If You're Happy and You Know It, Clap Your Hands

*CLAP* *CLAP*

(I know, I'm a nerd!)

Today was a good day. These are some of the things that made me smile:

~A dad playing hopskotch with his little girl in our office

~The pitter-patter of little feet running around the office, accompanied by happy squeals and laughter

~The discovery of Sweet Rush Yogurt - a local "build-your-own" frozen yogurt dessert place (I still have to go, but at least I found it!)

~Sweet, soft voices of toddlers

~A comment from my boss: "Should I know who _______ is?" (ommited for confidentiality)

~Watching my brother graduate from Fire Academy (I am so proud of him!)

~Spending time with my brother and Rachel

~The comment from David: I've been looking forward to this day for a long time...the day you would pick up the tab.

Things that made me frown: traffic.

What made you smile today?!

The Daily Grind

- Get up no later than 6:10am.
- Spend 45 minutes driving to work in traffic, feeling annoyed.
-Work for 8 hours with a 1 hour lunch break that usually involves a 30 minute walk (much needed!)
- Spend an hour driving home in traffic, feeling more annoyed than I do in the morning (because it's more crowded).
- Go to they gym for at least an hour, sometimes more.
- Shower, cook and eat dinner, pack lunch and clothes for the next day, chat with my roommate (in any order).
- Check email, watch TV, surf the net, read...for usually no more than 30 minutes, if at all.
- Go to bed and do it again the next day.

Possible variations:
1. Get up at 5:00-5:15am and work out before work so my evening is free. (What I would do with it, hard to say, but maybe grocery shop or do laundry. Fun fun.)
2. On Tuesdays I go to Donnie's and we eat dinner together and watch The Biggest Loser, usually while enjoying some sort of sweet treat (ironic, right?).
3. Thursdays I generally do something different in the evening: hang out with Donnie, get a drink with the girls, watch a video on where our food comes from (an event sponsored by Whole Foods, which I'm doing this Thursday)...you know, something different.
4. Sadly, I think that's about it.

This is not to say that I don't like my job, because I do; I really do. It's interesting, engaging, and different every day. Plus I get to interact with people constantly, counsel people in optimal nutrition practices, and work with people from the low-income population and from various cultures. I just feel like I hardly have a life outside of work anymore because between my commutes, work, exercising, showering, and eating, I have about an hour of time before I need to sleep to have energy to do it the next day. I only have time for work and taking care of my most basic needs in the day. That is not how a life should be lived abundantly. I think I need to re-evaluate my situation and change something (most likely my location of residence) to better satisfy myself. But then that presents the problem of finding a new roommate (always a tricky situation), which I don't want to do anyway because I really like my current roommate. Ah, such the conundrum. I'll deal with it another day though; I need to get to bed to start the grind again.

It Pays to be Honest

But this time it did the exact opposite, literally. At least I'll be able to sleep with a peaceful mind tonight.

Today I worked a double shift at Chili's. That's from 10:30 am to about 9:00 pm with only a 30 minute break in between shifts. I guess towards the end of that I was starting to get a little scatter-brained because at one point I "blacked-out." Here's what happened.

Let me start by saying that when someone pays for their meal there are a few ways it can be completed. If credit card is used, I run the card, return the receipt, and then close the check after the tip is written and receipt signed. If cash is used, I change out the money using my own "bank" of money that I bring each shift, return the change, and simply close out the check, which means the bill has been accounted for and I have the money. They then tip using cash, if anything. I usually wait to close the bill until I have collected their tip (even though I can close it right away) just because that is when I would close the bill if credit card is used, and that helps to keep everything the same and in line in my mind.

So tonight a customer paid in cash, I changed it out, and then waited to close their bill until I collected the tip. Well they stayed around for a little bit just chatting, and by the time they left and I went to close their bill I had apparently completely forgotten what happened because I went to close their check and I couldn't. It said they still owed me money for their bill. I racked my brain trying to remember how they paid for their meal and I kept remembering them paying by credit card. (At this point two things should have tipped me off that they paid in cash, a) I had cash for a tip, and b) there was no credit card number in the payment area. But I felt positive they used a card and remember, this was a long day for me. My brain was seemingly elsewhere.) After a minor mental freak-out, I went to my manager and told her that I was missing a payment for these people, but I didn't know how that happened (they didn't seem like the kind to dine-and-dash). I asked her if that meant I would have to pay for their meal out of my tips, and she said that she would just "comp" the customers meal (that is Chili's policy, I guess). I told her not to do it right away because I wanted go through my book and pockets again to make sure I hadn't missed the payment somewhere (as in a large amount of cash I wouldn't normally have).

