Jobs # 3 (Uno's - Kansas City)

After what came to feel like a huge party at The Palace, hanging out with close friends and generally avoiding actual duties, I ended up switching gears to my first restaurant job. A franchise called Pizzeria Uno had moved in across the street. Granted, it's been twenty years and I could be mixing up when these jobs occurred, but please rest assured that I worked a lot on the Plaza in KC during 2001-2002.

When I applied for the job, a good friend of mine accompanied me. John and I filled out applications. Mine for “bus boy,” his for “CEO” scrawled really big and angry.

The restaurant was buried in a parking lot. I never liked that. It seemed like it was buried under the consumers who would fill up the six story parking complex daily. If you found your way in on a Monday through Friday around happy hour you would probably see my Father laughing his ass off with people who would still talk to him.

He had pull with the manager for being a good customer, so I was offered a job as a bus boy. My heart soared, believe it or not, because I had never had the experience. I’d prepared packaged food but had no idea how to deal with people who had just eaten a meal. “Just get in, and get out,” I kept telling myself.

I picked up every dish I could as quickly as I could and still got yelled at. I remember really sweating bullets during rush times when managers were on the floor.

My saving grace from this hellhole was my girlfriend at the time. She had mono and then I had mono shortly after. Weeks in bed with no way out. When I finally recovered, I foolishly called the restaurant asking for shifts.

“We thought you quit?

The parking lot and restaurant space were demolished recently. It feels weird to have nostalgic memories of a parking garage, but my friends and I all spent numerous hours in that concrete monstrosity during our shifts. I remember smoking cigarettes, listening to The Paper Chase and Cursive, trying to find my own way.