My first job was washing dishes at a restaurant. I was 17 but I lied on the application and said I was 18 so I could work nights. This was pre-schizophrenia. I worked there a couple of months and then one night when business was slow I took it upon myself to clean the entire kitchen. I cleaned the dishwashing station, scrubbed all the walls and behind things.
It impressed my boss and later when one of the cooks quit my boss promoted me to cook which was what all the dishwashers wanted. But I know he choose me for taking the initiative to clean the kitchen.
Anyways, I worked in a few other restaurants before I got sick at age 19.
After I got sick I worked in two restaurants, the first was when I was about 28. A fast food Japanese food restaurant chain called “Happy House”. Supposedly it was the first Japanese fast food restaurant around at that time. I did fine but I only worked there two days before a friend got me a job as a prep cook at a restaurant where he worked as a waiter. I took the job because it paid 16 cents an hour more than “Happy House”, lol.
Just writing this brings back some sad and bad memories. At that time it was about 1987 and I was still very, very ill. I was also addicted to crack. My life was not good back then.
My symptoms were still strong and due to smoking crack I lost housing and jobs and I was just generally miserable. My life is so much better now and looking back now it’s hard to believe how sick I was. Yet, I had friends back then and I still did fun things, and I had a car and I had my little adventures and I got around but I would never want to go through that again with the drugs and drinking.
Working in restaurants isn’t that bad. I always snuck food, I got to ogle the pretty waitresses and the work isn’t that hard. I actually almost got a job bussing tables at a hotel restaurant as recently as 2000. I had two job offers at the same time and I took the other job working in a department store, it might have been Target.