Occupational Hazards -- Part 2

Last Saturday (the same day as the ASC's grand opening) I also found out that I no longer work at Bound'ry. And neither does anyone else. That's right--the Bound'ry is closed until further notice. Apparently one of the partial owners of the high-class eatery had a severe conflict of interest with management, and in response hauled all of HIS cooking equipment (grills, ovens, etc.) out of the kitchen. He gave everyone three days notice.

The official word is that the restaurant is undergoing renovations, which is partially true. The general manager asked employees to put their names and email addresses on a contact list if they were willing to work on the manual labor of reconstructing the kitchen area. It has been rumored that we will be back up and running in four to six weeks (just in time for me to be back in school and unemployable), but the estimates of those in the know have been slightly longer.

I am very grateful that I have a day job to fall back on. The people whose sole livelihood depended on the Bound'ry--the chefs and servers especially, since many supported families through that income--have been taking it very hard; really though all employees are duly feeling the harm done by this loss.

Occupational Hazards -- Part 1

If you live in Nashville, you may or may not have noticed all the advertisements that have cropped up in the past month about the Sudekum planetarium. If you do not live in Nashville, the Adventure Science Center has been working on a new wing to the museum for the past three years, which include (apart from the third largest planetarium in the country), an exhibit simulating microgravity, and a moonwalk. The planetarium has stadium seating for about 500 people, and uses an IMAX projected screen, displaying approximately 20,000 stars, as well as hosting animated featurettes. Yesterday was the Grand opening, and the mayor cut the ribbon for us, and everyone clapped. There were balloon contortionists outside, ice cream inside, and everyone had a roaring good time.

What I have been doing all this time

Though I've told some of you this in person, to verify I am in fact working two jobs right now, and they are completely different from each other in almost every way. Both these companies, however, shape a distinctive part of Nashville's identity in their own way.

The Adventure Science Center looks like a giant electric castle. It is pretty hard to miss if you are driving down any of Nashville's interstates (except 440 I think). I work the front desk, which means I sell people admission tickets/memberships and give people directions over the phone. Lots of sitting is involved. Occasionally I will run the flight simulator ride (BlueMax it is called), which is sort of like being inside a giant can of soda pop as someone shakes it up, except you are the one doing the shaking. I usually work from 9:30am to 5pm, and wear a red polo shirt with the Adventure Science Center logo on the left breast.

Bound'ry is a bar a couple blocks away from the Vanderbilt campus. I am a food runner, which means I stay in the kitchen until we get an order (or five or six) and then take the food the chefs have prepared, and deliver it to the correct table. This involves being able to balance several plates on a tray (or sometimes my forearms), and memorizing all one hundred of the non-sequential table numbers in the dining area. For this job, I usually work from 6pm to 10:30pm (unless I am closing, in which case it is much later) and wear a black collared shirt with black slacks.

I keep meaning to take photographs of either of these places, but never seem to get around to it. If I ever do, I'll post them here. Working two jobs leaves me little time for much else, so the infrequent blog posts will probably decrease further at least until school starts back.