Mekong Soothes the Unemployed Soul

I heard from yet another friend that she'd been laid off, joining the ever-growing group of us among the unemployed masses. She's the first of my friends in the restaurant business to bite the dust, though, so it was a bit more surprising. She's got an outstanding skill set, though, so I expect she'll have faster luck getting rehired than me. She's understandably nervous at the moment; I guess only time will tell.

We met up last night at Mekong to commiserate about the unfairness of life, the coldness of our former employers and other borderline whiny topics. But the complaining quickly gave way to appreciation for excellent beer and food; I won't bore you with all we ordered (there were six of us) but we had a great selection of beef, pork, chicken and tofu dishes and way too much food to finish. The beer, however, was a different story.

Because so many of the women in the group worked in restaurants, there was loads of gossip and storytelling, some new to me (Enoteca Sogno closing, for example), some confirming previously-held assumptions. Every single person at the table has a mate or close friend who has lost hours or even their job altogether. We all agreed that the absolute worst may be over, but it will take a while to climb out of this very deep recessionary hole we seem to be in.

Until then, luckily there's places like Mekong with big tables, plenty of libations and really good food to distract us from the problems of the real world. And then there's my fortune cookie prediction: If you have a job without aggravations, you don't have a job.

You could substitute a number of other words for "job" and the sentiment would be just as true.