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Kind of right and wrong.

So two weeks ago, or so, I posted about returning to work from my medical leave. I had feared the worst but things turned out not at all as bad as I'd worried they'd be. So naturally I figured all was well and dandy and my worries unfounded, and transitioning back into work was going to be easy.

Well, then Saturday happened. It was rough and stressful and I felt like a useless shit. Then the rest of that weekend. Then this past weekend. Oy, intensity.

At first it was difficult as I was still adjusting back to the rhythm of the restaurant and serving and all that but was put in some tough situations all the same. For example, I got a four table section that Saturday in what we call "the back". It's essentially the farthest point from the kitchen and the journey between often presents myriad distractions and such. And before then I'd only worked four tables maybe once. So each of those would have been tough before my time off, nevermind dealing with both while still re-acclimating. I basically didn't get to one my tables their entire meal at one point, I kept being run around by the others and the rest of the restaurant. It led to sucky feelings.

But that Sunday was great; I felt like I was in the groove of things, made good money, was overall useful. Then Monday sucked. And so on. But I was getting the hang of things again and by the end of the week I was doing pretty all right again.

Then I was a dumbass. I picked up a couple shifts and turned what was going to be a fairly laid back weekend into a nightmare of exhaustion. I ended up working nearly 40 hours in three days. Nevermind working so much time in such short a span, but serving in a restaurant is tough work. You're always running around, carrying heavy crap, dealing with stressful situations. And I wasn't making it any easier on myself with the shifts I was working.

So I started off working the lunch shift on Friday. Then someone called out for dinner. I was asked if I could pick up their shift, and I agreed to do it. Cool. Except we got slammed and I only took a 15 min break to eat--and ended up not leaving until 1:30am. I was there for 15hrs straight.

Before all that went totally mad, I'd picked up a Saturday dinner shift. Although I wised up Saturday and took a proper-ish break between shifts, I still ended up being at the restaurant for about 10 to 12 hours. Then on Sunday I was a volume, meaning "come in at 1pm and stay until we don't need you anymore". I was there for 11 hours.

On Monday and Tuesday, I worked singles, and got suckered into working yesterday, too. Jesus. Today is my first real day off all week. I was able to rest some before or after these last couple shifts, but seriously. Exhausted. I made something like 600 or 700 dollars since last Friday, though. Does that count for anything?

So anyway, while work has turned out to be less daunting and impossible than I'd feared, it hasn't exactly been easy. But I think overall I'll be okay. This bit of chaos didn't kill me, so that's a good omen.
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