I’m a felon.

It hasn’t been 5 years since my conviction so even most second chance minded companies that pay decently such as Amazon, FedEx, UPS won’t take me.

I worked at two restaurants in Richmond, one being Papi’s, where they told me if they had enough people there post-grand-opening I could work for one of the numerous other restaurants the owners owned in the area.

Instead, I work for a weekend, not just being a bar back, bartender, dishwasher, and server all at once, but trying to hide the fact that literal shit water was coming up from the basement and leaking into the bar and dance floor, troubleshooting random issues, and being the honorary dishwasher. I never signed a W2 for them, I explained I was a felon and what the charges were, which they allegedly respected my honesty for.

So on pay day they tell me there’s not a check written out for me. And also there was a Covid scare. So I spend the next 3 days trying to get my check after getting tested. One of the last things the owner said to me was “Let your girlfriend know she has a job if she comes here” because he had been drunkenly harassing and hitting on her, gave her shots, and mistakenly called my girlfriend’s friend “Bambi,” who was allegedly someone who looked just like the friend, that had worked for him for a day. He would not leave my girl and “Bambi” alone that whole night. He also routinely slapped the posteriors of the servers, and would touch guests like they were his concubines.

Basically after picking up the check, which I was in very bad need of financially (still haven’t recovered from this) they removed me from all the group chats, immediate superiors, managers and even the co-owner wouldn’t answer my texts or calls about why I was removed so I just presumed I was fired. Never figured out what happened.

A month or two later I’m still without a job, and also without unemployment benefits. No bills have been paid. A local spot JKogi hires me as dishwasher, the owner tells me to not use the dishwasher my second night, then tells me to go home early because the dishes are too oily. He wasn’t there all day until the moment after I had just prepared the rice, and was momentarily about to drain the sinks to continue manually washing the dishes. Worked for two nights, the owner decides he would rather wash his own dishes, which is what he was doing when I came to pick up my check, without further disrespect or incident.

I cried for about an hour that day, once jkogi let me go.

Now all I do is use my friend’s door dash account and split the measly money I get from riding around in my failed inspection, headlight-out, vehicle that I can’t even make enough money with fraudulent door dash to make the monthly payment on.