The servery girl

I admit I'm not a social person. I am terrible at keeping in touch, catching up and small talk. I don't think I'm anti-social, it's just that I'd rather talk about real stuff you know. And when I'm too tired to talk, I like to sit and watch the sky turn red or just drink a cup of teh tarek in silence.

I've tried to be social in the past, but I don't think it suits me. I am quite frankly the girl who sits in the corner at a party chatting to a few close friends, not caring about getting into the whole party swing or making sure that I chat to everyone in the room. I like small and homely gatherings - a few friends for dinner. My 21st wasn't a big bash like most. Here, 21sts are quite the thing but I never really quite got why. Anyway we caught Turtles Can Fly at the film festival and then had chocolate at Max Brenner. Even at my own birthday party, I was quite quiet as I remember.

So work at the dining hall, on the other hand has been quite not like my personality. Everyone is incredibly friendly and noisy! I have to say the boys especially (I say boys despite them being older than 21) have this knack about invading my personal space. They love to tease and 'bully' me and well, it feels nice. Not because I'm craving for male attention. (If you know me I'm really a girl's girl and I have never mixed easily with the opposite sex.) But it just feels genuine. Like I'm part of the gang. Believe it or not, I actually look forward to work just so I can meet the people at work.

I love serving food, mopping floors and on days when I'm stuck with dishwashing duty, I don't complain because I actually enjoy it. Oh yeah sure, I go home smelling of what was for dinner that day, but I get an immense sense of satisfaction when the white dishes roll out, hot and clean, and I stack them up neatly and transfer them quickly to the shelves before returning to load more trays and giving them a good rinse. You could say I enjoy being efficient.

The cook always insists to me to get myself a drink from the cold room, sometimes practically forcing me to get it when I'm slow to heed her advice. She was wheeling out nicely fried calamari rings to the serving area on her little trolley the other night and she turns to me and practically shoves a few pieces into my mouth.

When the door finally closes to the last customer, everyone gets a bit of the leftovers. Some days I go back with food enough to last me three meals. And since I usually have only one proper meal a day, it seems to me that not only this job has been incredibly refreshing, it is saving me a lot of money and paying me quite a lot for a job that will barely get $5 an hour back home.

This amazing sense of control and calmness settles in when I put on my black apron. And for the few hours that I work, I forget everything that happens during the day and all my worries about the future. After all being the servery girl or the dishwasher girl or the cashier girl; it's amazingly simple, unlike life.