mediaphile

Well, those 10-hour days got cut every day. And that sort of pisses me off. I mean, I was getting into the races! My stepdad’s a NASCAR fan. By default, this makes my mother and me NASCAR fans. We’re an Earnhardt family by trade—but I think Kasey Kahne is cuter. ;) Jr’s a better driver right now, though, I think. Well, after this last race his rank upped a bit, and Kahne’s dropped, but they’re both pretty good.

Anyway, on to my three days at Infineon.

Friday was a 6-hour day. I think that killed me more than the other days—it was miserably hot with no breeze, and on top of that, we were slow. So there wasn’t anything to even do. We all went home and crashed. And I made a whole $4 in tips. Met the guy driving in the races Saturday, number 21. He was a sweetie. Was drinking Friday because he wasn’t allowed Saturday. ;)

Saturday was better. More races, and a breeze. Plus, we locked the portapotty right next to our booth so nobody could use it. :D That helped a lot. Made $28, worked 8 hours before getting kicked, but since we’d actually worked, we weren’t as tired. At least, I wasn’t. Still came home and crashed, of course, but I was able to drive home without yawning.

Sunday was…ugh. I wanted to smack our driver. And like, almost everyone we were working with. I will be calling Anthony about it today or tomorrow to let him know how unreliable people are without him there. See, we were told be there at 6.00. This means 6.00. Not 6.05, not 6.15. Why? Because we needed to be there for check-in at 7.15. Not 7.30, not 8.00.

Well. I was there at 5.30. I didn’t hit any traffic on the way to work for pickup. A few others showed up, but the majority of people didn’t get there until way late—and some of the ones who were there almost on time were idiots and went to the store and came back late, thus making us all late.

Now, the trip from Sacramento to Sonoma is…well, the way our driver went, normally about an hour trip. He swore up and down we’d be on time, leaving at half past. I didn’t think so. He said there’d be no traffic at all! I disagreed. He doesn’t follow the races. I do. Yeah, the main race wasn’t until 2 in the afternoon, but people would be getting there really early. I don’t follow football, but don’t those tailgate parties go for a long time before the race? I told him this, and come right about 7, I asked if anyone had called our contact at the speedway that we were behind. He was all, “No, and we won’t be late.” I was like, “Fine, but it just seems like a good idea to call and let her know…” So finally he gives me her number, so I call and tell her we’re a bit behind. And he snapped that we were going to be on time when I said we’d be about 20-25 minutes behind.

Just guess which one of us was right?

Traffic was horrible once we got close. Parking lot traffic. But I held my tongue, didn’t gloat that I was right and he was wrong. We ended up a half hour late.

Then, we got going. Where the rest of the weekend my stand had 5 people working total, today we had 7. And I got sent on breaks every 20 minutes. Okay, thanks, that’s nice, kick out the girl who’s bringing in the nice tips—think about it. I’m young, cute, and flirting with the older guys. I was bringing in a buck every other drink! Instead, let’s put the overweight guy who doesn’t smile and the Japanese guy with a cool name but no sense of politeness up there. Uh-huh. Smart idea. Bugged me. Like, what are you going to do if I’m not back after my ten-minute break? Send me on another?

And at 2.30—just after the race started—we got cut.

Screw you guys. I love the races. But I did get hats, for both my stepfather and me. Junior, yay! And I got this sweet Kahne banner, the type they hang off the fences and stuff.

But we left around 3.00, and I made $34 in tips, after 4 hours of slinging booze, split 7 ways, so I guess it was okay. Missed the race but the last few laps when I got home. Kasey dropped from 1^st, though, after that pileup near the beginning of the race that I missed because I was on the way home.

I’m still a little upset, though. When I’m told 8 to 10 hour days…doesn’t that mean 8 to 10 hours? Not 6? Because I was counting on that money. And if I’m paying $10 of it out for the carpool out and back, I basically only got paid for 5 hours, not counting any of that time I was in the car there or back. I think I’m getting cheated.

Ah, well. I caught up on my sleep last night. 11 straight hours. If I figure out how, I’ll post the little bit of video I took of the cars going round in the first lap. Forgive the shaky camera work. The fence I was balancing on was falling apart, so anytime anyone else leaned against it the whole thing shook and my camera jerked. But at least there’s a good shot of all the cars.

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