlessness.

15 years after I started wearing deodorant in response to this physiological change, one might think that I would have worked out the angles. One would assume that I would have accepted the fact that my armpits sweat, and that, therefore, I would have done everything I’d need to do to disguise this unbecoming part of my physical being. One would be wrong.

Here’s the truth: my crevices, particularly my armpits, are sweaty. Like, really sweaty. Like, don’t respond even to the deodorant advertised to be strong enough for a man. Like, could compete with the fat man eating spicy food on a park bench in the middle of July. I know, I’m a really pretty girl. I can’t understand why I don’t have a boyfriend given my immense beauty and charm.

The unfortunate truth of my sweaty armpits sometimes sadly rears its ugly head in social situations, but those little vessels of moisture seem to be particularly on display at my place of work. I think there are approximately 3 reasons for this:

1. I drink a lot of coffee before waiting tables.

2. The owners of my restaurant like to keep the temperature at a balmy 72 degrees even though I’m running laps through hordes of people.

3. My work shirt, of the stock gray button-down variety, doesn’t breathe. At all. At. All.

Given this list of circumstances, I think it’s pretty remarkable that only my pits are disgusting. I consider it a win that I’m not coated in a fine sheen and exhibiting signs of chest and back sweat through the impermeable fabric of my uniform. I’m just saying.

The only thing worse than being sweaty and gross is being called out on being sweaty and gross, so I don’t exactly find it delightful when one of our backwaiters points out the various nastiness of my being that I’d rather pretend no one notices.

“You spilled on yourself,” he’ll say. Really? I hadn’t noticed the onslaught of disgusting dishwater when I aggressively tossed utensils into the bucket of filthy sanitizer. Thank you so much for making me aware of my plight.

Or “Hey, you’re kind of pitting out.” Wonderful. Wonderful. Not only have I failed at correctly wearing deodorant and then strategically hiding the large wet circles under my arms, I’m also going to walk around self-consciously, probably sweating more because of the induced anxiety, thinking about how everyone knows I’m the smelly kid in class. I might need to step out on the back staircase and fan myself or breathe into a bag. My life is over.

On one occasion recently, I was working with said backwaiter and, for no apparent reason, having a particularly sweaty day. My ego was feeling a little fragile, and the thought of having him bruise it further with his apt observations was a little too much. I needed a solution, so I crammed some hand towels into my armpits and walked around for the first five hours of service with weird bulges under my arms until it became dark enough for him not to notice and slow enough for him to be cut.

This didn’t do much for my productivity, however, mostly because I couldn’t raise my arms higher than eye-level for fear of dislodging my “solution.” By extension, this also meant that I couldn’t clear tables, and I couldn’t reach the shelves to put polished glassware back, kind of a problem when I’m the one called in to pinch hit at these tasks for shorter servers because of my superior height. Plus, I found myself with one hand constantly in my shirt readjusting the scratchy little receptors of sweat, and I was caught a couple of times by quizzical coworkers wondering what exactly I was doing (uh, nothing, my shirt’s just really uncomfortable right now, really).

I’m not sure why I seem to be the only one with this problem.  I don’t see other servers fanning out their pit stains.  I watch bartenders moving at lightning speed remain remarkably perspiration-free.  So what does a girl do? Do I start wearing men’s deodorant? Salt crystals? Haynes undershirts? Given the fact that I already have hideous shoes and a lumbering frame, I’m not sure adding another element of androgyny to my work persona is something that’s going to do a lot for my ability to flirt at a table, but at least it will save me from panic attacks over what my co-workers think.  It’s fun being a girl of the Amazon variety.  Everything I do is so cute.

Each night at my restaurant, after the last guest has finally drunkenly stumbled down the stairs and out the door, the staff stands around, sipping our staff drinks and polishing glassware, and talks about the male attention we’ve received. We regale each other with stories of numbers given, attempted make-outs forced, and possible dates to come. And by “we” I mean everyone but me, because this never happens to me. Ever.

I have thought about this long and hard. I don’t necessarily hurt for male attention in other walks of life. Despite my giantess size, I seem to garner my fair share of compliments and drink invitations. I don’t think I’m necessarily the hideously unattractive member of the front-of-house crew. So I think this can really only boil down to one thing: my Frankenstein shoes.

