Excessive

Tomorrow is my Birthday, and it's also my last day at Windermere. I have mixed emotions, and I feel very confused lately about how I'm feeling. The overall emotion is by far fear, just straight up terror about starting a new job, possibly failing, leaving all of my security behind and putting myself out there. There are times when I can taste the adrenaline in my mouth from my fear, and this is just constant, at all times.

The kitchen threw me a party last night, which was organized by Angie and took place at her parents house. Quite a few people showed up, although I'm sure about half or more were just there as an excuse to drink in a social situation, and for the most part I just sat with Bekki and Shawn, but parties aren't really for me. They tend to lead to terrible things for me, and I know that, so going to them is just a stupid thing for me personally.

I appreciated the thought though, and the amount of work that went in to it. Apparently Windermere helped with it a tiny bit, perhaps supplying the pizzas, but that's it as far as I know. It's weird, after seven years of hard, hard work, I figured I would maybe get a card, or something from management.

When I think back on my seven years there, there are a ton of different things I feel, most of which I can't seem to sort out in my brain. On a daily basis, I try to separate out the pros and cons of working there. I feel like the pro's are more than the sum of it's parts... there is a sort of indescribable benefit to working there.

Some cons of working at Windermere, and that drove me to get into school, and eventually apply for jobs: the pay. I worked there for seven years and I received technically three raises, but only two non-required. The first was when I was promoted from being super-dishwasher to cook, when I went from minimum wage to cook's wage. The second came when our chef was fired, and a new was hired, he asked if Julie and Jon could have anything, what would it be, and they both said for me to have a raise, which was granted. Finally, the third raise was when the third Chef was hired, and much the same thing happened. Everyone quit and went to the Hunt Club, but I stayed, and I was given a raise (maybe as an incentive to stay, although it was still significantly lower than starting wage at the Hunt Club if I had left). There were no performance reviews, no cost of living wage increases. You weren't compensated for working hard, or working well, there was no future, financially speaking, for staying there, that was probably the biggest reason for me to leave, because I have plans for the future that involve money, and being able to get money is an important step to achieving money oriented goals.

While my direct supervisor (chef/sous chef) liked me, respected me, etc (at least for the last couple years), most other management there had issues with showing respect, and treating others as human beings. Most would talk to you like you were retarded, even though their level of education was much lower than those around them. Being talked down to, being disrespected and just feeling abused was a big reason.

Windermere stealing my wages was another big one. Any shift over eight hours, and you worked thirty minutes unpaid. I didn't receive breaks, lunches, time to sit down, nothing of the sort. Once and awhile during busy times I could live with that, even though at those times it still doesn't make any sense. They are a business and should be paying their employees, and as an employee, I'm there to work for money, I'm not there to cup their balls and blow them. Over the years, I've kept track of a lot of my hours, enough to get an idea of what a year looks like as far as shifts over eight hours, and we're talking about thousands of dollars of unpaid wages. Just as an example, in 2013 they deducted 45.5 hours from my paycheques, which is roughly $650 before taxes, so over seven years of work, that's about $4500 of money they took off my pay cheque for breaks I didn't get.

Some of the pros of working there... I felt good at my job. I had pride in how good I was. I enjoyed working with Kristian and Shawn, and... I guess job security, cause I knew that I could work there for as long as I wanted. That's really about it. Maybe I'd say being able to get home early in the afternoon, but I dunno, I think waking up at 5:15am everyday is killing me slowly.

I just don't really know what I'm feeling. Tomorrow is going to be weird, it's going to end up being 2pm before I know it and it's just the last time I'll be there. I'm just so scared, and I don't know how to deal with any of it.

It's a strange coincidence that my very last day, the end of this era of my life, is on my birthday. What started when I was 23, is now coming to an end at age 30. The age of 30 going forward is the start of a new life in a way, a fresh start, a new direction... who knows where it will lead. I want to use this as a chance to change a lot of things, or a few things, that maybe haunt me, or I feel are holding me back.

I want to cut my hair off. Why? I don't know. I hate my hair, I hate myself, my body, and how I look. I grew my hair out back in like... 2003, when I was 20, and I did it because I thought it was cool, and looked edgy, and I would dye my bangs and it went with my more gothic clothes, whatever reasons people choose hair cuts. Eventually I had a couple bumps on my ear from piercings that I took out and healed over weird, and when talking to my then-doctor about how to get rid of the bumps, his nonchalant response was: wear long hair over your ears for the rest of your life. Oh? Fuck you Doctor. but I guess it stuck with me, because I've been extremely self-conscious about it since then. I wear my hair long so that it hides my ears, and I wear hoods to hide my hair, because I don't think it looks nice. At Windy I had to wear a hat as part of my uniform, and my hair is pushed down in front of my ears, and it all kinda just works to achieve what my goal of having the hair cut ended up being. I have to straighten my hair every day, I always have to have it pinned back, it feels greasy a lot of the times from sweating in my hat, and overall I just don't like it. With this new start, if I just show up with short hair and my ear exposed, it'll just be the way it is and I feel like, while it might be scary for me, it won't be a big deal. I'm tempted to just cut all my hair off for this new start, the idea of just washing my hair in two seconds, never having to use a straightening iron, not using a bobby pin... it all sounds so nice. I know it would be nerve wracking for me, but I'll already feel that way from starting the new job, so why not just piggy back on some extra while I'm at it. This is another thing I don't know how I feel about, and am confused and scared.

I'm also scared of my birthday. I'm always scared of gifts, and attention. I feel strange, I usually get really depressed, and I feel anxious about being the center of attention. I also fear that maybe I won't feel special, or my expectations won't be met, but I don't have any, but deep down, maybe my child hood memories of what a birthday was survives and pokes at me.

Anyway, I work at 6am, so I gotta go to sleep. So many life changes, so much anxiety. I sometimes feel like I'm not going to survive this. I sometimes feel like I don't even remember how to program. I'm scared. Very scared.

Happy Birthday Me.

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