Of course then things started to get busy, and you can't start a new check at the same table if the check from the previous guest hasn't been closed out, so she "comped" the meal and the night went on. At the end of the night after checking out with the manager I went to count my tips and clock-out. As I was counting my tips though I realized I had much more than was reasonable to have made in one Sunday night -- forty dollars more. It was at this point that I realized the mysterious missing payment must have been paid for in cash and I simply forgot to close the check. Now I had two options: leave with a hefty amount of tips or tell my manager what I imagined happened. Naturally, I told her. (This is where honesty literally didn't pay.) After the embarrassment of explaining myself, she told me to keep it! I was shocked, but even then I didn't feel right about keeping the money. I mean $40 isn't much to a huge chain restaurant, but I still would have felt guilty having the restaurant "comp" the meal only to let me keep the payment for it because I had had a senior moment (no offense). In the end, I asked her if she could just keep it and put it in the safe so at least the company had the money for the food they "comped," and that's what she did. Then she said, "Just be more careful next time."

Really?! Not even a thank you? I mean I didn't expect her to get down on her knees and praise me. After all, I had made a mistake and I should be more careful, but I still thought she would at least say thanks or something for my honesty and for taking responsibility for my mistake. (I don't think most of the other servers would have told her, and not because they're bad people but because many of them talk about how broke they are and forty extra bucks would be helpful. Then again, they probably wouldn't have made the mistake in the first place.) So even in a non-literal sense it didn't pay to be honest tonight. I think any one of the other managers would have recognized my honesty and acknowledged it, but not this one. Oh well, I guess I can't win them all.



Footnote: As I retold this story here, it seems completely obvious all along that the customer paid by cash, but somehow that just didn't cross my mind at the time. Maybe I was afraid of the possibility that they actually hadn't paid, and if I closed their check by cash that would mean I would lose a lot if not all my tips paying for their meal. That fear must have blinded me from the obvious truth. Anyway, I feel okay about it all because in the end Chili's got the money that was rightfully theirs.

It's Over...

...All the waiting and hoping and applying and praying for a job that is.

That's right friends, I have a real job!! You're looking (in a cyber sort of way) at the new dietitian for the Tri-County Health Department WIC office in Denver (at just one of the many locations). I am so excited you couldn't possibly understand.

And I guess good things come in threes because today my dad got in town for a ski trip, so I get to see him; and bonus, I finally got a response from the lady in charge of the Operation Frontline program who would love to have me come volunteer with them, which I would still love to do even though I now also have a job. Operation Frontline is the Denver program of Share Our Strengths, which is a program that works with children and low-income families to make sure they have food and are educated about food and nutrition. One of the volunteer tasks is teaching nutrition classes to children. This is right up my alley, and I am still very interested in and excited about volunteering with them. SO, I plan to do that as well. Things are falling in to place wonderfully, and I can't thank the Lord enough.

An Observation

So, although I really enjoy serving, there is one thing about it that bugs the heck out of me. I'm curious to know what first popped into your head as the thing that most likely annoys me, but because I'd like to just get this off my chest, I'm going to tell you right now....

It's the majority of the other servers. It's seems like all they do is bitch and complain about the guests, the side work, the other employees - everything! I think they'd all be a little happier if instead of grumbling about things, they would just fix whatever seems to be bothering them, whether that involves talking to another employee, refilling the ice or chips, or giving the guest something to be happy about if that guest isn't happy. A little attitude adjustment can go a long way in making a day better, but if I threw that bit of advice out as the "newbie," I'm sure they'd just get mad and complain about that as well.

My New Job

Today was my first day serving at Chili's completely on my own. I'd served during my training, but today I didn't have a trainer and I actually got to keep my tips. Anyway, there were some goods and some bads (naturally one of the goods was getting to keep my own tips).

