It's all Greek to me
This evening I went to the Greek restaurant near my flat for my tryout, to find out if I was capable of being a server, and if I wanted to. Here's a spoiler if you can't be bothered to read this post: I am, but I don't.
I am capable of serving in a restaurant, but it doesn't come naturally to me, especially in another language. My previous serving experience of working in the Jaffa Orchard cafe in Bedford should have been a warning sign; I spent most of the time hiding by the sink doing washing up, only taking orders when I really had to, and absolutely avoiding the till at all costs. This was of course several years ago, and I hoped I might have matured a bit in the three or so years since working there. There's good and bad news on that front: good news, in that I definitely have, but bad news, in that it really doesn't seem to translate to working in a German-speaking establishment. I feel as though in England or anywhere English-speaking I would be perfectly happy serving, because it would be easy to talk to the customers and make yourself understood and follow instructions. However, in German, it is not.
A big part of the confidence gained in the last three years has been improving my ability to talk to people easily. It's so important to be able to make conversation, even if you don't want to or aren't interested, and it's always been a dream of mine to be one of those people that never allows a conversation to become awkward because they always have something to say. While I like to think that I am a few steps closer to this goal now than in previous years, I am nowhere near it in German.
This is made a hundred times harder when the people in charge speak slightly iffy German with incredibly thick Greek accents. I don't want to impugn their language-learning capabilities; it seems likely that they came to Germany to make a living and learnt the language as they went along, unlike my approach of 'thinking unnecessarily hard about grammar and pronunciation' and so on. In the real world, their strategy is much more effective. Native German-speakers seem to mostly have no trouble understanding them, and they are confident enough in their German to not care about making mistakes. I, on the other hand, am still so nervous about appearing foolish that it incapacitates me, and I shrink into the background, planning sentences in my head with complex grammar that I would never dare to try out loud.
Once again, I may be being a bit hard on myself; these Greeks have lived in Germany for twenty years, so it's possibly no wonder that they're a bit more comfortable with German than I am. But still.
The other issue I had with the restaurant, and the main one, is the personnel. There were three men that I had any contact with: the manager in his sixties, his colleague of a similar age who may in fact have been his brother, and the other server, Rene, in his thirties/forties/eighties/twenties (utterly impossible to tell).
The initial problem I had was with the manager (and no, I do not know his name - he never told me). Firstly, he didn't understand anything I said in German, and I understood very little of what he said (so on reflection, he may have actually told me his name. But I didn't realise). Also, he was really exceptionally impatient. If I let it be known more than once that I didn't understand what he'd said, he looked all angry and disbelieving, as if I was being a total idiot and was perhaps literal dirt on his shoe.
My second problem was with his colleague-of-a-similar-age, who was actually very friendly and talked to me more than the others. He was also beautifully laid-back, and kept stopping to chat to the customers and pour them more ouzo. The problem was merely that he was very touchy-feely, and made a few inappropriate "haha go and text your boyfriend haha" comments, that in themselves would not be cause to not take the job, but did add to the general feeling of unpleasantness.
The third problem was Rene. Not only does he speak the strongest Sachsen dialect I have ever heard and was therefore mostly unintelligible, but his level of patience made the manager look like a veritable Jesus, if Jesus is known for being patient as I assume he is. He had a go at me more than once for doing things that he considered unbelievably moronic, such as taking a couple of mugs at a time to the shelf two whole metres away, rather than balancing a huge precarious pile of every mug that had been dried and transporting them all at once. Although I mentioned that I wouldn't do it if we had literally anything else to do and more than four customers left in the restaurant to provide us with something to occupy us, he did not listen. I think I've worked out what his situation is though, which meant I had to empathise despite my deep disgust at his lack of kindness towards me, and it is this: he is an amazingly efficient person. Everything he does is at top speed, and wastes no time, movements or energy on needless manoeuvres. This may partly explain his constant state of bubbling anger, as the aforementioned colleague is the literal opposite of this and would therefore drive him up the wall. Clearly, as it was my first time being in the restaurant and doing things his way, I was not as efficient as I could have been, and this definitely added to his rage. But there's no excuse for being like that when the person you're having a go at is actually trying! Fair enough if they're just dicking about, but otherwise it's a good rule to try not to be an ass.
The final nails in the coffin were my last conversation with the manager, which involved him voicing the phrases "I need you to come in tomorrow and Saturday evening too to continue trying out and 'learning' what to do" and "You'll have to work every weekend" and "You have to really want to learn". I already have plans for tomorrow, which are to drink and dance my sadness away, and also for lots of weekends in the next few months, which are variants on that theme in different locations around Europe. And also I don't 'really want to learn'. I just don't.
I wanted to try out working at a restaurant to see if I could, and if it would something that would be in any way enjoyable. Today's five hours of serving has taught me the following: a) I am not confident enough in my German to be able to have fun with it; b) it would be absolutely miserable forcing myself to go to the job just because I wanted to improve my German; c) it wouldn't even necessarily improve my German if I'm surrounded by bad grammar and impenetrable Greek screeching; and d) that I like pouring shots and serving them to people, because it's easy and provides instant gratification.
It does seem a bit silly to give up this potential job when it's notoriously hard to find one at the moment, but I think my reasoning justifies it. Also, very importantly, at this point I really don't need a job. I get more than enough money from working at the school and Erasmus, and I want to spend my free time travelling and reading and lying around, because the time I have to enjoy these things in such an unlimited way seems to be somewhat running out. So maybe when I go back to the UK I will try again, but for now, it's goodbye to the Greek restaurant, and the end of my short-lived dream of becoming an ouzo-waitress.
