Tae Yoon: Life from 2006-2021

I woke up in a panic this morning from a nightmare. I dreamt that I had just started working at a restaurant, and I was totally unprepared to work my first dinner shift. All of the staff were really happy and in good spirits as they ran around to get all of their pre-service work done. I watched everyone zipping by to sweep the floor or go stock the wine, and they were super encouraging to me as they wished me luck and gave me high-fives as I tied my apron that was a part of the uniform. Even the manager came up to me and was like, "you so got this!" just before she quickly disappeared with her assistant who was busily taking down notes. And then in that moment, I realized I didn't know the menu at all. How would I be able to sell the restaurant's food if I didn't even know what they served? How would I be able to answer a customer's question if they asked about how a certain sauce was prepared or wanted to know what farm their pork came from? I quickly grabbed the menu and began flipping through it with urgency. It was the size of a book, but felt more like a manual and each page had this hard lamination (really similar to the one I saw at Kellogg's Diner a few nights ago). To get through the night, I told myself that all I needed to do was be an expert on one entree. That way, I could just focus on trying to push that dish and not look like an idiot who didn't know anything about the restaurant's food. I began combing through each dish to decide on which one to pick, and it was in that moment when I realized I didn't know the table names and numbers. How the fuck would I know where to bring out each dish, or how to enter the order into the computer system? Things went pretty downhill from there, and I stood there trying to memorize the tables of my section as customers started to come and get seated. I felt so overwhelmed about everything. I eventually woke up before I actually approached any tables to take their orders. I'm not sure if that's a good or bad thing.