Winter in Hospitality, Part Two

Winter in hospitality part deux:

24/12/23

It only snows in the movies. When it’s Christmas Eve and the estranged couple meet again under cover of snow shaded lamp posts. They realise their estrangement was a mistake and they reunite their love under the mistletoe by the tree and it all ends happily. Only in the movies. Love is fiction, nihilism is realistic.

It’s freezing fucking cold; the restaurant is all laid and the kitchen is all prepped. I had a sandwich for dinner with half a bottle of whiskey. I’m sat now, in my new dressing gown, sipping scotch and listening to Warren Zevon. Everything was going well, and then my ex walked into the pub for a family gathering. ‘Of all the gin joints in all the towns in all the world, she walks into mine.’ It’s winter again and I’m still punishing myself by working in hospitality. It’s cold and lonely and in six hours I’ll be suited, booted, hung over like hell and playing host to the luckier ones. As the good poet Mr Zevon would say, ‘my shits fucked up!’

It’s been a strange year. The girl I wrote about this time last is long gone. The one with the blue hair; so the blue Christmas of yester is a distant memory. I met someone else, in the summer, and engaged in a whirlwind affair that ended with a noose around my neck and blooded forearms. I never did learn how to handle rejection. I’ve been on and off the rails and I’ve lost track now of where I am. I’m on the bottle but the rails aren’t shaking so hard.

Work is work, but it isn’t exactly easy at this time of year. We sweat and struggle to give you all a happy experience and we do it all at great personal sacrifice. We miss our families and our dinners and our happy merry jolly times to spend our moments making yours memorable. Thanklessly, I might add. You’re never even close to grateful and your expectations are always too high. You complain that we aren’t fast enough whilst we argue by email about our labour budgets. You critique the food like you work for Michelin and you pretend to read the wine menu for five minutes like you have a clue what they all taste like only to ask for the cheapest bottle we sell, all the time holding us up and stopping us from being able to pour the pints ordered by the people who actually come to our establishments more than once a fucking year. Oh and just a side note, if you’re ordering a Guinness, order it first, not after we already poured six drinks you ignorant self-indulgent spatially unaware arsehole.

     My playlist just switched to Bob Dylan, and my glass is in need of a refill. I’m dreading tomorrow. I hate Christmas. I hate you all. I hate that I’m filled with so much hate, but I can’t seem to help it. It only snows in the movies.

28/12/23

Service went well. After all was said and done, I decided to go to a party one of my regulars was hosting. I didn’t want to be alone. It was a good time, but I went home early. I took some sleeping pills which didn’t work, dozed for a half hour then spent the whole night staring blankly at the walls. When I got to work I was fucked. Boxing Day, same as last year, I was feeling shaken and weakened and full of impending flu. I was sent home early (everyone assuming I was drunk or drugged someway) and have subsequently spent the last two days in bed.

I’ll be working the next three days, helping others to usher in their New Years. Once again, I’ve spent the season alone and given every last second of strength I have to the generally unappreciative general public. And those I work with don’t seem to care much either. So here we go, time to usher in the new year. More bullshit, more wasted time, less fucks to give and less time with those I care about.

Winter in hospitality sucks. But hey, doesn’t it suck everywhere else too?

Christmas is a bitch. It’s a lonely time for me and a time I spend helping others celebrate, without having time to find anything for myself worth celebrating.

     I’ll update you around the New Year; I hope it’s been fucking magical you self-centred fucks!

-W.L