I’m a tall girl. Ergo I’ve got large feet. Like, really large. Like, shoe size ski. This is normally okay in real life because a lot of fashionable footwear producers make shoes for models and stuff so they sell size ski of their trendy products. But when it comes to restaurant work, trendy shoes don’t really cut it. For better or for worse, big, black comfortable shoes are part of the unbecoming androgynous uniform. And so while my smaller co-workers can still look dainty in their chunky Dansko clogs, I’m doomed to look like Frankenstein, clunking around in a heinously ironic Andy Warhol-esque version of what Dad used to wear to the office.

When those shoes go on my feet, they have an uncomfortable amount of control over my personality. They make me asexual. I become immune to twinkling eyes and sparkling smiles of attractive male patrons. My voice deepens. My hair goes from shiny and flippy to utilitarian and dull. My gait gets much less swishy and much more stompy. And I do not and cannot flirt.

As a result of these unsightly shoes, I lumber over to tables like Quasimodo, one eye smaller than the other, hump on my back and say, in a husky voice, “Hi, I’m Laura. Can I get you a drink?” And then I become invisible to males, a mere beer wench that fades into the background of their dining and drinking experience, unless they’re forced to look at me because my awkward limbs do something like spill a drink on them.

Sometimes I see a cute guy and I feel compelled to explain, to say something like, “Hey, seriously, I’m not Frankenstein, it’s just the shoes. I’ll take them off and blossom into a sassy shiny woman with whom you might have some sort of inclination to flirt. I’ll flip my hair, you’ll buy me a martini in an up glass, it’ll be great, I promise. I’m not a social ruh-tard. Really.”

I don’t really think that would help my cause, though. After all, no one likes palpable insecurity. So I’m just doomed to be androgynous tall awkward girl in ugly shoes, silent and alone at the end of each night, lamenting my inability to get hit on and wondering if I’m the gruesome friend. It’s cool. No big deal.  Someday, my foot-fetishless prince will come and set me free, teaching us all a valuable lesson about shallow beauty.  Until then, look out.  Frankenstein is coming to take your order.

A friend of mine and fellow server recently turned me on to an article in the New York Times complaint box on tipping.  I encourage you to read it before reading my response, but for my lazy friends, Daniel Sax, self-admittedly cheap, never leaves above 15% gratuity and hates the custom of tipping.  The title of his rant is “Hey, Waiter!  Just How Much Extra Do You Really Expect?”

I should preface my response to Mr. Sax with this: About a year ago, I’d never had a service industry job in my life. Now, I spend each and every night catering to the requests of diners in a chic Boulder restaurant. But in both walks of life, I’ve never tipped less than 20% unless the service was unbelievably atrocious. And knowing there’s a lucrative end in sight to my days as a server, I dream openly of the day when I can leave lavish tips for servers who deserve it.

And so, Mr. Sax, I’d like to tell you where my perspective differs from yours.

Occasionally, a restaurant professional merely brings you a latte or pours you a beer; in these situations, industry standards for gratuity are often lower than 15-20%. But when you sit down in a restaurant, someone is going to be your personal slave for as long as you care to grace the tables of that particular establishment, and, what’s more, they are going to make you feel like they can’t imagine anything they’d rather be doing.

You see, sir, even if you are the most low-maintenance of diners (which I’m guessing you are not), there are still a number of points of service a server provides. We refill your water. We bring you food and drinks. We make sure you have a fork with which to eat your pan-roasted scallops. We indulge your disgusting habit of eating your fries with mayonnaise by bringing you a heaping side of the condiment. In essence, we do everything short of lay across your lap and feed you bits of your ordered meal with a tender loving hand.

It’s not just the basics we provide, though. We exist to make your experience as comfortable as possible. We can be your best friend, a confidant, someone who makes you look good in front of your business associates or studly to your dashing date, or we can fade into the background, providing you service without you ever realizing we’re there. If you don’t like your dish, we’ll go yell at the kitchen for you and pick up the tab for your food. If you want to let your kids run rampantly, we’ll corral them for you and tell them how cute they are when they’re dipping their grubby hands in other patrons’ ketchup. If you don’t like your beautiful Premier Cru Burgundy that we just opened for you because you were more in the mood for a cabernet, we’ll absorb the cost while smiling toothily and assuring you that we understand. If you ask us to jump, we’ll jump, and then say, “please sir, may I have another,” while whistling zippity doo dah, if that’s going to make you feel good.

How much is a personal slave worth, sir? And should the burden of that service really be on my employer? My employer isn’t asking me for a larger pour of wine. He’s not waving his hand wildly to tell me the filet mignon isn’t to his liking, after all, and ask whether it would be possible to get the salmon instead. He didn’t just shatter his glass of 30-year scotch and demand a free refill.

