WELCOME TO HELLS KITCHEN

hmm... The restaurant business had been fine for me with Saltlik Steakhouse, but I thought I needed more shifts and a bit more of a challenge. So I went on good old craigslist to find a second job. What was this I found? $10 an hour tuesday to saturday. Looked interesting and thought I've been able to handle hell at Saltlik then I'll be able to handle this with ease.

DISCOVERY ONLINE
I check out the restaurant online to see if its a grungy type of place or not. Well it was definitely not grungy. This was apparently one of the top fine dining experiences in vancouver. I was actually quite honoured to be in such a nice place because i figured I wouldn't eat there in my life. Well anyways Sous Chef comes out to greet me and he seems like a nice guy. Nothing wrong with him at all a nice well manored gentlemen who was a chef. As my interview went on I really felt confident that I would be able to fill this void as their dishwasher. From the looks of it they looked like they were going to hire me right on the spot with my confidence. Interview went splendid and they asked me to come in for a "trial shift."

CALM BEFORE THE STORM
The day of the trial shift things just got out of hand straight from the beginning. I felt a strange vibe right from the get go walking into the restaurant. Similar to the feeling of when you think death is about to approach(RIP Michael Jackson). The front of the house looked great. Not too big of a restaurant, everything set up exquisitely, I thought to myself "damn my future mercedes looks real nice now."But of course there had to be a catch somewhere here, it was just too good to be true. And I found what the catch was.

THE KITCHEN.
never had I experienced hell just by looking at it. The size of the kitchen was the size of mine with 15 other workers. There was no afternoon dishwasher really so all the pots and pans from the morning and lunch time were stacked to the clouds. The walkways were so tight you swear a knife was ganna poke you. I thought to myself though.... WTF? The workers there looked so miserable it was painful to look at them. They looked like they didn't want to be there. But anyways I went on got changed and my trial shift had begun. With the pots and pans already stacked to the clouds I swear they got stacked to the heavens after I got changed. It was no sweat I thought though I do it all the time at Saltlik. WELL HELLO! It was a single tray dishwasher that was so limited in space I swear it would only fit one dish the size of my hand. Alright maybe not that small but you get the picture. Well as I began washing dishes in hell I thought I was doing great because i was loading and unloading and putting all the stuff away so fast you swear I was a bullet. As the Sous Chef was observing me, apparently my hand positions were wrong cleaning the damn pots and pans. WTF? ARE YOU SERIOUS? I swear I've been a dishwasher long enough to know when something is clean. Anyways it's damn common sense to see when it's clean. So after I was done doing it "his way" I did the works any dishwasher would do. Take out the trash, broke boxes like a champ, and waited. Observing the kitchen a bit I could see how everything was just so jumbled and thrown around. Everything was everywhere. I knew that things would get really insane here with stuff being placed just here and there but other chefs. Now at Saltlik things are put out in an orderly fashion, very professionally placed and visually easy to see for all the cooks. To think you'd expect the same from a fine dining restaurant. Nope. Not at all. This was when my pain and anger really began to start rising.

BUSINESS OPEN
Now the restaurant was opened to the customers. I tried to sort things out to my liking but I just could not get a grove with only being able to clean with one tray. They thought if they gave me a partner I would get more efficient. Nope. This guy just completely slowed me down. He was nice and all but I'm sorry he was just terrible. I could now see why they would need a new dishwasher. It was to the point i was slowed down 4+ trays. That's when I need I had it with the place. I told the guy I was done. I couldn't take this shit. It wasn't me being inefficent and cleaning and putting stuff away it was their inability to create a simple way of putting things that are the same together. I tried to do that for them but they just got pissed off. So I guess the restaurant business isn't for me.Saltlik is quite different but I feel my time could be comming to an end their although they've been great to me.Thanks "West Restaurant" for the trial though. It was cute while you idiots yelled at me for your damn bowls when it was in front you.

Peace. Love.

ARTuliao

no more early morning bagels
no more Generally Healthy Chicken for lunch
no more chances for the "Blue Banner"
no more PE basketball
no more time to live up to the "potential"
no more classes to dick around in (especially geo!)
no more of being able to look at that pretty face of hers everyday haha

shoot no more this and that? I'm excited and scared for what the damn future holds. But at least high school has given me the tools to be able to get through anything life throws at me. The ups and downs have only made me a stronger and smarter person. With all this excitement and fear I feel one quote fits in right about now.

"The world ain't all sunshine and rainbows. It's a very mean and nasty place... and I don´t care how tough you are, it will beat you to your knees and keep you there permanently, if you let it. You, me or nobody, is gonna hit as hard as life. But ain't about how hard you hit... It's about how hard you can get hit, and keep moving forward... how much you can take, and keep moving forward. That´s how winning is done. Now, if you know what you worth, go out and get what you worth. But you gotta be willing to take the hits. And not pointing fingers saying: You ain´t what you wanna be because of him or her or anybody. Cowards do that and that ain´t you! You´re better than that!" (Rocky Balboa)

I've probably written this somewhere on my blog before but hey it's a great quote I think to live by. "The world ain't all sunshine and rainbows" ya'll.

Peace Grad 09 it's been a fucking great ride
Cheers to all of you!

goals for this summer

• GET MONEY, GET PAID
• turn my volvo into a EURO TUNING MACHINE
• get ripped abs like on TV (probably not ganna happen. Curse you all you can eat!)
• p90x fatass!
  
• turn my room into a genuine man cave (fridge, flat screen, ps3, one of them mini ovens, plenty of booze)
• learn to play the uke and guitar (not guitar hero like last year...)
• Do whatever it takes to get rid of that thought of a certain something.. cause that dream ain't ganna happen.