I am capable of serving in a restaurant, but it doesn't come naturally to me, especially in another language. My previous serving experience of working in the Jaffa Orchard cafe in Bedford should have been a warning sign; I spent most of the time hiding by the sink doing washing up, only taking orders when I really had to, and absolutely avoiding the till at all costs. This was of course several years ago, and I hoped I might have matured a bit in the three or so years since working there. There's good and bad news on that front: good news, in that I definitely have, but bad news, in that it really doesn't seem to translate to working in a German-speaking establishment. I feel as though in England or anywhere English-speaking I would be perfectly happy serving, because it would be easy to talk to the customers and make yourself understood and follow instructions. However, in German, it is not.
A big part of the confidence gained in the last three years has been improving my ability to talk to people easily. It's so important to be able to make conversation, even if you don't want to or aren't interested, and it's always been a dream of mine to be one of those people that never allows a conversation to become awkward because they always have something to say. While I like to think that I am a few steps closer to this goal now than in previous years, I am nowhere near it in German.
This is made a hundred times harder when the people in charge speak slightly iffy German with incredibly thick Greek accents. I don't want to impugn their language-learning capabilities; it seems likely that they came to Germany to make a living and learnt the language as they went along, unlike my approach of 'thinking unnecessarily hard about grammar and pronunciation' and so on. In the real world, their strategy is much more effective. Native German-speakers seem to mostly have no trouble understanding them, and they are confident enough in their German to not care about making mistakes. I, on the other hand, am still so nervous about appearing foolish that it incapacitates me, and I shrink into the background, planning sentences in my head with complex grammar that I would never dare to try out loud.
Once again, I may be being a bit hard on myself; these Greeks have lived in Germany for twenty years, so it's possibly no wonder that they're a bit more comfortable with German than I am. But still.
The other issue I had with the restaurant, and the main one, is the personnel. There were three men that I had any contact with: the manager in his sixties, his colleague of a similar age who may in fact have been his brother, and the other server, Rene, in his thirties/forties/eighties/twenties (utterly impossible to tell).
The initial problem I had was with the manager (and no, I do not know his name - he never told me). Firstly, he didn't understand anything I said in German, and I understood very little of what he said (so on reflection, he may have actually told me his name. But I didn't realise). Also, he was really exceptionally impatient. If I let it be known more than once that I didn't understand what he'd said, he looked all angry and disbelieving, as if I was being a total idiot and was perhaps literal dirt on his shoe.
My second problem was with his colleague-of-a-similar-age, who was actually very friendly and talked to me more than the others. He was also beautifully laid-back, and kept stopping to chat to the customers and pour them more ouzo. The problem was merely that he was very touchy-feely, and made a few inappropriate "haha go and text your boyfriend haha" comments, that in themselves would not be cause to not take the job, but did add to the general feeling of unpleasantness.
The third problem was Rene. Not only does he speak the strongest Sachsen dialect I have ever heard and was therefore mostly unintelligible, but his level of patience made the manager look like a veritable Jesus, if Jesus is known for being patient as I assume he is. He had a go at me more than once for doing things that he considered unbelievably moronic, such as taking a couple of mugs at a time to the shelf two whole metres away, rather than balancing a huge precarious pile of every mug that had been dried and transporting them all at once. Although I mentioned that I wouldn't do it if we had literally anything else to do and more than four customers left in the restaurant to provide us with something to occupy us, he did not listen. I think I've worked out what his situation is though, which meant I had to empathise despite my deep disgust at his lack of kindness towards me, and it is this: he is an amazingly efficient person. Everything he does is at top speed, and wastes no time, movements or energy on needless manoeuvres. This may partly explain his constant state of bubbling anger, as the aforementioned colleague is the literal opposite of this and would therefore drive him up the wall. Clearly, as it was my first time being in the restaurant and doing things his way, I was not as efficient as I could have been, and this definitely added to his rage. But there's no excuse for being like that when the person you're having a go at is actually trying! Fair enough if they're just dicking about, but otherwise it's a good rule to try not to be an ass.
The final nails in the coffin were my last conversation with the manager, which involved him voicing the phrases "I need you to come in tomorrow and Saturday evening too to continue trying out and 'learning' what to do" and "You'll have to work every weekend" and "You have to really want to learn". I already have plans for tomorrow, which are to drink and dance my sadness away, and also for lots of weekends in the next few months, which are variants on that theme in different locations around Europe. And also I don't 'really want to learn'. I just don't.
I wanted to try out working at a restaurant to see if I could, and if it would something that would be in any way enjoyable. Today's five hours of serving has taught me the following: a) I am not confident enough in my German to be able to have fun with it; b) it would be absolutely miserable forcing myself to go to the job just because I wanted to improve my German; c) it wouldn't even necessarily improve my German if I'm surrounded by bad grammar and impenetrable Greek screeching; and d) that I like pouring shots and serving them to people, because it's easy and provides instant gratification.
It does seem a bit silly to give up this potential job when it's notoriously hard to find one at the moment, but I think my reasoning justifies it. Also, very importantly, at this point I really don't need a job. I get more than enough money from working at the school and Erasmus, and I want to spend my free time travelling and reading and lying around, because the time I have to enjoy these things in such an unlimited way seems to be somewhat running out. So maybe when I go back to the UK I will try again, but for now, it's goodbye to the Greek restaurant, and the end of my short-lived dream of becoming an ouzo-waitress.
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