As for added gratuity on parties of 6 or more, the official answer is that this just makes it easier for you to divide the bill (and since most people these days actually do tip 20%, they don’t oft complain). In reality, large parties require more work because there are more of you to make special requests. After I’ve run a track meet to make sure everyone has everything they need, I’d like to have some assurance that you’re not going to take your irritation with your cheap friend (or, in your case, that your friends don’t take their irritation with you) out on me. I’ve eaten with enough groups to know that somehow, the final count of bills is always short.  My little secret, though?  I don’t add gratuity (or “auto-grat,” as we say in the industry) unless I’m pretty sure I’m going to get stiffed.  Maybe your server is better at reading you than you think.

I’ll be honest, though, the real reason you should tip well is for entirely selfish reasons. I remember my pleasant and appreciative diners, and I also remember the high-maintenance diners that never tip over 15%. Who do you think I’m sending the new appetizer on the menu even though they didn’t order it? Who do you think I’m bringing tastes of wine? Who’s getting the table in the packed reservation list? Who’s getting styled out and looking studlier in front of their dashing date while other repeat customers are nursing their house white without the extra love?

One theory of the etymology of the word “tip” is that it’s an acronym for “to insure promptness.” That might not work the first time around since you don’t tip us until the end, but I can assure you, paying it forward reaps benefits. And for someone who’s self-admittedly cheap, I would think free stuff would be reason enough to toss a few extra dollars our way.

I’m going to be 24 tomorrow. That’s firmly in my mid-twenties. That’s firmly in the age group where it’s suddenly not as okay to be talking about a lack of life plans. Here is my happy birthday to me post.

I’m just gonna say it, graduation was a hoax.

I’ll never forget how I felt that day. When I was walking across the stage to receive that diploma cover (I’d get the real thing in the mail after my final grades were entered), I felt cool, calm, collected, and ready to take on the world.  I was leaving an epic 4 years, childhood, paper-writing, exams, terrible hangovers, and bad decisions behind to embrace the world of finance and my future.

That feeling lasted maybe 6 minutes.  Now, it’s about 3 years later and I feel more like this:  hey college, you warm, snuggly, slightly alcoholic blanket.  Take me back.  Please?  Turns out paper-writing and exams beat actual work work, and the terrible hangovers and bad decisions don’t go away.  Plus now I just live with this incredible uncertainty wondering if I am in fact moving myself toward a fulfilling future.  That’s fun.  I’m sure it’s doing wonders for my health and well-being.

Perhaps you have been better about post-graduation plans than I have, but I’ve spent the past three years chasing a whim, declaring I’ve learned a lesson, and following another whim. My experiences are varied:  I’ve led a culture and language team, crunched numbers for a financial consulting company, sold wine to consumers, sold wine to restaurant and liquor store owners, scrubbed ovens, reviewed restaurants, made reservations for luxury hotels, incorporated a business, and cocktail waitressed.  As my grandma says, I’m going to have to start carting my resume around in a wagon.

Varied though these experiences may be, the result is always the same:  decisiveness in pursuing a whim, euphoria at my impulsive actions, irritation over the fact that whatever I pursued wasn’t the magic happy bullet.  So, you know, repeating a decision over and over and over and expecting a different outcome.  I think that’s actually the definition of insanity.

Because I can, I’m going to blame this one in some part on my parents.  “You can do anything,” they’d tell me, “You’re so smart.  You can be a doctor or a lawyer or a politician or a professional athlete or an astronaut.  You want to fly?  You want to get a superpower or two?  You can do it!  You special girl, you.”

Assholes.  How in the HELL am I supposed to weed through the myriad of choices that I have in order to derive a career that will sustain me for a lifetime?  That’s a big old commitment to make.  And as I’m an experiential learner, I’m doomed, because I’m not really going to know if I’ll like something until I start to do it.

Add to this wealth of choice the fact that I don’t have just one motivation.  I’m so jealous of my friends who just want to make a lot of money.  Or just want to advocate on behalf of the less fortunate.  Or just want to take over the world by usurping political power from others. What I wouldn’t give to have one overpowering desire that would lead me toward venture capitalism, non-profit work, or politics.

But as it is, with no family business, overarching goal, special talent, or independent wealth, I have to navigate the trenches of indecision with just my cunning to protect me.  And that totally sucks.

