Marroquin Santos

Staff vs. Crew

Allison Rudolf

It is 3:57. My shift at the restaurant starts at 4:30. I am always 10 minutes early. The drive is 17 minutes, which means I need to find my uniform shirt in the next three minutes if I want to make it out to my car with a minute or two to spare. I always forget my keys, phone, or something else equally important, so I build in a couple of minutes to my time.

My uniform shirt is a little darker than periwinkle blue and has the restaurant logo in the top right corner. I have four of these shirts because I often work all weekend. The first one I got is different from the rest. It says “STAFF” on the back, and it is a V-neck style t-shirt. I used it all last summer, and this summer, management used a new company to make the shirts. My newest three are all different sizes, but they all have a circle neckline and say “CREW” on the back. I am one of the only people who still wear the “STAFF” shirts because I have worked at the restaurant for more than one summer.

Working in a bar food restaurant makes said uniform shirt almost unwearable after one shift. Therefore, I have three shirts for three shifts of the weekend and an extra for next week when I forget to do laundry.

I have three minutes. I throw my clothes from last week’s pile onto the floor, t-shirts strewn about my room, and pairs of socks littering the walkway. Not there. I run downstairs as fast as my short legs will let me, down to the laundry room. There are more and more clothes, but no work shirt. I rush over to see if it is hanging on the drying rack. I could have sworn it was there last night. It’s not there now. I dash back up the stairs to the living room to check the other piles of unsorted laundry. I am now going to be four minutes late to my original time, which will only be six minutes early. Great.

I rush back downstairs, snatch a dirty shirt from the washroom floor, and grimace as I pull it on. It smells like a truck full of French fries with a few sides of grease. Ew.

Well, I guess this is it. I am going to work in a dirty shirt. Gross. I yell at my sister to get in the car because we are going to be late. She works with me at the same restaurant. She started at the beginning of this summer. Keys, wallet, phone, purse. I think I have it all. I slam the door on my way out and run to my car.

Megan jogs out of the house, and I can tell something is not right. The shirt she is wearing is a V-neck restaurant shirt; it says “STAFF” on the back.

Not “CREW.”

She climbs into the car and looks at me like she is ready to go.

She is wearing my shirt.