All is Well That Ends Well

I have decided to put Cru to bed.

As all of you are aware, its been one thing after the next with that place since day one. The straw that broke the camels back was when I showed up for day 2 of my training and the manager WASNT THERE! A phone call was made and he asked me to come back in two hours to meet him. Keep in mind Id taken the day off from ACS specifically for this meeting. Sure, I love having the day off but I had a plan and a timeline to work with, and he ruined it with his "miscommunication"

I said I would come back to meet with him and so I did. I arrived at 3 PM for the notorious mandatory all staff meeting (the main reason I had so much trouble balancing my two schedules) and stayed until 6 PM for additional training. The longer I sat there, watching people come in and out and order tons of food and wine, the less comfortable I felt. When I was told I would be opening an average of 10 bottles of champagne every Thursday night, I freaked out. I am NOT good at opening champagne. Sure, I could learn- but whose eye would I take out along the way? My own? No thanks. I was also told the position in which to lay the napkins, at what degree the wine flights were to be set down, how they would be best carried, how to hold the different bottles, and which wine would be served in which glass. Dont get me wrong, all of these things, in time, would most likely become second nature to me and would seem minute compared to the cold hard cash I would be making but I couldnt help but wonder what I would be giving up to work there. I asked a waiter what time he made it home on a weeknight and at what hour he was free to meet up with his friends on the weekends. His answer was "I get home around midnight on the week nights and Im lucky to get out of here by 1230 or 1 AM on the weekends"- THATS what stopped me dead in my tracks. I simply cannot invest that much time in a second job. I cannot be staying up that late, only to turn around and come into work at ACS and have the patience to do my job.

Id had a nagging feeling that all this trouble along the way was the universe's way of telling me it just wasnt meant to be, Cru was not going to work well- and everyone knew it but me. I was so determined to make it work and found myself justifying things that just seemed crazy.

So the moral of the story is... trust your instincts.

Im not giving up on the idea of a second job. Nor am I giving up hope that I will find another, better paying full time job... but in the mean time, I will most likely take on a silly job to pass the time and to drum up dollars. I have applied at Crate and Barrel, Williams Sonoma, James Avery and quite a few more. If you throw enough stuff at the wall, eventually something will stick, right?