I don’t think I would be concerning myself with any of this if it weren’t for the fact that I experienced a very real panic attack this summer.  Suddenly, after months of doing whatever I wanted to do at the very moment I wanted to do it, I became disgustingly interested in where I wanted to be in 10 years.  This is gross.  Mostly because I feel like the inevitable boring conclusion to that envisioned future is something along the lines of “living in a family home rearing kids while balancing a boring work-person job that involves a lot of conference calls.”  I hate conference calls.  And I also don’t really know how I feel about family homes, particularly if they’re situated in the suburbs.

I’d much rather picture myself jet-setting around the world, the key executor of some major component of a deal, only to get home to my swanky West Village apartment in time to cook dinner, talk to my kids about cultural outings and appropriate wine pairings for whatever dish I was preparing, and welcome my deliciously attractive husband home from his grueling day.  This would all probably take place in French, or maybe Italian.

As I write this, I’m mere months away from yet another life-changing decision. After a lot of soul-searching and plenty of irritating conversations with various sages in my life, I came full-circle to what I’ve always inherently known would be the last step along the way:  I want to be a lawyer.  Thus I’m going to law school.

I know what you’re asking in your brain because sometimes I ask it in my brain:  Is this really different?  Am I merely taking the plunge into another field, hoping it will be the magic bullet? Well, gentle reader, at the very least, I’ve exhausted all the other options, and I’m still back where I started. And happy bullet? Absolutely not. I’m expecting to hate moments in my law career. I’m expecting to write a lot of posts about the misery of my life in law school. Rather than acting on impulse, I feel more like I’m grudgingly at the end of a whimsical era, succumbing at last to the inevitable.

The school era closed with a cap and gown and crisp diploma, but this era will likely close much less ceremoniously. In a sense, I’m going to miss it. I can already tell I’ll be looking back at this period of my life thinking about how great the carefree journey really was. But as on that stage, I’m feeling cool, calm, and collected, ready to leave the hangovers behind. That’s probably not going to happen, but maybe I’ll at least be drinking more adult appropriate alcohol.

Some terrible things have happened today.

The first was a terrible thing that happens every Sunday: I’m at the office, bloated, slightly hungover, caffeinated, and generally miserable because my life is a joke.

I was more excited than usual to get to the office today, however, because I was looking forward to a productive Sunday of writing cover letters and craigslist postings and generally beginning the epic task that lies ahead of me: getting my shit together. In the 10 months of living in Boulder, my shit has become heinously scattered, probably because I’ve had no reason to have it all together. Entropy obviously ran its course, and now my shit is everywhere, and I’m sort of tired of that. So now I’m in a silly video game, gathering pieces of shit and putting them in my little bundle so as to move on with normal adult life. This metaphor has become filthy and disgusting.

In order to do that, I banned myself from all of my normal forums of entertainment which include, but are not limited to Facebook, gchat, textsfromlastnight.com, Twitter, thesartorialist.com, the Huffington Post, the New York Times online, Gawker, the Economist online, and this blog. As a total digression, yesterday was my favorite day of the year: The Economist outlook for 2010 arrived, and I almost cancelled my plans for the night to pore over the glossy pages of predictions that I will inevitably obnoxiously quote in arguments until at least April. I had to exercise A LOT of restraint to not bring that bad boy to the office today.

Clearly you can guess what happened because I’m writing a blog entry. Drowsy, I decided to check out the headlines, which turned into checking out all of my various websites, and then, irritably, there were a bunch of phone calls I had to answer, and now here I am, 4 hours into my day and not even one piece of shit gathered into my little bundle. Great. Hooray for today.

Frustrated with the way things were going, I decided to take a deep calming breath and partake in one of my favorite daily rituals: making a latte. The coffee machine at the office is unnecessarily fancy and initially incredibly intimidating. There are buttons everywhere. There are symbols everywhere. There is a large pointy stick thing that is used to heat milk and make foam. Normally, I would avoid this machine at all costs, act slightly superior for drinking black coffee, and secretly envy those who had mastered the machine to open up the world of free fancy espresso drinks. Normally. But when you’re sequestered in an office with a stupid little microphone around your neck all day, it suddenly becomes fun to learn difficult things, if only because it helps you kill a minute or 30.

