Unpacking Emotions in Life

So month since we moved and there hasn’t been any physical unpacking since the first week which has left me in a position of looking back. There’s a lot less “Okay I gotta do A, B, and C” and a lot more “How do I feel about A, B, and C, now that I’m on J”.

So there’s 2 main things that I’ve been focusing on lately and that’s been Pam, and how she’s adjusting or not, and Myself, and how I’m adjusting to re-entering the culinary biosphere.

I’m going to start with me because that’s the easy thing to think about, obviously because I am me and I know me and what me thinks.... What I think.

re-entering culinary has been both fun and amusing. There’s a lot that I have to re-learn, like 12 years of muscle memory gone, that needs to be redeveloped, and there’s still a lot more that’s like Riding a bike. I have a lot less invested in this place and that’s a much better perspective than I had at the last place. At this place I’m just a lowly cook and I’m quite content with that because this place is a like a hydra with no heads. The Chef is trying to become the GM, the Owner is trying to phase themselves out and hand it over to the chef, there’s no other Chef to take over and the “AKM” is a lot like me when I was burning out hard, she’s very toxic and complains about how no matter how hard she works, no one else does anything and I’m just like “Oh god I’m so sorry to all the people who had to work with me when I was like this” But, like me, her opinion isn’t without founding facts. The night shift doesn’t stock the line for the day shift and the opener for the day shift comes in and starts getting ready for breakfast and nothing else, so when the AK and I come in at 9am (opener starts at 6) we hop right on prep expecting that the night staff stocked (despite that they never do) and when lunch comes around the AK goes on line to help and throws shit around because nothing is stocked and they’re somehow still surprised all the while bitching about how “They’re not doing someone elses job for them” and it’s like… Okay, I get it… but… If you did… just do YOUR job of making sure it’s stocked at 9, then you’d be set for lunch.

There’s a lot of what seems “I’m creating anger because I want to be angry” and it’s just a shit show. So Night staff doesn’t stock, Chef comes in between 2-4 and leaves before close leaving this headless line to do whatever the fuck they want because there’s no repercussion for their actions and then day staff doesn’t have time to stock or do prep for the night stafff and etc etc etc, you see where this is going. It’s a giant vicious cycle. And there’s a part of me that wants to take over and be like “Okay look, here’s how we’re gonna do things from now on” and just fucking slap people around a bit. Like in the past 2 years they’ve gone through some 60 employee’s in the kitchen like jesus christ how does that not raise some alarms?! But nope, everyone is pointing fingers at everyone and I’m just showing up for work every day, doing what I can, and going home. It’s tiring work but my investment is to my family.

I can say that I am REALLY happy to be back in culinary. The hard days suck, especially when the problems are so apparently easy to fix but they just don’t want to fix them. There’s… 7 people on the kitchen staff, including the AK and the Chef and 2 of the staff are quitting next week so that’ll be interesting. I don’t think the place will be around long but it is just a survival job to me right now, it pays, it meets my schedule and it’s not killing me. Cool.

I do need to get better at running the breakfast line though. I got so good at running nights that I’m not used to the quick fire pace of Breakfast. I like to believe every week I get better but it’s still hard on the ego to get reckt on line and not be able to keep up.

Onward to Pam.

We’re finally starting to discuss what’s going on with her mom, there’s a base line civility between them right now, yesterday was her (mom’s) birthday and Pam asked if I sent her a text and I was like “Fuck no” which I think may not have been the right thing to say, but I don’t want to confuse this lady more. She already doesn’t remember her own daughter, I don’t want to throw another identity at her.

Regardless, the other day I asked Pam how she feels about moving to Ottawa and how she feels about the past month and I don’t think she had one good thing to say about it which was difficult because I’ve adapted pretty much immediately and I’m loving it. So there’s this Yin and Yang in the house right now where she’s trudging along and I’m frolicking through the daisies.

So I’ve started to push myself to talk in short bursts about her mother so we can at least start to… digest that topic. I’m really not equipped to deal with it emotionally because my perspective is that she’s pretty much dead to me and just cut that line of the family out but Pam was raised (at points) in a more tight knit and loving family than I was. So I’m having to adjust my perspective to continue to try and keep communicating and building up that she cares about her family but at the same time I want to tell her to focus more on her current family but I know it’s just not that easy.

Her work is fine. I guess. There’s been a change of presidents/ceo lately so everyone is keeping quiet and keeping their head off the radar and Pam is just trying to get access to be able to do certain levels of work but no one is really social and her last place was much more social and extrovert where everyone at her new job is all introvert senior programmers so they’re focused on what they got to do and there’s no mentorship like she had in London.

She’s focusing a lot on “She did this for Elly” and just kinda… taking one step after the other just to keep moving. I’m not sure how to proceed but it’s time to shift my focus on to taking care of her and figuring out what the hell to do next. I’m not sure if I should just let her keep distracting herself or if we should get out the scalpel and really dig into things…

Phew, I’ma need to go into therapy just to unpack everyting!