My first day of work is tomorrow, I'm a bit nervous... I wish I could get used to everything quickly so it gets a bit easier...

Our employer, Jim, explained that we would be working in the kitchen (preparing simple dishes, plating desserts, prep work, and, of course, washing dishes) from 4:00 PM to 10:00 PM (or a bit later, until the restaurant closes). He asked how many days off we wanted, two or one, and for some reason, we said one... I immediately calculated that if we worked like that, we could earn a little over $1,000 a month... So, about $3,500 for the whole summer... Minus the program costs (I had to pay my mom back), that leaves about $1,700... not that much... Thoughts of a second job immediately came to mind...

So... the first day of work was very important—it was a chance to meet all the staff and get to know the restaurant in general...

The restaurant turned out to be very cute!! It was called Seventh Lake House. The atmosphere inside was very cozy and pleasant.

We went into the kitchen to meet everyone..

The chef, Kent, was a man in his 40s; he looked at us kind of strangely, not very friendly... It made me feel uneasy...

The assistant chef was Monica. We first heard about her when Jim was driving us from Utica to Inlet. Naturally, anyone who has watched Friends knows the character with the same name... So I imagined a Monica just like that... But it turned out she was about 35, large-framed, with short, messy hair sticking out in all directions, a raspy voice, and dirty clothes...

At first, it was very difficult to try to understand what they wanted from you, where to bring things from... It was mostly like the Russian fairy tale 'Go there, I don't know where, bring that, I don't know what.' But after two weeks of work, we knew everything in the restaurant and had fully settled in...

Kent turned out to be a really cool guy, it was always fun with him!!!

Monica was okay too, but she turned out to be two-faced, like most Americans... She might smile to your face, but show you the middle finger behind your back...

In general, we integrated into the work process quite smoothly...

The only thing that bothered me was the small number of working hours...

We asked Jim if we could work more, and he said to come in the morning too...

We came at 9:00 AM... did some prep work, cleaned up the main dining room, and finished by 11:00... there was no more work... Not enough...

Once we hinted to Jim, asking if he would mind if we found a second job for the morning... he got a bit furious... he said we didn't need a second job and all that... he promised that the season would start at the end of June and we would have much more work in the mornings...

And he was right...

Mostly we worked from 8:00 AM to 2:00 PM, then from 4:00 PM to 11:00 PM.

Sometimes even without a break or a single day off... In short, we didn't complain about the workload anymore...

But we started having serious health problems... Not anything too critical, but very unpleasant...

In the mornings, my hands hurt a lot... you wake up, and your hand is clenched into a fist... but when you try to unclench it—nothing happens!!! It was wild... gradually the fingers would start to open, but they were incredibly stiff...

My legs hurt from constant walking, and sleep deprivation had reached a chronic stage...

But at least there were dollars in my pocket))

That's a brief summary of the work))