That includes the following:
- skipping after school activities that my parents paid for to watch Cartoon Network. More than once or twice
- getting way to comfortable in my previous relationship and gaining all that weight
- writing this awful bullying piece of 'fiction' out of hatred for one of my classmates who used to wind me up constantly when I was about 12. And getting found out for it
- wearing everything I wore circa 2004-2007
- being a McDonald's employee for more than 3 years
- not being promoted once while in that job
I could continue but this is already a fair amount of embarrassment. And trust me, while trying to think of items to put on this list, I uncovered some really deeply concealed memories that I wish I could erase, and that I will never remind anyone or openly talk about in general...
Anyhow, the thing that made me write this post is a conversation I had with my sister about an hour ago. Out of pure curiosity as to what she'd say to it, I sent her a Now Hiring from one of my favourite Lithuanian festival foods - Beaver's Pancakery (rough translation). My sister is in her final year of uni, and what I expected her to say was something along the lines of 'piss off, I'm too busy writing my dissertation'. However, what I got back felt like a slap on the face as it was so unexpected.
The initial response was 'I don't want to work with food any more, ya'know'. So jokingly, thinking she was being facetious, I went 'yeah, that's obvs too low for you now, won't go below management level'... What came next was like a fucking grand-piano dropping right onto my head. 'Well, you see, all that fake smiling and pretending to be friendly, it's just not for me!', she said.
I couldn't believe what I was reading. Initially I took that response as personal offence - I worked in an absolute craphole of a job kissing fat chavs' arses for nearly four years, and she was fully aware of it! Is that what you think of me? That THAT was my bloody calling for all those years?
I went to argue and in a way - stand my ground. I asked whether she thought anyone working in the service industry, the minimum-paid jobs, whether any of those people thought it was for them. I said to her 'everyone's got to start somewhere...', meaning you have to have experience sweating away in a kitchen in order to eventually escape it. She then added up all her work time (which was all in the service/food industry) to 4-5 months and said 'well, of course, but I have already started', implying that after those 4 months, the only way is up. She told me that the few months she did work as a waitress was enough for her to realise it wasn't for her.
Once again, I was shocked, but didn't continue the conversation. Her rhetoric reminded me so much of the people you see on those horrible fury-inducing programmes about people on benefits. It's now been some time since this chat happened but I haven't stopped thinking about what she said.
As if we had actually been brought up in the same household with the same values and expectations?! I'm aware I said that I didn't want to work in food more than a dozen times last time I was job-hunting, but by that time I had already graduated, had years of minimum-wage customer facing experience under my belt, and had moved out and been fully supporting myself for longer than 2 years. My sister, however, hasn't had to work in order to survive for a day in her life, she has not moved out and I definitely don't see that happening any time soon. Whenever she did have a job, it was just part time and as far as I'm aware, it wasn't her only income, i.e., mum and dad would still give a little bit of pocket money - and obviously she never paid rent.
I am sitting here completely baffled. Isn't she sick of being stuck living with our parents? She always tells me she is. Isn't there any urgency of becoming independent? Does she actually feel that her degree from a way-below-par university will provide her with an open road for career-building? Or is she just so deluded she thinks everyone out there is following their true calling, and only does jobs that are meant for them?
I can't say I'm proud of having worked at McDonald's for that long, that's why it's on the list. But I definitely do not regret it one bit. Aside from the fact that I met some truly brilliant people there, it taught me some valuable life lessons. The most important of all - you have to work in the service industry for some time to understand what it means to be a decent person. There's so much truth in the saying that a person who is nice to you but rude to the waiter is not a nice person! I learned that in order to succeed you don't just have to be good at what you do. Sometimes you have to be good at playing other people too. Most times the world isn't fair and that's just the way it is, hence why, you're better off playing the game than sitting silently in the corner doing your job perfectly well. It taught me just how completely appalling people who can work but won't are. Because at points when I was scrubbing disgusting day's worth of grease (and believe me, that's a lot of grease) off an extractor fan at 3am in ice cold water, I certainly wasn't thinking that this job is my true calling and that is the reason why I'm in it. Because when I was putting on an ill-fitting polo that had already been washed twice and still reeked of sweat, I definitely didn't think this job is what I want to do for the rest of my life. Because when some benefit scrounging scumbag shouted at me and called me a thick cunt for not giving him enough dipping sauce, I never thought 'this job is meant for me'.
I was thinking that to me, as an educated twenty-something, freeloading just wasn't an option.
And I still can't believe that to my sister, it is.
