My Macaroni Grill Experience

Most people don't realize that when I started working at Romanos Macaroni Grill in 2012 that I was dealing with sever depression. It was only a few months after my brother's death and everything was still fresh in my mind. 

I was hired on the spot by both managers. They had just lost their general manager and the restaurant was going through a turn around period. I started out as a host with the plan that I would eventually be planned to be trained as a server. Everyone was very welcoming right from the start. 

There has always been a sense of family in the work space. Even with the high turn over rate, there was always a core group that stuck around. 

I believe it was Socrates who first asked "what's in the blackboard soup?"

I used the workplace as my distraction for the summer of 2012, and it rolled over to fall, and then to winter. I worked as much as I could to keep distracted from the things that haunted me in my every day life. I could go to Mac Grill and see the amazing people I worked with and get to have fun with them while making money.

It's rare that you have managers in a restaurant who genuinely care about the servers making lots of money. Our managers would do whatever they could to make sure we were making as much money as possible.  It's so hard to find that in any business. I won't find that anywhere else...

More times the restaurant was chaos; people were screaming at each other; dishes would run out; someone would be crying in dry storage; someone else would be shoveling a Caesar salad down her throat with her hands; but despite all the ridiculousness, it was our home. It was where our family came together for work, food, and to just hang out and talk. 

On a daily basis I'd right my name on a table upside down and backwards, and the people sitting would ask, "How long did it take you to learn to do that?" I'd always say "oh I practiced for weeks up at the host stand before I started serving. Every day I'd stand up there and right upside down," but really I learned my first day there. I wanted to be a server there from the instant I walked in.

Yesterday I walked through those doors for the last time, and it killed me a little bit. I've spent the past three years working in the restaurant with my work family. And to have that all go away in one day.. It's just still so much to take in. 

I know that things will eventually get better, but most people don't understand. It's not just about losing my job. It's about losing the family that I spent so much of my time with these past three years. A group of people that have no idea how much they helped me in their own little ways. 

Maybe one day I'll work with some of them again. I would be honored to have the opportunity. 

#86MacGrill

My Blog in 2014

Well, I've learned that I shouldn't drink and blog. I'll keep that in mind for the future.

“Relationships don’t work they way they do on television and in the movies. Will they? Won’t they? And then they finally do, and they’re happy forever. Gimme a break.

Nine out of ten of them end because they weren’t right for each other to begin with, and half of the ones who get married get divorced anyway, and I’m telling you right now, through all this stuff I have not become a cynic. I haven’t.

Yes, I do happen to believe that love is mainly about pushing chocolate covered candies and, y’know, in some cultures, a chicken.

You can call me a sucker, I don’t care, because I do believe in it. Bottom line: it’s couples who are truly right for each other wade through the same crap as everybody else, but the big difference is they don’t let it take them down.

One of those two people will stand up and fight for that relationship every time. If it’s right, and they’re real lucky, one of them will say something.”

“I’ve been thinking a lot lately about taking chances, and how it’s really just about overcoming your fears. Because the truth is, everytime you take a big risk in your life, no matter how it ends up, you’re always glad you took it. “

“All right, fine, Elliot. You wanna know why? You're just like me. You're scared because you feel like you haven't accomplished anything with your life. But instead of running a triathlon, you're pushing forward with a guy you don't belong with. And you know as well as I do, one of these days he's gonna open up a bottle of white wine for you when you really prefer red, except you never told him that; and you wanna know why? It's because he's not right for you, Elliot. Are you happy now?“

“I think one of the most universal human experiences is feeling alone. You’d never know it, but there’s most likely tons of people feeling the exact same way. Maybe because you’re feeling abandoned. Maybe because you realize that you aren’t as self-sufficient as you thought. Maybe because you know you should’ve handled something differently. Or maybe because you aren’t as good as you thought you were. Either way, when you hit that low point, you have a choice. You can either wallow in self-pity…Or you can suck it up. It’s your call.”

I love that I'm 22 years old, and I still live my life through lessons I learned watching Scrubs. I don't think I'll ever grow out of that show haha, but then I'd never want to.

There are always so many things changing in my life all the time. Chaos is 80% of my every day life, and I like leaving things up to circumstance and chance, but where has that gotten me lately?

I feel like this spring, I'm exactly where I was last Spring, and I'm not okay with that.

I like all my classes, that isn't the issue. I just find myself in another ACMO musical, working at Mac Grill, and seeing the same faces day in and day out.
Don't get me wrong, I'm not complaining about these things. I love my cast and show. I love my job and work friends, and I don't know where I'd be without my friends, but I need something else.
I feel like Belle in the beginning of Beauty and the Beast, wanting adventure in the great wide somewhere. I want to go on a roadtrip with two friends and just be alive in the world with no cares one more time before I'm forced to grow up, graduate, and begin the long process of becoming an adult.

Ive never wanted to grow up. If there were a Neverland, I'd be there in a heart beat, but lately it's becoming more apparent that I'm going to have to soon. Pretty soon everyone from my freshman group of friends will have Graduated, and I'll still be here. I don't like telling people that I failed a year of college. Then I have to get into the explanations of everything, and they just look at me with that face full of pity, and they don't know what to say.

Should I have gotten help when I needed it? Yes. Was in the right state if mind to know that? No.

That's in the past though. I've moved on since then, and have been doing better and better in my classes every semester. It's still hard. The motivation isn't there like it used to be, but Im sure it'll be back once it comes down to Crunch Time.


My opinions are ever changing. Especially so when it comes to love. I think my problem has always been that I try to hard to understand it and how it works, when really we can't. We can't determine what Love even really is, just that we feel it and it can be powerful. Anytime I ask someone their definition of love, it's a different answer. For awhile, I thought I had it all figured out, and who knows.. maybe I did at one point, but life throws too many curve balls, and one decision impacts another. Things, opinions, and people change. I just know that I've got a lot of reflecting to do in the future.

As for now, I'm ready to change things up. Here's to more blogs in the future once I start figuring things out again. =]