#3: 7 Day Catering, 18/11/12
When my alarm went off at 5am on Sunday morning, I did spend a good few minutes seriously questioning my mental stability. A few months ago, I was a student struggling to make 9am lectures and would only see such early hours from the other side- made bleary from alcohol rather than interrupted sleep. But these days I am too apathetic to even think of an excuse to turn down a shift, and upon agreeing to this ridiculous hour, mused that it would be nice to finish in daylight hours for once.
So after forcing down a bucket of caffeine and confusing my very unimpressed dogs by offering them their breakfast, I set off for the Felixstowe dock canteen. I've worked in the kitchen there once before (at a much more humane hour of day, admittedly) and found it almost rather enjoyable, which was unexpected. I was forty-five minutes late that first day, as a result of driving round and round the various entry and exit points of the enormous container port… Seamus the sat-nav was no help of course, as he was not programmed to fathom why any ordinary directionless driver would need or desire to go into such a place. Eventually I stopped at a security gate to ask the little fluorescent men for help- an encounter reminiscent of Forest Gump meeting Jenny for the first time. A harmless, but very strange man discussed the weather, his mother, and my "boot-ful hair" before finally presenting me with a map of the docks and a free pass through the gate. I bombed it down to the canteen, dodging lorries and cranes, apologising profusely to my supervisor upon arrival, only to discover that he really couldn't be less fussed.
I think that's why I'd rather get up in darkness to serve chips to truckers than agree to twelve hour shifts at certain hotels who have employed me: the people are friendly, making the atmosphere just so much better. On this occasion, I arrived at 6am and discovered to my absolute horror that I was half an hour early. Every minute matters after such minimal sleep the night before, and I began to slip into a horrible mood. After thirty minutes of hanging around the back of the building, trying to give off "I am not a prostitute" vibes to passing dockers, my co-workers arrived. I was let in by a smiley, friendly chap called Warren, and a not-so-smiley Polish chef named Hollie: apparently infamous for stating that she was "not here to make friends". I decided that if Warren could manage to be so happy at 6am after working here for five years with ol' misery face, I too could manage perkiness for a least one day.
And so the morning progressed, serving horribly greasy food to horribly greasy men (and some women), but it was fine. Pleasant, even. Warren made jokes, offered me tea or coffee and we both made conversation with the steady stream of dock-workers. My co-worker admitted that he was thirty years old- much older than he looked or acted, which he put down to a healthy life-style and no cigarettes (which also meant he must not be partial to the deep-fat fried offerings around us). Before I could indulge myself in some secret psycho-analysing, Warren readily admitted that he worked here because he was lazy and never had ambitions in life. While this confession would usually depress me, it somehow seemed ok because he was aware of it. He certainly seemed happy enough, had his own flat and was "healthy", so perhaps it just didn't matter. Warren's entire ideology seemed neatly summed up by his taste in food: he ate simple, easy but not too unhealthy things. He had never tried black pudding, because it looked unappetising, he didn't think he'd like it and so believed there was no point in troubling himself. When I told a story about a friend who needed stitches after a bad experience of cutting up an avocado, Warren laughed uncontrollably- not at the ridiculous story, but at the prospect of me and my friends eating such a middle-class fruit as an avocado (which he also had no interest in ever eating) and spent the next few minutes repeating the word "avocado" in a posh accent and pretending to be me.
Hollie was silent, but intriguing. Unlike Warren, she was clearly passionate about cooking, spending what felt like hours carefully arranging interesting looking puddings into pots, after downloading the recipes off the internet. She was seemingly deaf to customer comments that her hair "looked like it had been dipped in period", and when Warren cheerily asked her how her weekend had been, she struggled to make the effort of replying: "fine." I wondered if it was just part of her culture's work-ethic to remain focused and not waste time chatting, but I've met many a happy Polish person before (such as Anya from my previous shift: "You have big hungry dog? You take sausage, you make feed for him, he is happy."). I knew that in all likeliness Hollie was just an unhappy person, but am still not sure whether she kept her silence in order to perfect her baking, or vice versa.
Something else which puzzled me about the whole canteen set-up, was the fact that although the place is open to all areas of dock-worker, there are two separate entrances: one for the regular dockers, and one for the container lorry drivers. This apparently dates back to a time not so long ago, when drivers paid less for their food than other workers. Understandably, the unbalanced treatment caused dissonance between the two groups and resulted in them having to stay separate: a bit like naughty school children… These days the food is equally priced and served to both sides, but the rule of separate seating still stands. Although I greeted each customer with equal cheer, the drivers were noticeably less willing to chat and definitely less patient when waiting for their food. This may be due to the fact that many of the drivers are Polish; perhaps they are related to Hollie, or grumpy because they feel let down by her attitude. The drivers' seating area is also much smaller than the dockers' and so they have less room for their stress to diffuse in. Although I'm not sure how anybody could feel stressed out in a room which has an enormous plastic plant, sitting on top of a stack of carefully placed, spray-painted pink crates as an aesthetic offering.
If somebody told me a few months ago that one day soon I'd be serving up breakfast to truckers and even enjoying it, I would most definitely laugh, and soon afterwards cry at such a depressing image of myself. But my time spent wearing a greasy apron and hideous black crocs was A-ok. The stream of customers was steady, keeping me busy but not harassed for eight hours; most people around me were chatty, making the time go quickly; the kitchen was warm and the tea was plentiful. I can think of much worse ways to earn pennies.
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