Some days I seriously wanna punch my boss in the face. And today was definitely one of them.

She’s not even technically my “boss”, really. But she’s in charge of the kitchen… Which unfortunately means she’s in charge of me too. I’ve bitched about her plenty before, remember?

Denise. Ugh.

She made me feel like an idiot in front of everyone in the kitchen today. It was awful. She’s such a bitch. I’ve been in such a shitty mood lately anyway, ever since Hope left again. We had a couple more days together than we did last time, but saying goodbye still sucked just as much. And this definitely didn’t help.

All I did was try something different. I’ve heard customers say for years now that our garlic noodles are too salty. But Denise always makes us follow the same recipe no matter what. If you even think about messing with one of her recipes, she’ll snap at you. It’s ridiculous.

When Hope was here last weekend, we talked about it one night. She insisted on helping make dinner for once (cute, right?) so I was teaching her some of my tricks, and we got to talking.

I told her about how much I wish I could put my own spin on some of our recipes at work, y’know? Maybe make some improvements and stuff. “So why don’t you?” She asked.

It was a great question. So last night, I decided to experiment on a whim. A customer ordered our garlic noodles, so I tried a little less salt, a couple extra cloves of garlic, and a pinch of parsley for some color.

Denise caught me mincing the extra cloves and asked what I was doing. When I told her, she went ballistic and made me do the whole thing over again. I got this giant lecture about how she’s in charge and we have to follow her recipes… I wanted to scream. It took everything I had not to.

I get that we can’t totally re-vamp the menu or anything, but come on! Where’s the joy in cooking if you have to stick to the exact same recipe every damn time? It’s a question I’ve been asking myself for ages. I just finally decided to try and do something about it… And it totally backfired.

Y’know, there used to be a time when I was so excited about finally being allowed to cook at the restaurant. I worked so hard for years bussing tables and scrubbing dishes every night before they even let me try being a waiter. And I still had to beg and beg before they finally gave me a chance behind the stove.

I guess it’s just getting kinda boring. It’s not what I imagined it would be. But what can I do? I’m totally stuck. I never went to uni or cooking school or anything like that. There’s no way in hell anyone would ever hire me in the kitchen with no training. Not as anything more than a lowly line cook like I am now. It’s so damn frustrating.

I’m just glad Hope understands. We’ve talked about it a lot.

She’s still out in San Myshuno trying to make things work. Or work again, I guess. Hope says things were really good out there at first. She’s been living there for a couple years now. That place is one of the biggest fashion capitals in the whole world… But I guess it also means things are pretty cutthroat when it comes to finding modeling gigs, and it’s been getting harder and harder lately.

She really wants to catch her big break over there, but lately she keeps ending up taking smaller jobs in other countries, or lame ones she’s not even excited about. But she does it anyway, because that’s her job. That’s something I can totally relate to.

And at least her hard work’s finally been paying off a little bit. When she was here last week, it was for some big spread in a German fashion magazine. She was really excited about it, and kept saying it was the best job she’d had in a long time. I was so happy for her.

I keep trying to tell myself someday I’ll catch a break like that. Even a little one would be better than nothing. Until it happens though, I’ve just gotta keep working at it… And waiting. I don’t really have any other choice.

But hey, if being with Hope has taught me anything, it’s that patience pays off.

And that some things are definitely worth waiting for.

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Hey guys! 🙂

I wanted to share with you guys that I made a little “Screenshotting Tips & Tricks” video as something of a follow-up to my original screenshotting tutorial I’d posted over a year ago (before I even started writing A2A!). I’ve grown a lot as a screenshotter since then, and I have had some people ask me questions in the past about how I get certain shots, so I decided to make a little video showing some of the tricks I use.

It’s pretty long, but hopefully informative too! If you’d like to check it out, you can click here!