Odd Dreams that I've Had

June 20th, 2021- An Awful Shift

You know those dreams you have sometimes where there seems to be an inexplicable air of hopelessness looming over everything?
That's what this dream felt like.

So I'm this dream I was clocking in to work as a prep cook at Olive Garden (my job irl)  And for some reason the restaurant building was completely MASSIVE. It was like a labyrinth.
In order to reach the part of the kitchen I worked in I had to cross huge rooms of shelves, carts, and tables of different foods. The rooms felt claustrophobic because the rows of shelves were massive in comparison to me. Additionally, there were no windows and it was dim.

I finally get to my portion of kitchen and found the list of food I have to prepare during my shift.
Normally I know how to prepare everything, but this time there were several food items I didn't recognize. And instead of one column indicating by what date they needed to be used, there were two. How was that even possible?! How could a food item both need to be used by Tuesday and by Wednesday at the same time?

So I had a lot of questions, and I was slightly panicking because there was so much stuff I didn't know how to make. I figured it was so different because I was working outside of my usual hours; normally I worked in the morning, but this time I clocked in around eight PM.

I asked a coworker what these extra columns meant and they answered, but I didn't really understand. I just said "okay" and decided I would focus on the items I knew how to prepare first.

As I was doing that, the lights flickered in the adjacent rooms, spreading to my portion of the kitchen. Indeed, the power went out.

Not really knowing what to do, I followed all of my coworkers, who were leaving the kitchens to the side exit of the building.

It looked like since the power went out, they couldn't work, so they were leaving. By this time it was 1 AM, so I figured they would've been leaving soon anyway.

I noticed it was windy outside. Very windy. That must've knocked the power out.

I got out my phone, texting my parents that I needed to be picked up and waited.

About five minutes later someone told me the power was back on and I could continue working. Just lovely.

I walked back inside, wondering how the restaurant was still open at 1 AM and showed no sign of stopping.

Reluctantly, I began to work again when I received a text that my parents were here. I told them the power went back on so I could continue working, and they asked me if I wanted to eat here after my shift.

I said sure, even though I didn't know if it would still be open.

I finished my prep list- well, everything I knew how to make- and then kinda just left it 😀
I'm a great worker I know.

I found my parents in the dining area and sat down with them. By now it was 2:30 AM and the restaurant was still bustling? I was confused.

A waiter came up to us and took our order. We ordered a "14-slice cheese platter," and not even five minutes later we received... like deadass 20 huge trays of different dishes. There was salad, pasta, cookies, and indeed cheese.

Obviously there was some kind of mistake. I raised my hand and told another waiter my problem, and he just told me to throw away everything I didn't need.

Um, okay? I painstakingly sorted all twenty trays of food into piles of food we needed and piles of food we didn't, then picked up the heavy pile of trays and looked for a trash can to discard them.

I felt horrible wasting all this food, but I didn't know what else to do with it. I dumped the food and searched for a place to put the dishes, but couldn't.

I just decided to leave the dishes on a counter and went back to my table. I was starting to feel guilty now, too, because of my incomplete work during my shift. I would surely get in trouble for this.

When I got back to my table, it was three AM and the restaurant was PACKED. We were right by the door and I watched as dozens of people crowded in, and they were.. interesting.

The three AM crowd indeed looked the part. There were people in all kinds of party costumes and some of them even ran up to our table and "greeted" us, slapping their hands on our table and yelling.

Yeah, I wasn't a fan. Soon after three AM rolled around I woke up. This dream kind of sucked, not gonna lie. There was nothing positive or enjoyable about it. I'm glad it's over.