JOB DESCRIPTION: WINDEX

Okay, so in an effort to promote my loathing of humanity and to make good on a new years resolution, I am posting again.  In the new year, I am hoping to post at least once a week and lose some weight.  I'd actually like to go back to my birth weight, if possible.  One post a week and 90 pounds less; I'm not asking for much here.

Topic for this week?  Windex.  What are its uses?  If you work where I work, it is primarily used for cleaning windows (both sides), cleaning tables, and condescension.  That's right.  Whodda thunk it?  Not this unsuspecting server.  But apparently, in the restaurant business, windex can indeed be used to personally degrade your workers.

Dateline Last Tuesday: I walk into work, notice that the windows are smudgy, and grab the windex.  I'm not a huge lady, by any means (still 90 pounds overweight though, shit).  However, I have a good set of gangly arms with which to wash windows.  So I began.  I cleaned the two front windows and the two front doors.  Then I went about doing the rest of my side work (sorry for the restaurant jargon- it means work you do when you're trying to look busy).  But not a  minute into restocking the salt packets and napkins, my boss approached me with a disapproving expression on his face.

"Mrs. God?" He said.

"Yes?"

"Can you make another pass at the front windows? They're still really streaky."

"Sure, no problem."

I made another pass at the windows.  While I was doing so, he said "try and put some elbow grease into it."

Sure.  No problem.  I finished up the first window, and stepped aside to check the glare.  I wasn't about to do them a third time.

Then my bosses voice boomed behind me: "You know looking at them isn't going to make them clean."

"Oh?"

"Yeah, you know, you really gotta put some back into it."  Then he grabbed the Windex out of my hand and a paper towel.  Then, I was treated to a twenty minute tutorial on how to clean his windows.  

"You see how I'm really not afraid to use a lot of windex?"

"Yes."

"You see how I'm really using the full extension of my hand?"

"Yes."

"I've been doing my windows for two years."

Cue the record scratch or angel choir or whatever signifies an epiphany.  Two years?  Wait a second: Two years?  Oh, two years!  Holy shit.  If he'd told me he'd been cleaning windows for two whole years, then I would have backed the eff up and given him full respect.  I bet he never used Windex in his life before opening up this restaurant.  Born with a silver spoon in his mouth, he never got the chance to clean up after himself let alone anyone else.  But finally, at the age of thirty, he's doing it.  And guess what?  He's good at it.  Real good.  Those two years have really paid off.  That's America for you.  Only in the good old US of A could you put your mind to a menial task and get good at it.  And if you do it long enough, you can tell other people how to do it.  And if you do it even longer than that, then you can chide people for not doing it up to your standards and condescend as much as you like.  But don't get ahead of yourselves.  That last one comes only after you put in the full two years. 

So after the first Windex debacle, I've come to work prepared to hear something even more unbelievably condescending than that the last thing I was told.  And guess what? It never fails.  Just yesterday, after cleaning the windows (I'm telling you they're my Goliath), my boss proceeds to go clean them himself.  He re-cleans the outside.  He re-cleans the inside.  He does it all, and with such aplomb that I can't help but think to myself: That's me...in two years, maybe.

Then I get a tap on the shoulder.  "Uh, Mrs. God."

"Yes."  I turn around.  It's him, the boss, Windex in hand.

"Do you see how those two windows on the left look? I just re-did those.  Now I'm gonna need them to look like that every single time."

"Got it."  I turn back around.

"You know," he smiles charitably, "If  you need to use the step ladder to get the leverage, please do."

Oh, for heaven's sake!  The step ladder.  Yet another thing I would never have thought of.  Not without two years under my belt, anyway.  I'm so naive.  Even that afternoon, when I went back to do the windows for my second (and their third) time, I knew it was going to be different.  

But lugging that step ladder outside just to scrub those pesky hard-to-reach corners made me think: Isn't this a job?  Window washing is still a thing, right?  Maybe I could paid for doing just this?  Or better yet, do chimney sweeps still exist?  Chim chim cheroo- count me in.  I'm not typically one to complain about a job.  Okay, well I am.   Everyone is.  Jobs are horrible, mostly.  And even if you happen to have a good one, the people you deal with are horrible.  It's just how it is.  But all I ask, and I think it's a small thing, is that job descriptions be  more accurate.  For example, the job I have now should not say: server/ cashier.  It should say: Windex.

So thanks for reading my Windex rant.  Tune in next week to listen to me discuss restaurateurs who wear so much gold jewelry and fancy denim they could be Boss Tweed.  I mean what are we serving, kebabs or corruption (Tammany Hall jokes, anybody?)  Just kidding.  Next time I'm going to talk about how hard it is to get those pesky last fifty pounds off and how to do it.  Or maybe I'll just talk about a tall drink of water.

valle con moi, 

Mrs. God