Tuesday, January 20, 4:55 p.m.
I walk down York Street giggling to myself. It’s humbling, but I need to boost my income to fund my spring break plans. I’m scraping by on meager hours at my student job and my applications elsewhere have been sent into the void, so I mildly welcome my awkward situation—scooping chicken and lamb for people I’ll see in class tomorrow—as long as I can laugh at it.
Yash, whom I spoke to on Sunday when he gave me a chicken platter and employment, lets me into the kitchen of Shah’s Halal. I’m handed a black Dri-Fit elastane polo and a foam baseball cap emblazoned with the restaurant’s logo. In the bathroom I button up the shiny polyester and pull the hat’s spongy brim low on my forehead. I look ridiculous. I take selfies in my uniform to commemorate the event.
Hour One, 5:00 p.m. – 6:00 p.m.
I begin my training at the “machine,” or the Roblox Work at a Pizza Place screen. Maybe the late shift at Shah’s is like the Scary Shawarma Kiosk. I ask the employee training me for her name; it’s Chandana. She says it really fast. I ask her to repeat it so I could get it right. It’s phonetically easy, yet jumbles across my tongue at the exit. My three attempts to match her intonation fail: Chandana says I don’t really need to learn her name right now. I want to evaporate. But she smiles, which is somewhat encouraging.
Hour Two, 6:00 p.m. – 7:00 p.m.
Chandana leaves. My manager Yash fills the platters while I bag and cash out customers. I change the K-pop radio station playing on the speaker to dance beats and regret how loud it becomes in the store, but I see people wiggling to the music as they pass by on the sidewalk.
Hour Three, 7:00 p.m. – 8:00 p.m.
The dinner rush has locals, grad students and undergrads forming a line while the shrill chime of online orders ring from the iPads on the wall. I have to set aside my receipt doodles as the work speeds up. Though completing the tasks is as rewarding as it is in Papa’s Pizzeria, the experience is coming out to be a letdown. This isn’t as funny as I thought it’d be. I need to do something more productive with my time. Are they still hiring people for the Boola costume?
When I recognize the name of a fellow Trumbull College senior on a pickup order I feel a jolt of glee and dread. I laugh while stapling the receipt to the plastic bag. Then laugh with him when he recognizes me as I hand it over. He’s gone before I can explain myself and make a joke about my uniform, before I can say this wasn’t my first choice either but I have to pay for a flight to Mexico.
Yale cultivates such impressive and talented people, and my place in these ranks as the face of Shah’s Halal was not what I imagined when I opened my acceptance letter four short years ago. So I try to hide myself from the window by tilting my head to the floor, hoping the brim of the hat obscures my face. My gaze sits on the ranch packets stocked under the cash register.
A girl places an order for delivery and the notes section reads: “Please add extra extra extra white sauce! Thank you so much! I love you guys at Shah’s!!! Best food in New Haven! <3.” I feel a little loved.
Hour Four, 8:00 p.m. – 9:00 p.m.
As the rush quiets down, Yash has me practice my sauce drizzles. He slides a DoorDash order in front of me. I compress the squirt bottle too fast and splooge barbeque sauce across the side of the dish and onto the metal counter. He wipes it up, then gives me a bottle filled with water and tells me to work on my sauce technique for efficiency.
In the quiet repetition of the grab-and-squeeze, facing the back wall, I imagine a series of characters whom I would hate to be seen by in here. Any failed texting stage could enter Shah’s silently and encounter the back of my head in a hairnet. I wonder if I make the hairball work in my favor.
Hour Five, 9:00 p.m. – 10:00 p.m.
Yash and another worker clean the buffet warmers to get ahead of closing. They shoo me out of the way by telling me I can have a break and take some food, too. I make myself a courteous platter and take it to the break room in the basement.
The Return Home, 10:00 p.m. – 2:00 a.m.
Yash lets me go at 10:00 p.m. I come home to the cheers of my suitemates, since I’m finally making money without selling my body to Yale’s psychiatric studies. But their celebration deflates into harmonized groans. A ferocious waft of onion and garlic has followed me into my suite. My suitemates delicately tell me that I stink. I reach my limit, and shriek and jump with a double-footed hop, shoving my jeans to my ankles while in midair. Pacing and removing articles of clothing, my fear spills out of my mouth: I can’t smell this bad all the time, the $17.60 is not worth it. At Yale we’re told constantly that we are the best and the brightest and are doing important things with our time, such as not drawing daisies behind the counter of Shah’s Halal. I’m struggling to reckon with the reality of where I am: A student on this campus is probably coding software for the supply chain that keeps places like Shah’s well stocked—and I’m stocking the shelves. My ego suffers.
I ask my suitemates what I should do. They say I should stay at the job, for now, until I get a new one. I ask them how strong the smell is. It’s pungent. So is the anxiety—I’m supposed to come in tomorrow for another shift. Yash was going to teach me how to roll the gyros. I really thought my ego could absorb this job with a bit of humor, but all I can sense, pantless, is that I’m ashamed. My phone smells like food. My hair smells like food. My socks, my shoes, my bra smells like food. I throw everything in the laundry bin and trudge to the bathroom for an ahead-of-schedule, twice-in-two-days everything shower.
Four hours later, with all the lights out and nestled into our respective beds in our shared room, my roommate and I cry with belly-heaving laughter at the absurdity of my situation. I’m clean and being cuddled by my unscented duvet, a transcendent state of existence soon to be ruined by a day of gyro rolling. I stare at the ceiling and recite my mantra: I can’t go back. I can’t go back. At 2:00 a.m. I make the final, liberating, decision: I quit!