Of mice and men

I got back from PQ, after weekend of work, showered, drank some calming and relaxing tea and I should be studying for my pathology exam next week but instead I am writing because it seems that when I am very tired the only thing I can do is write... on the blog... isn't that peculiar? The customers were quite normal this weekend, no major melodramas (I returned the "too soft 'soft boiled eggs' only once) - very suprising. I noticed a drop in tips and I am wondering if that has to do with the American economy. I think everybody is beginning to feel threatened by it. There is this air of uncertainty hanging above... Some of my co-workers left to work at other PQ locations but the new persons who started working at PQ are also very nice and the atmosphere is nice, when it comes to kitchen and server staff. Regarding the clear-cut server (or slave)-customer relationship, which I have mentioned a few times before, what struck me today (not only today but today with a greater force) is that we have a half-hour break during which we can eat but we have to eat in the basement, in the supply room, which is basically freezing cold in the winter. Meanwhile the owner, and the growing corporation, screams around the world on how he promotes organic and biodynamic farming and humane treatment of farmers and how he is working toward the betterment of future generations. It's incredible how once a place grows and becomes a corporation, it looses it's humane values and the only thing that starts to matter is the profit. The God of the corporate world - Monsieur Profit. I was thinking how in the times of yore (I don't know if still in existence) in Poland there was one table at a restaurant reserved for the employees and when there was time for their break, they would sit with their meal at that table and eat, like human beings, together with other people eating, not with rats running around in the basement. Rats and mice don't actually bother me - they are everywhere in NY, it's a rodent city (they are certainly more organic then the corporate management of PQ) - the basement is particularly their kingdom. And PQ is kind of not so bad. When I hear stories of my friends who work for other corporations, hair rises on my head. Two weeks ago I went to Greenpoint in Brooklyn (the Polish district) because I started missing Polish cooking, and I went to this Polish restaurant that looks like the one from days of yore and where the waiter eats with other people and where he once asked me when I left a potato on my plate: "And you really can't eat that one last potato?!" (so as not to waste food). And I timidly responded that I would try (feeling guilty myself) and I ate it... If I said this to customers at PQ they would get so traumatized they would have to visit a shrink once a week till the rest of their lives, and they would sue me for damages. And the management would skin me alive... Such a different reality... Manhattan and Brooklyn... I think I am getting ready to end my PQ experience... I learned my lessons there and I am ready to move on...

There have been some recent developments on Syrena website (www.syrenaart.com) - she's alive and smiling mysteriously. I'll have to sit with Grzegorz and finish the store up but the format is there.

OK, now I feel ready to drop so I'll go to bed. My mom comes to visit on Wednesday, about which soon. Good night.