Here I am at the Phoenix Public Library 5th Floor once again.....

Here I am at the Phoenix Public Library 5th Floor once again.....I can remember how ten years ago after I was fired at Xanterra Grand Canyon South Rim how I would come here and just sit and blog and how I started listing things on ebay back then and how I felt horrible about losing the job yet glad to be out of that place, a place which has only sunk lower since that fateful date I was let go.  Hard to believe that has been TEN WHOLE YEARS since all that drama took place.  

Since then, David Traylor and Jesse Horner have moved on, and Janet Hadley was just fired after posting on Facebook that she didn't get the promotion she has applied for, which was pretty shitty of Xanterra to do to her in my book.  Apparently Dennis Tacey has pulled up stakes and moved to Michigan (wonder what the story is there?), and William who I remember being such a prick upon my return to the South Rim November 2008 was offered the choice of resigning or being fired....apparently he had a drinking problem going.  I wonder what his demons are/were?  Anyhow, the management that I remember seems to be no more.  And something else interesting?  Just like Forever Resorts at the North Rim, Xanterra is now using Applicant Tracking Software, meaning someone like me does not have a chance in hell of getting in.....what with my age and my huge employment gap and my testing positive for THC even though I have a legal Arizona MMJ card, not to forget to mention my two arrests and two misdemeanors on my record.  Things have changed since 2008 and that horrible recession - these changes took awhile to show up in hospitality/food and beverage but they are definitely there now.  Essentially, I am unemployable these days and if I want to make income, I am going to have to find a way to do such on my own on my own steam and not via working for someone else.  

I can remember a time when employees were viewed as assets - now employees are viewed as expenses and potential threats.  It really is so incredibly creepy now as more and more companies are going to be engaging in continual employee background monitoring - not just the one time when you apply and interview and hopefully get considered.  Working truly is a nightmare these days, no way around that one, it just is.  I have to be honest and admit that I don't miss working though I do miss the structure that working does lend to your life.  I don't have that structure these days and have not had such for years at this point.  And it is utterly amazing to me that to get a job serving these days one needs to create a resume and a cover letter - even for seasonal work.  Don't provide the right key words and your resume will never be seen by a human being.  And this has crept into food and beverage.....I can remember twenty years ago, back in 1999 in that utterly different job market - I can remember responding to ads in the paper and just going to restaurants in person and filling out applications and getting hired that way - the human way that no longer exists.  I can remember bouncing from job to job in 1999 - it used to be so so so easy to find a serving job - and I had just left Darren and Tusayan and was going to take Phoenix F and B by storm.  That didn't go as well as I had envisioned, LOL.  Not at all.  

Twenty years ago at this time I was working at JB's over on 32nd Street and Indian School.  I am so glad I got out of that place and I can remember back in 2008 when I was working for the Radisson - somehow after work one day I ended out at 32nd Street and Indian School waiting for the bus.  And I remember looking across the street and seeing JB's closed and feeling no pity whatsoever.  Whoever owned the building did try to sell it for awhile but it has since been bulldozed and there is now a McDonald's on the site.  Hard to believe that nightmarish experience was 20 years ago now.  And Red Devil - one of the worst places I've ever worked at if not the worst - last month it was 20 years (20 years!!!) since they fired me and since I took the training for a CSR Rep position at UHaul and quit them, too.  So hard for me to believe, it really is.  I can remember how easy it was to get that UHaul job and how they did a mass hiring of the entire class of applicants......not today.  That would not happen today, no way, no how.  But that was that other economy, years ago.  

I can remember back in 2013 the panic attacks that swooped down on me out of nowhere and ended my welcome/stay/employment at Flaming Gorge Resort in Dutch John, Utah.  That was amazing to me that that happened and I have not waited another table in a restaurant/tipped setting since.  I just don't think I could handle the stress involved any more, and the business has only become more crazy and more demanding since the panic attacks.  One thing that has happened is that wages have gone up to the point that you have to be paid $8/hr to wait tables in Arizona now - on January 1st, 2020, the hourly tipped wage will go up to $9/hr, which to me is utterly amazing, as I can remember years of $2.13/hr.  At these higher wages, you become an expense, and more will be expected of you as opposed to the days when serving was a good place for leftover people such as myself that really don't fit in anywhere else.  Places like Macayo's for example would take you - I can remember a server named Joanne who was in her 70's from my time at the main Macayo's on Central/Indian School.  A location which has since been bulldozed for luxury apartments and the chain itself which has been sold off by the family except for two locations.  I'm guessing the changes to food and beverage were behind this sale by the Johnson family.  

At any rate, I remember being grateful for the chance to visit the Dinosaur Museum in Vernal,  UT before my bus to Salt Lake City took off later that day.  I remember checking into the hotel in downtown Salt Lake City, and I remember being grateful for having a day in Salt Lake City before returning to Phoenix.  I really was not sad that things ended the way they did as I did not feel entirely comfortable there at Flaming Gorge Resort, but I sure was not expecting things to end the way that they did, either.  And other than a few banquets for Party Staff, that was the end of my F and B days.  Honestly, I gotta say that I don't miss them, I really don't.  Food and Beverage to me was such an insane way to make money.....The only time I ever really enjoyed it was my first season at Denny's Tusayan back in 1997 when I was amazed that I was able to keep up with it all.  And I need to go to Boost and replace my damned charger cord......Rob