When you work in a restaurant, you often find yourself in the midst of very ugly situations between the employees and customers. Those are the moments when the employee must learn how to keep his/her composure and solve the problem as speedily as possible. The only way to do so successfully is by divorcing one's self from the emotions and stress, and be EXTREMELY decisive. As my teacher Audrey's said once, this is all in part of the development of the "fuck-it" layer of skin towards the ugly parts in life.
Yesterday, life thought that it was a good day to enforce my "fuck-it" layer of skin.
And, instead of remembering what I've learned through my previous experiences, I repeated my mistakes and was once again eaten alive by perfectionism. I was too concerned, too obsessed by my performance and image at work. There was a problem, and I did not fix it. By the time I realize what I had to do, I've already missed my chance.
And "missing the chance" resulted in an unpleasant session of bickering between the customer, the server, the manager and me.
All I could say at that point was sorry. I should have done all of the above, but got caught up in the the stress of that moment. So I am very sorry.
Sorry, Jim. Sorry, Del. Sorry, Matt. Sorry, me...
Once again, life reveals more lessons to learn. The stupidest but most fortunate part of all this is...it's only a restaurant job. It's stupid that I cannot even handle the situation as a restaurant hostess, but boy am I fortunate to learn how to in a place where it doesn't matter.
Moral of the story:
1) Seize the moment when it comes to you
2) Do not be overwhelmed by others' stresses and emotions
3) Trust your rationale. There is a problem, fix it.
4) Recognize your pattern, and then move on.
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