Casa de Waffle

Bon chance y'all. I'm outta here. Actually I reckon I'm still going to be blogging about WaHo from time to time. But as of today (I picked up my last paycheck this afternoon at the shift change at 2) I am no longer an employee of the Waffle House. Le sigh.

I am now a former employee of the waffle house. And I will be able to look back fondly and with whimsy upon my days as a grill operator. That was fun. Gosh the past tense can be a real comfort sometimes.

Short paragraphs are fun.

I invite you to read my past entries if this is your first time visiting grisandeggs.blogspot.com. They are becoming fewer and further between these days, but it's ok. だいじょぶですよ, as they say in Japan.

My last day was uneventful. I really had that 2nd shift cooking thing down to a science, man. I knew exactly what I was doing, what needed to be done when, what I could get away with leaving for somebody else to do. And I only actually worked there for maybe 45 days total. It's hard damn work though. And that ain't no joke. Respect your waiters and waitresses and short-order cooks, I implore you! They are some of the hardest working folks for the money they make that you will ever meet. I need to backtrack a bit here: I guess I'm not trying to glorify what I did for 45 days this summer, but rather to raise awareness (maybe?) about the folks that do this 5 or 6 days a week. every week of the year for US$2.50/hour. (that's a waitress salary before tips)

I have the luxury of being able to duck in and out of this world of minimum wages pretty much at will. I mean, I'm a college student. Mommy and Daddy are pretty much paying for everthing right now. So, I don't know where that puts me. I don't know what that means. But it feels kind of weird. I'm still not sure exactly what "The Waffle House Experience" will mean for me in the long run.

I was emailing a commentor on this blog recently about what she called "The Waffle House Experience," and what I kept coming back to was the "people"--that nebulous, almost smarmy sounding word from the world of used car commercials. You usually hear people on commercials talking about "the people" in the same sentence as things like "value" or sometimes in political ads "values." So, at the risk of sounding like a used car-salesman-turned-local-politician, I will say that after working at Waffle House for 45 days, I have really come to "value" the "people" there. Not just the other grill operators and salespeople (the cooks and waitresses) but also the regular folks who come in there EVERY SINGLE DAY. I'm talking about Jack and 'Nita, Gayle, Dick, Jerry, everybody from the WNC Farmers Market, folks from Enka-Candler... the list goes on. Kudos to you, the heart of the Waffle House Experience.

Whoops!

Seems like my last couple of posts have been swallowed up by the internet deity as pennance for some html sins I unwittingly comitted. Sorry, folks. I swear I've updated this thing at least twice since june 29th!

Actually yesterday was my last day. I'll want to write about that eventually. Also, my boss decided he'd quit yesterday too. Yeah, the one who just had a baby/shotgun wedding (C'est amour, non?). Actually the post about the shotgun wedding/baby may have been swallowed up too. Hrmph. I'll need to revisit those warm and fuzzy thoughts I reckon. So, stay tuned!

Also, this blog now has a link from the Waffle House Shrine! I feel so much more legitimate now! Thanks Kamran! (His website has been around since 1996 when he was a Duke Freshman, and I was a wee sixth-grader. Gosh, those were the days.)