I WASN’T BORN TO BE A STOP SIGN!

You all know I’ve been crying and wining about my profession like a little girl for posts and posts on end. But you know what, I talk to people, sometimes even nice and polite ones (oh, and believe me, much nicer in the US, than they are in Bulgaria, where they treat waiters like the lowest of the low – the worst scum and useless leaches to ever walk the Earth). I even meet people, who tell me they had the most memorable meal in their lives! They thank me for giving them the best recommendations and selling them the best wine. Well, I’ll admit it – it feels nice, especially after I get to buy clothes, food, cars and houses with their money, with their tips, because of people’s generosity I can afford to have a decent amount of hope that someday we’ll have enough to get out of the status quo and step on the next level of being non-servants.

But how about the sign-people? The ones wearing the statue of liberty costume and holding a sign “Liberty taxes” along the road; the ones with the “Get pizza for $5 here” signs. And how about the STOP sign people, who proudly lift the STOP sign as people cross, even though the cars have already stopped, because the light is red. I wonder what kind of satisfaction those people get. Being a paid, moving scarecrow must be quite the job. To me this must be the job to get if you’re sick of being a bum and would like to put your life together by changing the “Help me,  I’m a hungry veteran” with the “Lose weight here” sign, so they can get off the street.

I cannot comprehend the American way of living that all jobs can be cool, as long as you get paid well. I still remember how a guy from work told me that his dad will finally shut up about him being a waiter, when he sees that his son has a bigger house than him. Albeit liberating to an extent, this way of thinking is so typical of a society where dropping out of school is ok! No matter what you do or what you have in your head, as long as earn enough and spend even more, you’re good.

And then there’s the other thing that kills me: education is SO freaking expensive! No wonder many people prefer to stay at their high-school education level and be waiters for life. I mean, it costs a house to get a master’s degree! Considering most people live half of their lives just to pay off one house, I don’t even see why they’d wanna have to live their other half to pay off student loans.

It’s a fucked up world and that’s how it is all over the civilized countries. A catch 22. To study you need money. To get money you need a job. To get job, you need to have studied.

Yes, not all the world is like Bulgaria, where it’s next to free to go to college, but they don’t teach you nearly enough, so as when you leave the country you’re not stuck as a "waiter for life, esse".

I don’t know how we’ll get out of this mud and for how long, entangled in the vicious circles we’ll spend our
days daydreaming how we could be doing something else, somewhere else.

I just know I don’t want to have many more of these days, where I wake up and realize I’ve been sleepwalking yet another day. I refuse to be a STOP sign! Leave it to the dreamers of the American dream. I just wanna wake up!