If you hate your job so much, try being a coffee pot
The door creaks open and they pull me out. Goddamnit, it feels like I just got off and now it’s back to work again, one more night of serving those white-bread hippies, replacing everything they knock over. Oh and it looks like I’m working with Beth again. Last night she left me with the hockey team that kept slamming me around and I wonder who it will be this time. I’m still so sore that just filling up makes me ache. I glare up at that smug stuffed rooster guarding over the dusty window ledge, ready to sound the alarm if any of us drift off.
They take me for granted at this place; I don’t know why I still work here. I can’t help squinting when she drags me out into the bright glitzy light of the dining room. Looks pretty full tonight. First stop in laptop land. Those two girls are in here every week it seems, eying me all the time, just in case I spill anything on their precious equipment. They don’t even give me a second glance as I try not to sweat all over their neatly-stacked piles, as if I ever saw a decent tip from them anyway. No, Beth snatches the crumpled bills from under my nose again while I’m lost in the halogen drone. What a bitch. Looks like the guy in the booth doesn’t even want my help. Fine, just keep shoveling those fried eggs down, that’ll get you through the night just fine. Oh and spread another slab of butter on the toast why don’t you, we don’t get enough of that greasy spoon shit around here.
I find myself staring at the cold clean piles of snow on the sidewalk. Maybe I’ll sneak out for a break—follow the kid in the hoodie out of here and maybe he can bum me a smoke. But it looks like Tony beat me to it so I guess I gotta watch the counter for him. Of course he left it slick with sweat and butter residue and I can barely stand around here without slipping. One more slurred call for the waitress from the bartime runoff in the other room and I’m out of here ready to drift off to Radiohead again, lost in the buzz of the muted TV. All the customers seem pretty fixed on it. This is CNN in the morning brining you all the shit you can’t wait a few hours to read. Aw did I just sit in that? Hard to avoid these crusted plates when he leaves them piled up in the fucking sink.
Back to work already? It’s not my fault you dropped the cup the first time I poured it for you. Not that anyone else here even looked up at the shattering porcelain, another fallen comrade. Great, it’s the junior philosophers’ guild. Not gonna order anything else I’m sure but I’ll have to sit here all night and hear about how reductionism is manifest in the current split in the Anglican church. And you paid for the whole pot so of course you have to finish every drop while I sit here silently. How American of you.
The photos framed on the wall show the place when it was new and oh so pristine, when they didn’t call us in on the graveyard shift every weekend. Man those were the days. Faded away into lime-green stucco and coffee shop kitsch.
The neon clock glares at me as I slump over into a pile of dirty napkins. Another hour till quitting time. These assholes sit hear pretending to slave away these long nights and come in here to prove it. I’ve got their elixir though, and I can take it away as soon as I can pour it. What, do they think they’re fueled by their own ambition or something? One of these days they’ll realize that, cause I’m not gonna give it to them. Maybe I’ll go on strike. The revolution will come, and none of them will have the strength to fight us off. They can barely slump their way out of a chair before I come over to the table.
Fuck it. A job is a job I guess.
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