As a professional singer and actor, I have had a total of 33 jobs in 17 years. I have worked at least 3 jobs or more simultaneously in addition to performing over the years. Each week, I will discuss one of my former or current jobs. My thirty-first job was server/singer on the Tea Around Town Bus in NYC.
Getting the Job
I found this job on Indeed and interviewed on Zoom. I was hired as a singer. The singer had to memorize 12 jazz standards and narrate the bus tour. While I worked on learning the jazz standards, I was scheduled as a server. Once I sang the songs for the manager, I would be scheduled as a singer.
Experience
This job seemed like a really cool job at first. But, it was extremely disorganized, had unsanitary conditions for guests and workers. The DOH closed down the office that we were using to prepare the food and wash the dishes. I have worked in food service for several years. Food is supposed to be in a separate area from the dishwashing area. In Tea Bus office, the food was right near the dishwashing area, which is probably why the DOH shut it down. The company found another place was more sanitary.
The workers were not the friendiest and most did not like the job at all. Some of the my co-workers were nice and helpful and a few were super rude to me, which has not happened very often in my previous jobs. Usually, I get along quite well with my co-workers, but on the Tea Bus, it was awful. I was the only black woman hired on the Tea Bus as a singer or server.
Quitting
I told my manager that I thought that my a few of my co-workers were being rude to me due to my race, but he thought that I was projecting. This was the first time in my life that I ever brought up my race at work. I am usually one of the only black women in many workplaces. I do not want to be accused of using the race card, so I never bring it up.
However, this job had challenging work conditions so working with co-workers who were not kind did not help the situation. Lastly, I was asked to sing and I was only scheduled to sing on one shift. After this, I was scheduled as a server because after New Year’s Eve, the shifts slowed down.
Tourism goes down after New Year’s Eve in NYC. I decided to quit after about a month of work. Lastly, the guests were not always getting what they paid for. Many guests were not able to get on the bus that they had already bought tickets for the ride. Also, the bus was running extremely late to pick up the people to get on the bus. It was really disorganized and a bit of a scam at times.