Mine, theirs, it's all good.
Yesterday was a really shitty day. Nimes received 80 millimetres of rain during the day, most of it between 1230 and 1300 when I was wandering up and down a street looking for an address to deliver 'Cocktail repas, 12 personnes'. What a fucking stupid job.
The delivery address I'd been given, by Mme Chef no less, was 'Monsieur Zidane, Rue Tapenade'. No street number, no phone number. Monsieur Zidane is not in the phone directory and his name is not on any of the door bells. Mme Chef has 'forgotten' the street number, Chef's phone is permanently engaged. I am reduced to banging on doors and asking if they're expecting a delivery.
Eventually, after 25 minutes of this shit, I spot a man standing on a doorstep and ask if he's expecting a delivery from a traiteur; why yes, he is. Please carry it all up these six flights of stairs while we all watch you, making cutting remarks about how wet you are while you do so.
Wankers.
The day started out like this too, with me stacking the van up in the pissing rain, delivering to the shop in the pissing rain, making the usual other deliveries in the pissing rain, making three other 'Cocktail repas' deliveries in the pissing rain. And when I say 'pissing', I mean as in 'Une vache qui pisse' as they say here - it was pissing down in the same way a cow pisses; torrentially. Cars are being washed away just down the road as I make these deliveries and all the customers can say is, 'Oh, these boxes are a bit wet'.
Right.
I do not want to do this bloody job any more, in case I haven't made myself clear.
So back to the kitchen and I am soaked through from the outside of my anorak to the inside of my underpants. Chef tells me not to take off my chef's jacket or I'll catch cold; I still take it off and hang it over a radiator, along with my coat and trousers and spend the afternoon in my chef trousers, shoes and a t-shirt.
Then at 1600 we finally get let out on time for a change - except that, as I'm leaving, the S-C grabs me and says he forgot to send an order up to the shop earlier so will I take it on my way home? since he has a tennis match to watch.
Well, it's not on my way home, it's the opposite direction. And it takes me 45 minutes to get there instead of the normal 15, what with half the town's roads being closed because they're flooded.
And what does Mme Chef say when I get there?
(a) Oh thankyou very much, how very kind of you to bring these boxes up in your own time and in your own car at your own expense, I hope you managed to dry off OK after your soaking earlier on. We really appreciate you doing this you know.
or:
(b) Where have you been? The customer is here now and waiting for their order - you've kept them waiting. It doesn't matter if all the roads are closed, you must try harder.
You know what she said. Mysteriously, instead of punching her in the face and drowning her with my soaking wet anorak, I simply turned around and walked out. I must be losing it.
Then today the lift broke down; water in the lift shaft, apparently. So this means I have to personally carry the entire day's deliveries down from the second-floor kitchen and stack them into the van. It takes half an hour, so consequently I'm half an hour late for everything else all day for which, apparently, there is no excuse.
Except that Chef, when he rolls up at lunchtime, is in an exceptionally good mood all afternoon; I suspect he got laid last night - either that or his medication has finally kicked in.
Whatever, we have a jolly chat over the 50 kilos of spuds we peel together this afternoon. He doesn't even bollock me when he finds me sending a salad out in the wrong kind of containers. Blimey.
I don't care, though, I'm still leaving.
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