My first experience with the fancy coffee machine was disastrous. My milk had no foam, the espresso sat there so long it got cold, and I had an intense urge to quit my job and move to a different city since the whole ordeal was witnessed by someone waiting to use the machine after me. They were likely laughing inside, immensely entertained while waiting to make their perfect latte. I was crying. The second time was better, except that I overcorrected my no-foam problem and ended up with a cappuccino. 3^rd time’s a charm, though, and having conquered technology, I decided to use it each and every day, sometimes multiple times a day, and have all the Starbucks lattes I could ever want absolutely 100% free. I even graduated to syrups and, for a real treat, mochas (non-fat, no-whip).

I look forward to this ritual. It is part of my routine. So when things go awry, like today, I get upset. The tragedy of today: there was no regular espresso in the machine. This may seem like a small problem to those of you who drink herbal tea, but I can assure you I need caffeine in order to avoid killing some unsuspecting ass hole who asks me a question about room rates or spa treatments, so decaf is not an option. Boring black coffee it was. I cursed at the latte machine, made my cup of joe, and promptly choked on it, spewed it all over the counter, and had a couple of terrifying minutes of wondering whether the scalding black liquid all up in my lungs was going to kill me. Hooray. Penance for my lack of productivity.

And now I’m writing this blog about it because I’m remarkably irritated.

On a semi-related note, only because it also happened today, it is never appropriate to talk to strangers in the bathroom when you’re in different stalls unless you have some dire emergency like you pooped your pants or cut off your hand. Telling me you put your shirt on inside out while I’m trying to make pee pee is not okay.

On a less related note, I had my first customer call center experience last night since starting this silly job. It was wonderful. I asked Marge at Xcel Energy all about her hopes, dreams, family life, and astrological sign.

About 8 months ago, I thought the biggest lesson I’d learned in my 23 years of life was that I am not an office job person. That might be sort of true. I am bad at sitting still while being subjected to stupid tasks. However, I’ve also found that I like having a 9-5 (or, you know, 7-7) schedule and weekends off. I also like an intellectual challenge on occasion. Though this can be fulfilled in part by other kinds of jobs, I’ve more or less submitted to the fact that I’m probably going to spend my career, when I stop pursuing every whim and start my career, in an office (enter law school).

So I’m back in an office getting used to the idea.

Here are some things about office life that I had forgotten:

That bloated morning feeling that means I’ve had a little too much coffee and didn’t get enough sleep. Every morning, I get a little stressed out because my pants don’t fit quite right, and I sort of feel like I need to eat some fiber. I sit at my desk in what can’t quite be considered misery, drinking water and hoping nature will call, allowing me to go on with my day. When you’re sleeping until 11 am because you work in a restaurant, you sort of skip over that whole morning feeling thing. Perhaps I should go to bed earlier or switch to herbal tea.

My caffeine tolerance being built to the point where I can drink 8 cups of strong coffee a day, sometimes on an empty stomach, and not freak out or throw up. It starts slow. I just grab a cup of coffee in the morning on the way to work because I’m a little tired and need to be sort-of-aggressive-yet-very-charming Laura at the office. Then I find that I sort of like one of the coffees the office provides (in the case of my new job, the bold Starbucks blend they put in the machine that fancily brews an individual cup on the spot). Once I start to get a little bored, I decide I may as well have another cup of coffee, head down to the break room, and before I know it, I’ve had 8 cups without even thinking about it. Epic caffeine crash comes soon after, much like this:  http://theoatmeal.com/comics/caffeine

Break room music. Quit playing games with my heart, soft hits of the 90s. I oft wonder if the Backstreet Boys and Whitney Houston really constitute the lowest common denominator of my coworkers’ musical tastes. I’m not sure I’m totally complaining about this one; after all, I still remember the moves I choreographed in middle school to a variety of the songs that come on over the speakers. It makes it a little hard to take the whole thing seriously, though, when I’m doing a little ball-and-chain action over to my spot next to the window.

9000 emails a day that have no relevance whatsoever to my life. And the best part, getting those same emails FORWARDED to me from my boss, just to make sure I got it. “Did you get the memo?”

My office voice and small talk subjects. My office voice speaks slower, so as not to alarm anyone with my intensity, energetically, and at a slightly higher pitch. I use this voice frequently, particularly because I speak with a lot of people on the phone. As for small talk, I like to lure people into conversation about useless things, like their hobbies, “shredding gnar” on a “bluebird day,” and the compatibility of our astrological signs, in order to build rapport and sell them stuff. Cool, huh?  Note also that my obsession with office lingo is exacerbated by the fact that I now have to also know the ski industry lingo.

