Every once in a while you have a moment of clarity and bewilderment where you stop and ask yourself, “ What the hell am I doing?”
It could be in a variety of situations. Maybe you are serving a table of one mother combined with 4 children aged 2-6, as the 2 and 3 year olds yell at you in complete jibberish that they want chocolate sauce on their hamburger.
Perhaps it’s while you attend to a 20 year old douche bag asking for 3 ice cubes in his rum and coke and make sure you get it right because he’ll be counting.
By chance it’s the couple snuggling at a booth asking if you can give them a recommendation on what type of soft drink they should order.
It could be the table of 4 seniors asking questions pertaining to the spiciness of the food. “ Is it spicy….because I can`t have spicy food!`
Sometimes it’s not even while you are dealing with customers. It could just be a fleeting moment of zen like awareness as you carry a rack of glasses out to the bar.
It may strike you as you are having a piss in the employees washroom, a mandatory bodily function that you have been holding back for the past 2 hours while you navigated the evening’s supper rush.
You may be struck with this existential question as you are plunging the men’s toilet after a guest had a huge shit that has caused a blockade resulting in water spilling all over the bathroom floor. Although it’s usually moments like that where I think, “My parents would be so proud.”
Regardless of where, when, and why it happens, it is a question that plagues the lifetime server on a regular basis.
What the hell am i doing?
Sometimes the question can be asked in a different way. You may ask yourself;
“How did this happen to me”?
“What chain of events led to this existence”?
“Is this what I had planned when I started this wacky adventure called adulthood”?
The worse thing about these questions is that they are strictly rhetorical. There is no answer you can provide yourself that will solve this riddle. There are no words from you or others that can provide any solace at these moments.
Any other time you could convince yourself that it’s not that bad. You could be doing an even shittier job at an older age. You could be a janitor at age 46 for god’s sake. You’re just a 33 year old bartender, that’s not so bad.
You could be unemployed, scraping by on welfare, or living on the streets, begging for change at some street corner. Jesus, you could be dead, or have a terminal disease. Serving drinks and food is a cake walk compared to being diagnosed as dying.
However at these moments, it really does seem that bad. The voices dance around your head screaming generalizations and half truths.
“You could be so much more than this!”
“You’re a smart guy for Christ’s sake.”
“How could you let this happen to you? You’re such a fucking loser.”
“You are so lazy. You are going to be doing this the rest of your life!”
And of course…”How did this happen to me!”
As your head begins to spin and everything starts to get blurry, something happens to snap you out of it. You’re boss asks you some idiotic question about last Tuesday’s beer counts, a fresh group of patrons walks in the door, or the Asian guy at the corner table is waving for you to come over and explain how to eat lobster.
You go back to your work and slide back into zombie server mode until the next time the unanswerable question is asked, “What the hell am I doing?”