After working 6 hours, on my feet as front staff, I had to do a catering gig on a boat for a high school dry grad. Having come from an all girls school, I never really had a prom and always wondered what it would be like. Watching all those movies, I thought it would be as fun but I was wrong…way wrong. the only thing that was accurate was that you could spot all the different social groups at a glance; the jocks, the nerds, the bitches etc. Whatever you see in the movies, they were there. These kids probably watch the same movies and laugh at them without realizing that the characters are based off them and exeaggerated.
When I got there, I had to load up the boat with food, cutlery and refreshment. It was surprisingly a pretty big boat and was well decorated. I was rather impressed. The main deck had a DJ and a wooden dancefloor after which was a carpeted area with nicely draped tables and chairs lining the windows of the boat on both sides leaving a huge empty space in the middle. At the end of it was where the food tables were placed and a the bar. The second floor pretty much looked like a casino. It had a roulette table, 2 black jack tables and 2 poker tables. At the sight of that all I could think was ” Are high school kids supposed to be gambling? Especially when you have teachers chaperoning the event?” But whatever, it was their night after all.
The kids started loading up the boat and they all charged towards the food…a hungry bunch. All of them were dressed up except for a few, one guy was dressed in a white track suit and one girl was dressed in a summer dress. The rest were in suits and gowns. The food the school had ordered were nachos and dips, pita bread and tzaziki sauce, fruit platters, vegetable platters, butter chicken, grill veggie skewers, beef satay, chicken satay, rice and way too many cookie, squares and pastry platters. Clearly, adults have no idea what kids go for.
The DJ was spinning pretty good tracks but the transition between songs weren’t that great and I winced every time that happened. Having polished off their food, the kids proceeded to the dance floor which was rather small, maybe about 20ft by 20ft. Somehow all the kids managed to squeeze onto the wooden dancefloor while there was a huge carpeted space which was twice that size and it was empty. On the dancefloor, everyone had their arms in the air squashed in that small square swaying like palm trees at a very fast speed; or what they call dancing, and probably smelling each others’ armpit and enjoying it.
Once in a while I had to walk around to keep the place clean and at each table, there was always someone who was just sitting there on their cell phone texting. Some just looked miserable. Later on in the night, each table had a girl complaining about about some other girl or guy or girl and guy and some drama. By 3.30am, many of them were on the floor, or lying on the chairs or had their heads on the table and many of them asking when the boat was going to dock. Unfortunately for them and us working, the boat was docking only at 5am. There was no where to run; we were stuck out in the open sea. My only other entertainment was talking to people and checking out the helm and chilling with the captain.
Overall, it was an entertaining night even though I was working. I learnt that I do not ever want to be in a high school with all that drama and I am happy I never had a prom. It is a good idea to pay to have your child put on a boat for grad cos they have no where else to go and they cannot lie to you about their location and by the time the even ends, they are beyond tired and will head to bed immediately once they reach home. Teachers have no idea what to order for catering because a lot of the kids were still hungry and we had 4 huge trays of desserts leftover and we had to throw away 1 and 1/3 of vegetable platters. Moral of the story, drinks and food are what kids need and desserts not so much. And of course, they left a huge mess!
It was quite an experience but damn those trays and chaffers were heavy.
Leave a Comment
No comments yet.
Comments RSS TrackBack Identifier URI
