Manic Monday #165

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What's the best summer job you ever had?

The only summer job I ever had was hostessing at a 'fine dining' chain restaurant. I hated it. I hated it with a passion. It was so bad. The serving staff was annoying and whiny, the four (FOUR!) managers each had a different viewpoint on what I should be doing, how I should be doing it, how many people I should seat, whether or not to follow the new regulations...I would be obeying one, only to get chewed out by the other and while being chewed out, a third would come and seat another family with NO regard for what was going on in the restaurant. It was miserable. I cried. I occasionally made servers cry. I got yelled at a lot, and when I wasn't being yelled at, I was being ignored and/or talked about. Which did nothing to improve my sheer incompetence. How I could have been so bad at seating people at tables, I do not know, because I am a rather competent individual. But oh dear lord, was that a dreadful experience.

Y'all. It sucked. It was terrible.

I went on a family vacation sometime toward the end of July, for a week, and toward the end of the trip when I called to find out what my shifts were for the coming week, I was put on hold, transferred twice, and then finally informed that I had been taken off the roster. PEOPLE. They TOOK ME OFF THE ROSTER and never even bothered to TELL me! I was relieved, to say the least, once I was done being pissed off.



Tell me about the worst date you ever went on.

The worst date I ever went on happens to be the first time I ever got dumped. We were at Carowinds (like Six Flags or Busch Gardens minus the animals, for all you non-Paramount Parks people) and we were 17. It was the weekend after our 2 weeks of band camp, and senior year classes started at some point in the week ahead. I'd taken him to the park because I had a season pass and some guest tickets to use up. We were having what I thought was a pretty good day, but after a few hours we made our way out of the park, and I noticed he wouldn't hold my hand or look at me or anything.

Once we made it to the parking lot, he broke up with me. He told me that while we were waiting in line for concessions earlier that afternoon, 'The Holy Spirit' told him it was time to end our dating relationship.

The holy spirit, my foot. More like..well, nevermind.

We'd been dating for something like 7 months, and we'd been best friends for about 2 years previously. Our relationship was far from perfect and I'd been through the whole breakup debate myself, but I (being one to forgive too easily and be excessively hard on myself) decided I was being too sensitive to his 'flaws' and that I should stick with it. The fact that he had clearly taken an interest in someone else (a freshman, mind you) had sent me into an even fiercer inner debate in recent days. I had decided to break up with him, but my mom convinced me that doing so just before classes started was cruel or something like that, so I figured I'd wait it out a little longer and see what happened. Well, I got ditched for a 14 year old. That's what I got for caring, I guess.

Did I mention that we'd driven to the park together? In MY car? Which meant that I had to sob my way home, cooped up, with him right there next to me? And that it was a 45-ish minute drive? Mothers: teach your sons not to do this to a girl. Of all the memories I ever made with that person, the only one I remember is THAT one.

He was one of those weird cases who was a great friend - very loyal and dedicated and easy to get along with - but a terrible boyfriend - demanding and pushy and 'I am the MAN and you are the WOMAN and this is how it shall be.' AND, he really did not get why his dumping me for someone else and then making out with said other person all over school caused me to lose interest in our friendship.

From what I hear from our mutual friends, he did some major growing up in the years during/immediately after college. And he recently got married, so props to him!! I still can't pass a car of the same make/model that he drove without chuckling, though.



Do you think the age for a driver's license should be raised (currently 16 here in the U.S.)?

I go back and forth on this. On the one hand, I say YES, teenagers are stupid and reckless and 16 is so much younger these days than it was in decades past, and look at the accident rates and blah blah blah. On the other hand, I do realize that I have never yelled at a 'stupid kid' on the road. Most of the people who I see behaving badly behind the wheel are either in college or are middle-aged. And we do NOT need to raise the driving age to 50, I promise.

Ultimately, though, I think all the rights, responsibilities, and privileges of 'adulthood' need to be bestowed at the same time. This means everything from voting rights, to income tax, to driving, to substance acquisition, to eligibility for the draft and for marriage licenses, should hit at the same time. At age 16 you're old enough to drive, pay taxes, and get married, but not old enough to vote or drink a beer? Come on now.