20 September 2000 ~ Lady Latté loses her cool...

Almost nothing I do is perfect.

Very little that I do is even an attempt at perfection.

I'm not a perfect friend, my house isn't perfectly clean, I'm probably the shittiest housemate in the universe, and I'm quite sure I'm not up to the task of being the perfect girlfriend...

But if there's one thing I try to do WELL at, not just WELL, but far above my usual standard, it's my work, my job, my career...

So I'm making lattés, and doing dishes, and bussing tables, and cleaning the espresso machine, and making coffee, and taking orders, and running the register all at once. There'd been a fire alarm earlier in the day, and it had been damn hard to put everything back in order afterwards, but *I* was the one who ran blindly around the block to make sure the doors were closed and that the people who'd evacuated out back were safe and as content as possible. I was the one who asked everyone from neighboring businesses if they'd called the fire department. I was the one who hit my panic button and fucking DID something instead of standing there waiting for something to happen. Oh, the others helped, but dammit, I didn't just stand there looking like an asshole.

So an hour or two later, I'm working, and trying to get everthing organized, trying to get everybody seated and happy and stuffing their faces... And one of my co-workers starts barking orders at me: "Helena, can you PLEASE do the dishes? Helena, can you make that sandwish for me? Helena, don't waste time. Helena, why don't you go wash the mescaline..."

(Mescaline, as in, the food, not the drug...)

I can only do a few things at once. I'm pretty damn good at doing three or four things all at once. Five or six things, forget it.

So I've got a pair of latex gloves on, and I'm doing the jobs that my co-worker pointed out to me, and I have to keep getting up and running to the register because she's decided to have a little conversation in the kitchen. She's decided to "allow" somebody else a break, even knowing I've been trying to sit down at the counter for six hours now, just for five minutes to write checks and pay my bills. Just five minutes. She was the one who, when I DID sit down to write checks, immediately sat down next to me and refused to get up, even when there was a customer waiting at the register. I didn't get to pay my bills. Why? Because she felt like sitting down and teaching some friend of hers to speak French.

I CAN'T fucking be PERFECT.

I can't fucking be as perfect as she wants me to be.

I can't do fifteen things at once.

And I HATE getting yelled at for it. She's not my boss. She's not any better than me at the things I normally do. She's TERRIBLE at customer service and her espresso drinks look like sludge. Granted, she knows her way around the kitchen and the sandwich bar far better than I do, but for gahd's sake, she threw me off the cash register to sit and wash vegetables so she could wander around doing nothing!

Because she's so damned much better than me, right?

Probably.

I am so angry right now I want to throw things. So maybe I am not perfect, but I TRY, and I try harder to be a good barrista than I have ever tried at anything else in my life. So how did this person manage to make me feel like such a piece of garbage?

It's bad enough Nathan told the entire world I was stealing from Java Joe's. (Which I would never, EVER, E-V-E-R do...) It's bad enough I don't even have his respect anymore. But what do I have to do to make them happy?

I love my job. I love what I do. I love my customers. I take care of them, and I love it; it's not like a job at all... Strenuous and tiring, but it's not a job. I love making people smile. I love telling people someday I'll name a drink after them and watching their faces light up. I love my bosses. I love their families. I can happily and easily handle the pressure of nasty customers and lines that go out the door. I love everything about Java Joe's. Why can't I be a better employee? Why can't I be as good as eveybody else wants me to be? What more can I possibly DO?

It's impossible to make her happy.

I just wish she'd let ME be happy... even a little bit. I wish she'd just leave me alone. I wish she didn't make me cry today because she doesn't approve of anything I do.

I wish somebody would say to me, "nice job, Helena."

I feel like I'm whining. I feel like I'm about five years old and yelling at mommy, "you don't love me!" I don't want to be in such a shitty mood. I don't want to feel like this at all.

I know I do my best. So why don't I feel like I'm even adequate?

I think now would be an opportune time to light a cigarette and play Portishead as loud as I possibly can...

I'm going to my other job in fifteen minutes. And then I'm going to go to Norman's apartment to watch "Twin Peaks." By then, my misery will have subsided.

(I just want to be good at SOMETHING... Not everything... Just something... Just one thing in the whole wide world... I just want to be okay...)

~Helena*
aka, Lady Latté...