Changing of the Gaurd

I didn't survive my first regime change.

My big break into restaurants was getting hired at Pacific Desserts during Nutcracker season. It was a three week crash course in espresso, sections, busy rushes and the joy of walking home with a pocket full of cash. Then I learned the business was closing. They had tried to sell, and I'd like to think if the sale had gone through I might still work there, but it didn't. I was back looking for a job, but suddenly, magically, I had "restaurant experience."

My next restaurant job lasted a little longer, serving ramen and gyoza at this little noodle cafe on Capitol Hill. It was a good college job, a good stepping stone up the restaurant food chain, but it also went under and closed with very little notice. I was beginning to feel I might be cursed.

From there I spent more time than I care to admit running the register and stabbing frozen meet with tongs at the Mongolian Grill. The job had very little to do with the kind of restaurant work I was interested in, the hours were long and sporadic, the management difficult, and I got hit on more than I have in any job before or since. When I was finally able to quit, I immediately went out and bought myself a drink.

I quit because I'd managed to find a real restaurant job, with tips, at a little Japanese place in Wallingford. It suited me, with its twelve small tables, and opportunities to practice my fast decaying grasp of the Japanese language. Not long after I'd started, though, I learned that the place was going to be sold. My heart sank, but I was luckier this time. They found a buyer, the new owner wanted to keep the restaurant going, even keep the name, and any staff that chose to stay. I stayed. I stayed four years, through a few different sushi chefs, many different servers, menus and decor changes. I finally left for a job where I could work days, freeing up my nights to reenter the theater arena.

I've already said a few choice things about the establishment that followed. (Turnover.) While it did allow me to pursue theater, it in no way changed the patterns of unease and people coming and going all around me.

In fact I'm beginning to think that there is no escaping those patterns. When I landed my current job  a year ago it had just undergone a change of ownership.  A few months after I started the new owner fired the manager, and never hired new one, simply taking on a few of her duties himself and delegating the rest among the servers. Currently the kitchen employs only two of the chefs who were there when I started, and both of them have quit and been rehired during the course of the year.

Its shaky ground. I suppose I shouldn't expect less working in an industry with no contracts and no benefits. The plethora of available jobs and the ability to come and go as you please is one of the few perks available to restaurant workers. That and the tips. Perhaps the only reason I insist on bucking the trend, staying with the same job for years at a time is that there is a significantly smaller subset of restaurants that work with my scheduling needs. Or perhaps it's the memory of those first couple jobs, where staying for years wasn't ever an option.