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Authors: Leah Remini, Rebecca Paley
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Buildings (which was important, since I didn’t have a car). My sister got a job down the street at a place called George’s General Store, which sold accessories needed for Scientology sessions and recommended vitamins.
Canvassing the area around Fountain Avenue, I went into the restaurant right across from the Blue Buildings, New York George’s (no connection to the general store). My strategy was to use the fact that I was from New York to get my foot in the door. The owner, Randy, a Scientologist, interviewed me and agreed to try me out as a cashier, because I wasn’t trusted to be a waitress with the attitude I had on me, as he could attest to from my days as a customer there. “Just sit here on this stool, take the money, make change, and try not to lose us any business with your mouth,” Randy said.
“Can I at least—”
“No,” Randy said. “Take the money, make change, and that is it.”
To pass the time, rather than just sit there I took it upon myself to clean the doors every five minutes with Windex, clean the cash register with a Q-tip, and put all the bills facing in one direction. You could say I had an obsession with things looking neat and clean—and I still do. Eventually Randy promoted me to waitress, a job that I know most people complain about, but I absolutely loved it.
I mimicked my grandmother, who used to clean the whole table after we finished dinner and before coffee and cake. “You don’t want to sit in macaroni,” she’d say. “Let me make it nice.” So before I served the coffee (with the napkin in between the saucer and thecup, naturally), I’d say, “Let me make it nice,” and then I’d clean the table, which customers found charming.
I even loved being a waitress when customers were busting my balls, an occupational hazard. One of my regular customers was a guy named John Futris, who owned a Scientology graphic design company called JFI a few doors down. They printed all of the church’s literature. John was always smiling, but he was a pain in the ass with his muffin ordering. “I would like a blueberry muffin, with the top cut off, but not in half, the top should be smaller, and then I want two pats of butter, one on the top and one on the second half. But make sure the butter is not frozen, so warm it a little in your hand first, and then a coffee with half-and-half and one sugar.” Every day.
This went on for a couple of months until one day when John asked me what I really wanted to do, I told him eventually I wanted to be an actress but my immediate goal was to make more money. “I believe you’ll be a great actress one day,” he said, before asking me if I typed and wanted a job that’d pay more.
“Yes and yes,” I said.
I quit New York George’s that day. I was moving up in the world, going corporate. I only prayed my eyes would go bad so I could wear glasses, which would go perfectly with the pencil skirts I planned to wear.
John called me into his office on my first morning and said, “I need you to take this down in shorthand because I need you to type up a letter.”
“Yup.”
I wrote down what he said (sort of) and went back to my desk to type it up. I sat and stared down at the typewriter. I didn’t know how to type; I didn’t really even know how to load in the paper. I could have sworn I took a class in school once. Or was that in a movie I saw? Whatever. How hard could this be?
An hour later, John called me on the intercom and said, “Is that letter ready to be signed?”
Looking at the catastrophe that was the letter (I had used about half a bottle of Wite-Out), I knew I couldn’t show it to him. So, as I walked into his office and looked at him sitting behind his big wooden desk, I said, “John, I lied to you. I can’t type,” and I started to tear up.
“Honey, you lied about typing? Why?”
“Because you are from Chicago and I just really wanted to work for you and I…”
“Leah, you are too cute.”
John fired
Canvassing the area around Fountain Avenue, I went into the restaurant right across from the Blue Buildings, New York George’s (no connection to the general store). My strategy was to use the fact that I was from New York to get my foot in the door. The owner, Randy, a Scientologist, interviewed me and agreed to try me out as a cashier, because I wasn’t trusted to be a waitress with the attitude I had on me, as he could attest to from my days as a customer there. “Just sit here on this stool, take the money, make change, and try not to lose us any business with your mouth,” Randy said.
“Can I at least—”
“No,” Randy said. “Take the money, make change, and that is it.”
To pass the time, rather than just sit there I took it upon myself to clean the doors every five minutes with Windex, clean the cash register with a Q-tip, and put all the bills facing in one direction. You could say I had an obsession with things looking neat and clean—and I still do. Eventually Randy promoted me to waitress, a job that I know most people complain about, but I absolutely loved it.
I mimicked my grandmother, who used to clean the whole table after we finished dinner and before coffee and cake. “You don’t want to sit in macaroni,” she’d say. “Let me make it nice.” So before I served the coffee (with the napkin in between the saucer and thecup, naturally), I’d say, “Let me make it nice,” and then I’d clean the table, which customers found charming.
I even loved being a waitress when customers were busting my balls, an occupational hazard. One of my regular customers was a guy named John Futris, who owned a Scientology graphic design company called JFI a few doors down. They printed all of the church’s literature. John was always smiling, but he was a pain in the ass with his muffin ordering. “I would like a blueberry muffin, with the top cut off, but not in half, the top should be smaller, and then I want two pats of butter, one on the top and one on the second half. But make sure the butter is not frozen, so warm it a little in your hand first, and then a coffee with half-and-half and one sugar.” Every day.
This went on for a couple of months until one day when John asked me what I really wanted to do, I told him eventually I wanted to be an actress but my immediate goal was to make more money. “I believe you’ll be a great actress one day,” he said, before asking me if I typed and wanted a job that’d pay more.
“Yes and yes,” I said.
I quit New York George’s that day. I was moving up in the world, going corporate. I only prayed my eyes would go bad so I could wear glasses, which would go perfectly with the pencil skirts I planned to wear.
John called me into his office on my first morning and said, “I need you to take this down in shorthand because I need you to type up a letter.”
“Yup.”
I wrote down what he said (sort of) and went back to my desk to type it up. I sat and stared down at the typewriter. I didn’t know how to type; I didn’t really even know how to load in the paper. I could have sworn I took a class in school once. Or was that in a movie I saw? Whatever. How hard could this be?
An hour later, John called me on the intercom and said, “Is that letter ready to be signed?”
Looking at the catastrophe that was the letter (I had used about half a bottle of Wite-Out), I knew I couldn’t show it to him. So, as I walked into his office and looked at him sitting behind his big wooden desk, I said, “John, I lied to you. I can’t type,” and I started to tear up.
“Honey, you lied about typing? Why?”
“Because you are from Chicago and I just really wanted to work for you and I…”
“Leah, you are too cute.”
John fired
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