So ever since I got hired, my boss has been something like the father figure I never had --- right down to the screaming matches with his wife, complete with thrown objects.
Note to self: never get married. And especially never become a small business owner.
Addendum: so, I come into work today, only to be told that the place isn't opening, due to more of the same. I am considering looking for a new job. The only reason I held on to this job was because of my respect for my boss, who usually is a sensible and wise individual. I don't need to put up with this; I've got a semester till I graduate and the last thing I need to deal with is a weekend spent in the crossfire.
Problem is, while I'm not indispensible, I'm afraid that my quitting will encourage others to do the same. The consequences to me will be minimal. I can live off student loans till I graduate, and there are a couple of decent minimum-wage jobs around here that can get my rent paid and my belly filled until I leave for the Peace Corps. I personally have nothing to lose by quitting, save money for beer and cigarettes, both of which I should quit doing anyways.
Others don't have that luxury. About forty or fifty jobs will be lost if the place goes under. About thirty-five of them need that job just to make ends meet, and don't have a huge chunk of money coming to them every five or six months. We have single mothers on staff, and I have a very soft spot for single mothers, as I was raised by a saint of a single mother. I understand financial struggle; it's all I've ever known until recently.
The plan for now: hold on, and don't be the first rat to jump ship if it starts sinking. This is just foolish optimism on my part, and I doubt things will change for the better, but it's hard to turn my back on a man I've respected and held to be one of the wiser and cooler heads in my life. Recent developments have caused me to reevaluate my opinion of him, and caused me to sympathize with the very people I unfairly despised.
I'm not a saint myself by any stretch of the word; I've slung my fair share of harsh words and spatulas in the course of my working there. I'm just a temperamental young man, and it bothers me that a man twice my age reminds me so much of the father I never knew, right down to the Vesuvius-scale flareups. I spent my entire childhood and adolescence trying to find safe vents for my anger issues (running really helps keep the inner demons at bay), and I haven't struck a person in anger in ten years. So it scares the fuck out of me when I see a man twice my age act out like I did when I was thirteen.
It's just hard to turn my back on my second family. We really are one big, usually-happy dysfunctional family at my work, in a fucked-up Chuck Palahniuk sense. The hostess I flirt with (God, I'll miss her), the cooks I've smoked many a bowl with, the waitstaff I've cursed at one second and moved mountains for the next, the guy I live with right now: we're one big fucked-up family. I turned my back on one family, now I feel the need to turn my back on yet another.