A Year Away From Her

Chapter 7

Working at María's Diner has been the best thing that has ever happened to me and I'm glad I found this place instead of some big, snobby corporation company. María and Mateo have become another set of parents to me with how they have treated me, and Ashely became the little sister that I never had. But they were also great bosses who truly care about their workers and their lives. Within two days of working here, I learned how truly lucky I was to have meet this lovely couple and have the privilege to be a part of this great business. 

My second day working at the diner, I got to meet all of my co-workers, people who have been outcast by society. Every single one of my co-workers had a history, whether it was criminal, immigrant, or sexual orientation and because of that, places refuse to give them work until they meet María and Mateo.

For example, our head-cook, Mike, who is African- American, was arrested his first year in college for a murder that happened close by his home, but the truth of the matter is he was in the wrong place at the wrong time and happened to fit the description. Police arrested him and he had a quick trial, even though throughout the case he maintained his innocence, but eventually took the plead deal to help his family for it was expensive and his family was hoping that he would become the first member in their family to graduate from college. He was in prison for about ten years when his name was finally cleared, thanks to DNA. But even though his name was cleared, nobody wanted him. His college refused to allow him back in and had the audacity to force him to pay his first year, even though he never finished it and was on a scholarship. Places didn't want him because his name was still associated with a murder, even though he was 100% innocent.

Mike was homeless and had nothing for about another five years, until María find him and offered a job. At first, Mike refused the job, because of the background check and he knew it would just look bad for María business to have a false murderer in their business. But then María reassured him that they didn't do background checks, that they only hired based on their character and who they are as a person, not their history. Mike eventually took the job, and ever since then, he's been with them. He is reason why people come back to the diner because his food taste so good, especially when Mateo is unable to help in the kitchen. He's been offered jobs at various places as head-chief, some of the places very high-in, but he's stayed because of María and Mateo.

Some of our cleaners and other cooks are immigrants from Mexico and South America. When they first came to the United States, they couldn't speak English, and many places didn't want them because of that reason. But María and Mateo found them and brought them to the diner, and even had most of the staff learn Spanish to help them throughout the process. And during their breaks, we often take turns teaching them English whenever we have the chance, because classes are too expensive for them.

Our waiting staff mostly consist of people who are part of the LGBTQ+ community or people who have just been kicked out of families and have no place to go.

In all, we are just one big family, as cheesy as that is to say, it is completely true. My first day on the job, everyone was excited to meet me, because they often don't have new people coming to working for them. They were happy to have someone new and to get another family member.

The first couple of weeks at my job was very tiring because I was going through years and years of paperwork trying to figure out what was going wrong with the diner, because María was correct. They were still making a lot of money from selling food, actually more than they have in past years, but they were still managing to lose money.

But on my second week of the job, I finally found the reason. The people that Mateo usually gets all of food and produce from, where up charging him double the normal amount that they would normally make customers pay. All because he had been buying from them for years, and they knew they could take advantage him and his kindness. In addition, they were making him pay full price for his bulk order for his restaurant when they were supposed to give him a small discount because everything he was buying went to his restaurant. It was honesty a complete mess and I eventually was forced to tell María and Mateo that we would have to find a new supplier because how unreasonable they were, but luckily, I was able to find a supplier who would give the same ingredients and produce to Mateo for half of the cost he supposed to be paying the first one.