There is a place that has been a part of my life for almost seven years now. I started working there when I was eighteen years old and now I am almost twenty six (I took a year off after having Brittley). This place has watched me morph into a crazy teenager/adult who had no idea what they were doing, into a mom, into a wife...and so on and so on. They were there when I started dating Clay, got pregnant with Brittley, endured my snottiness while prego with Brittley (but most of that was from the major drama going on as most of you know while pregnant), had Brittley and then left two months later. After a great year of staying home I knew I needed another job. I worked somewhere else for a while, but that definitely did not work out and I knew that the best solution was for me to work at a place at night so Clay could work during the day.
I went back to Jakers in November of 2006 as a server and not a hostess. I worked about four or five nights a week, but not much longer I got pregnant with mr. man Tate. I worked like crazy up until I had him and what was horrible about it was the air conditioner broke at work during the summer...so there I was all big and pregnant and people would look at me and complain about the heat! I wanted to yell back no kidding!? Do you see this EXTRA oven on me?! It was a hard summer, but at least this time around I was a happy pregnant person because of a better circumstance. I had Tate in September 2007 and then took three months off of working; after coming back I was once again working like crazy (thanks to a little boy who enjoyed formula and nursing!) but during the summer of 2008 I applied for another job as assistant cheer coach and I got it! So my working days at Jaker's started to dip because of cheer. I was pretty much at games or work constantly! I will not lie it put a HUGE strain on my marriage. I had to cut back on one of the places and since I still had my coaching duties I cut back on Jakers.
I was still working about three nights a week, and more if I could. This lasted for another year, but about mid through last year I started to really cut back because it was getting too much. There was a joke at work that I had a curfew because everyone would wait for it, and every night the phone would ring and they'd say, "Bri it's for you!" I really did not have a curfew, but Clay hated it when I would be late at work because he could not go to sleep without me there (sweet right?!) and everytime he would ask me why I took so long...and finally one night I explained: I work at place that is pretty much all girls, and pretty much all moms. We all are with our kids constantly so we finally get time to talk to "adult" girls about the everyday happenings of life so sometimes we get carried away with our conversations. Anyone at Jaker's can totally verify this too!...and every other girl since the beginning of time! We all LOVE to talk to each other!
This past year, however, I started another journey in my life and that is school. That first week I started I went to Krysta and told her two days is my max. I was so overwhelmed with school, practice, games, and then working more than two days I was close to going insane! There were sooo many weeks during that fall semester that I would maybe have one hour to myself..and not really myself because I was usually trying to clean the house during that time. I could not believe how busy I was! So when spring semester started that was when I first started bringing up the idea of me not working anymore. I was seriousy working one maybe two nights a week(and still am). Clay wanted me to work until the end of the summer, but I have been constanty asking for him to let me be finished now. Well my journey has finally come to an END. I went in today to talk to Krysta and through the tears and shaking hands I finally came out with what I wanted to say. I never thought it would be so hard, but I hate quitting things! When I worked at Anchor Blue, luckily my manager was my friend so she brought me in the office and asked if I was ready to be done and I was like YES! She said she could totally tell, but knew I was too nervous or scared to tell her. That was how I felt today, but I did not think it would be so dramatic giving the fact that I am an adult now, but it was hard. I was not vindictive in any type of way, but geez quitting was just about as hard as it would have been to fire someone.
Although I have definitely put in my time at Jaker's, I have learned a LOT from this job. I highly recommend everyone to try out serving because first of all it is a very stressful job when it is busy, you have to be the number one customer service representative of all times in every situation, you learn to become an actress at the snap of a finger, and you really have to learn self-preservation because there are plenty of times when you want to seriously spit in someone's food!
Some of the funniest experiences I have had while working was while I was a hostess back in the day we had to wear skirts. It was a Saturday night and the place was packed; I was heading to the dish pit through the bar when I slipped and fell flat-face onto the floor. The place went silent, I was mortified, and the bar-tender ran straight to me yelling, "are you okay!?" I was like yeah yeah I'm fine, when I got up the whole bar clapped! When I was also younger my manager Doug wanted me to train to serve and I didn't want to; I thought serving was ten times worst then it was because as a hostess you have to deal with the grumpy hungry people who are on a wait list; I just always thought if this is how they act while waiting, how do they act when they sit down? Anyways it was my first night training and the girl training me did not do it by the book, instead she just let me serve. Well needless to say I got overwhelmed, FAST; so when one of the tables got lippy with me I lost it and just started bawling! I was literally sobbing & to make it worst it was Luke's first night as an assistant manager so he just asked me if I wanted to go home, and I just was like yeessss, in between sobbing (best first night right??) Now I have had tons of other funny experiences but it would take all day to write, but the last one is the best because the customers will never ever forget this experience. One night I went to work soo soo sick, but I was too scared to call in so I went anyways. I got there and things were going good, but then they started to go bad. I had to sit down in between every table I went to & then finally I just went to the manager and said I am either going to pass out or throw up. It wasn't a busy night so he was just like okay let me see what I can do. Well I went to my table to hand them their check, the guy looked at it and said, "Oh let me get my money." I was like okay when in reality I was breathing very slowly then all of a sudden I woke up lying on the floor. I PASSED OUT! I could not remember where I was so when I came to I just started crying, and my manager was like shh shh you don't need to cry....if I wasn't so sick I seriously would have slapped him! I wanted to yell back, I'll cry if I freaking feel like it! Well an ambulance came, Clay met me at the hospital where I had to have 2 liters of fluids and potassium put into my system. So even though I have seen a lot of crazy things and met a lot of different people with this job, that story tops them all. It has become the Jaker's joke because they'll say its getting kind of slow lets just pass out so we can go home. :)
I cannot believe that this chapter is closing, but I am very very excited for it. I finally get to be a full time student and a mom and that's it. So thank you Jaker's for keeping me for so long, but I am definitely ready to be gone!!!