The amount of time everyone wastes. In the restaurant world, there is very little wasted time. You’re sprinting for 8 hours at a time because the VIP wants another glass of wine, Junior has eaten all 8 pieces of the bread you left for him, or you’re table has been sitting 30 seconds too long without getting their order taken. In the corporate world, I find that everyone wastes a lot of time. This is mostly because they have adult onset ADD and endless access to the internet. It’s like, do some work, check facebook, do a little more work, gchat with an old friend, work again for a minute or two, read the NYTimes online, and so on. Hey, I compulsively blog. I’m going to take advantage of this one. I have a feeling when I’m an associate, that wasted time isn’t going to exist. Perks of billing by the minute.

Just like a spoonful of sugar helps the medicine go down, interactive eye candy makes the work day go a whole lot better.

Before leaving my last job, I made a pro/con list. Firmly in the pro column was my work crush, or more specifically, my pair of work crushes, neither of whom I’d ever date (for a myriad of reasons), but both of whom made my daily employed existence a lot more interesting. Somehow, the daily grind is a lot better if during down time you can flirt (or, in my case, aggressively bait into argument) with someone you might drunkenly put the moves on at the holiday party.

I miss that. As I settle into my new jobs, I’m, quite frankly, seeking a replacement. In the spirit of that conquest, below is my personal ad. If you fit the bill, feel free to apply.

SWF seeks M for work crush purposes. Need not be single, white, or interested in me. Attractiveness helps, biting sarcasm helps more. Time during work hours will be spent arguing, flirting, making fun of each other, and occasionally making eye contact over something we both find unbelievably stupid. Time spent together outside of work hours not encouraged or required. Since you must present the possibility of a drunken bad decision at required work events, it helps if you’re tall, slightly awkward, sarcastic, smart, and dark-haired, because then you represent my type. I also have a history of making passes at guys who wear glasses. Interested parties inquire by awkwardly worded office email or by subtly making fun of me while doing me unnecessary favors.

It probably goes without saying that law school apps make anyone a glass case of emotions. All the workings of a nervous breakdown are present: the prospect of major transition, the torture instrument called the LSAT, and the scramble to get apps sent as early as possible. But here’re the stupid things I’ve done to further toy with my feelings: signed up for the recruiting service and researched schools.

The recruiting service is a nice idea. It theoretically gives schools access to candidates they’d like to see gracing the hallowed halls of their institutions. Schools often show their interest by waiving application fees, an extremely delightful feature for any applicant dreading shelling out thousands of dollars to electronically submit a couple of pieces of paper. Most of the schools that have waived my fee are schools I’d likely never attend because they’re in places like Tulsa. Given my compulsion toward international law, I have a hard time imagining any international experience happening in land-locked states. But a couple of schools in the top 20 (and on coasts!) have sent me a treasured email noting they’ve waived that fee. Sure, it makes me feel good. Sure, it boosts my ego. If they’re waiving my fee, they totally want me to come there, right? Except that this false confidence is inflating my hope of where I get in (I’m OBVIOUSLY Harvard-bound if I get my fee waived by a top 20 school, right?), so when the rejection letters come back, I’ll be especially crushed. Cruel, cruel world.

The research is my own fault. There are a couple of international law programs out there that have especially extensive and especially geeky courses. Of course, that makes me foam at the mouth, staring at my computer screen slack-jawed enjoying the intellectual foreplay. So I get obsessive. I want to know EVERYTHING about those schools. I read all the profiles, watch all the stupid little videos, and memorize the school stats so I can throw them into everyday conversation:

Person: “How’s it going today?”

Laura: “Oh, not bad, but did you know NYU was founded in 1835?”

Person: “What?”

Laura: “Oh, no big deal, I was just thinking about the fact that the Georgetown Law Library has 1,075 seats.”

This extensive obsessing leads to finding out things I don’t want to know. For instance, perusing some profiles of current students at NYU made me realize that while I’ve been screwing around in the world of wine, business, and burritos, my fellow applicants have been curing cancer, studying soil in Antarctica, feeding orphans by hand in Rwanda, and learning to speak every language in the world, ever. It’s cool, though, I can totally tell you the difference between California and Burgundy Chardonnay. I’m sure that’s going to speak to my future success as a lawyer. I obviously am as qualified to attend the schools of my dreams.

Bear with me, dear friends, in this period of darkness. Someday I’ll represent your interests as you navigate the legal ropes and all this law school drama will be behind me. But until then, tread lightly. My ego is fragile.