The bad -
A party of 40 came in and was seated in my area. Normally this could be a good thing in terms of tips, but this group was a high school swim team and each person wanted their own check. Thus you get about $1 or $2 tip from each person when the total bill would actually warrant a much larger tip. (I promise I'm not a greedy person; I just need to be able to support myself and this is my only job right now.) This was also bad because these tables are very demanding in that everyone needs drinks and food at the same time; it's not staggered as it would be if separate tables were seated in your section spreading out the demands. And because it's so demanding, other people aren't sat in your section. Overall, frustrating and tiring.

The good -
The director (of Chili's, I guess) was at our restaurant and realized we were not going to get tipped properly for all our hard work, so he/she asked for the bills from our tables and tipped us accordingly ("us" being the multiple servers taking care of the party). So not only did we get the tips from the guests, but we also got a tip from the director. It really worked out great.

Also, a little girl at one of my tables told me she wanted to tell me something and leaned towards me as if she was going to tell me a secret. So I bent down and she whispered in my ear, "You're really pretty." That pretty much made my night.

At Last!

I finally got a job! I'm going to be a server at Chili's. I know it's nothing special, and I probably won't get many shifts per week; but at least it's something. Hopefully I'll be able to get a full-time job working for a bank, and between the two jobs I'll be able to make decent money. The coolest part about this though, is how I got the job at Chili's...

As you know, it's about impossible right now to get a job doing anything. The economy sucks, plain and simple. So after walking in to a bunch of restaurants and applying on the spot, I still hadn't had any luck in getting an interview, let alone a job. On I trudged, into Buffalo Wild Wings. I figured I could make good money there considering it's the only one in the area, and people just love eating wings and drinking beer while watching sports. (My thoughts were later confirmed by the manager - servers make about $700 a week!) Anyway, I began filling out an application, and while doing so, was told that the manager would be out to talk to me in a minute. He finally made an appearance and after some small talk and looking over my resume he told me he didn't have any positions open, go figure. However, while he was looking at my 'honors and activities' section of my resume, he said, "You're smart too! I don't even know you and I'm proud of you." I thanked him and we continued to chat, and finally he said something to the effect of: Well I don't have any positions open, but I wish I did. I just gave a job to one of our bartender's sons and he doesn't even really need a job. You know what, hang out here and let me go make a couple of calls. I know the manager at Chili's and maybe he can help you out.

At this point, I decided to not mention that I had just been to the Chili's he was talking about the day before and they told me they were only hiring cooks. I just let him go make the call. When he came back, he told me that he had talked to the manager at Chili's and told me the jist of their conversation, "I told him you're very well educated, pretty, and you just seem like a good girl. He told me to send you over there, he'll talk with you and then take it from there. When you get there, just tell him I sent you." He also gave me some tips about the Chili's manager's personality and what to do to impress him. I thanked him and headed over to Chili's.

Once there, I had to go through all the formalities: fill out an application and complete a standard test. If I passed, they would call me in for an interview. Later that same day, they called me to set up my interview. Yesterday I went in and interviewed, and about an hour after returning home, I got the call with a job offer. (They really don't need me, they were basically doing this because the BWW's manager called and spoke with them. Maybe someone will leave soon and I'll get more shifts than they currently think I will.)

Regardless of the number of shifts I get each week, I have a job. And I owe a huge thanks to the manager at Buffalo Wild Wings. I've always known that having connections is the way to land a job, especially now, but being new to the area I didn't have many connections. Thank God this man who didn't even know me was kind enough to take an interest in me and my situation. If not for him, I'm sure I'd still be searching. I need to make sure to send him a thank you this week!

I Hear Sleigh Bells

I don't know about you, but I definitely still believe in Santa Claus. As you may or may not know, I've been unsuccessfully searching for a job for about 4 months now. Jokingly, I said I wanted a job for Christmas, clearly something no one could actually get me. BUT in the past two weeks things have really been happening. I've been called in for interviews, and I may even have multiple job offers coming. My luck has really turned around, and in the spirit of Christmas I'm giving credit to good old Kris Kringle. Thanks Santa!! (Don't worry, I know the real reason for the season is Jesus...and I love him more than Santa.)

Frustrated

So I know I've only had my credentials for a week, but I've been searching for a job for much longer. It's been months and I've still got nothin'. It's really starting to get me down. I'm one of those kinds of people that has to be busy all the time and has to have goals and projects and whatnot, and I feel like I'm just at a standstill. I can't really invest my money towards my interests when I have none to spare. It's really frustrating. Please pray for something to come my way soon! Thanks.