It's bad form to scream at the guests. Technically, you're not even supposed to swear at them under your breath.

I really wanted to say, just once, "Well, asshole, my Christmas would be a hell of a lot merrier if you weren't standing there." Or maybe just "Fuckyoufuckyoufuckyou!" Simple, but eloquent.

Area Supervisor had called the restaurant at 10am. Maybe this was supposed to make me think that he was working on the holiday too. Fazuul was scheduled to be open till 6pm. He said he really hoped we'd be done cleaning up and on our way home by 6:30. It's important that we get to be with our families, he said. I assured him that I also really hoped we could do that.

At 4pm, I had everything done that I could reasonably do without inconveniencing myself. I'd even made people do most of the dishes. (There was a dishwasher scheduled 4-close. He's differently abled, or whatever the current PC term is. He works really slowly, and has to be reminded to get back to work practically constantly.)

My closing staff was one manager trainee, Dishboy, and me. It had been ridiculously slow all day, so I let the people scheduled till 4 go home.

At 5 FUCKING 30, the rush happened. There were more guests in that last half hour than there had been in the entire day up till then. I am not even kidding. At 6 when I locked the door, there were still 10 orders that had not been made yet. It sucked, more than any Fazuulian shift has ever sucked before. I had Dishboy as my Breadstick Fairy, which is hilarious in ways you cannot even imagine. (Traditionally, the "service leader" has to be specially trained, and it's kind of a big deal when someone becomes qualified to hand out the breadsticks in the dining room. This was my training of Dishboy: "OK, these are breadsticks. This is a basket, these are tongs. THAT is a dining room full of angry people who need breadsticks so they will stop yelling at me. Do you understand? OK, go.")

We finally left the restaurant at 8. Not 6:30. This meant that Rijid and I left Madison at 9pm, and arrived in MO at 4:30 am. At 7am, we were awakened because his cousins were leaving in a hour. Xmas Eve is traditionally the main celebration for his family, and I made him miss it for the first time in his whole life, because when I started in J-ville in Sept, all the other managers had already asked off.
***
I will not work on Christmas Eve again. This I swear, right now. Ideally, I accomplish this by somehow having a job that doesn't make working on holiday weekends mandatory.

I've pretty much told myself that I can't look for a new job till at least the brain payments go away, and maybe most of the credit cards too. That could all happen this year, if the tax returns are good.

If I don't have a new job by say, August 1, I will request off for Xmas Eve that day. I am NOT going to do that ever again.


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