It was just over five weeks ago that I started waiting tables at the Grand Canyon Grill. I took the job more as a screen saver than real gainful employment, biding my time before my fresh college degree could get put to use. In the intervening lunches and dinners, I have served countless meals to innumerable customers, some memorable but most not. I have seen an entire management team go and be replaced by another. I saw business go from meager to worse and then back up again. I was asked to be patient while changes were made and promised more fruitful days ahead.
Through the changes, the promises, and the dead Sunday lunches when I would only serve one table, I stuck with them. I knew the business was hemorrhaging money, but the new management was working to turn things around; I had no way of knowing what was coming.
Yesterday morning, a coworker went to the restaurant to open the kitchen - he was greeted by the owners and simply told to go home. We were closed. No warming, no notification, no thank you... no remorse. The staff only found out by calling each other (after verifying that it was indeed shut down ourselves, of course). The owners hadn't the decency to call us themselves.
I am no labor law expert, but I have little doubt that this closure was legal and my recourses against the owners are few. This is, though, the first time in my life that I have been faced with this harsh reality of employer-biased labor laws. I was raised to be pre-rich - assuming I would one day make it big (ah, the naiveté of the Clinton year adolescents). I got my degree while working odd jobs and never worrying too seriously about money; for the first time, I am fully on my own. Hell of a time to be exposed to the realities of working life in America.
Nickel and dimed at every turn, screwed once they kick you off the track.
Now I learn that the Republicans are working to rewrite the bankruptcy laws to serve their corporate credit monger cronies [Hunter's must-read bankruptcy diary]. Apparently, the credit card companies and megabanks don't earn enough profits off of our compounded fees and hidden interest rate hikes. Either way, people who are working hard and playing by the rules can be thrown to the edge of an irreversible bankruptcy and inescapable debt... because the owners woke up and decided to close the business.
All I can do now is wait for my last paycheck to arrive so that I can hopefully pay my rent on time. But wait! Santorum and the GOP are already feasting their eyes on that check; after all, it's the "burdensome" and "bad-for-business" $2.50 an hour we get in wages [link]. To them, it's selling an extra bowl of soup - to me, it's making sure I can pay my rent on time.
This is class warfare. They started firing long ago, but for the first time, one of their shells landed on my lap.
I am fortunate enough to have a college degree, to have options; it is experiences like these, however, that challenge me to use my good fortune to fight the corporate fat cats that run our economy and government. To work to make a difference.