Letter of Resignation

To whom it may concern,

Over the last three and a half months during which I have labored in your morose and comfortless halls, I have been complimented on my exemplary service literally hundreds of times. I have been told by long time wine tasters and members of the industry that they have never received more interesting, more personal, or more engaging service. I have done every task that was required of me as well as many more which were not, working diligently to ensure that my fellow workers and I enjoyed an equitable share of our labor and (meager) compensation. 

I have done so despite the presence of anti-masker guests (guests who regularly go unchallenged and unremarked upon when in conversation with Joanne D—— herself). I have been directed to entreat customers who have yelled at and verbally degraded me. I have had to stand idle after a coworker was verbally abused for insufficiently obscuring evidence of a partner’s touch on their skin; after a coworker was forced to write a letter of apology to a petulant and tyrannical wine club member; after I myself had been sexually harassed. I have been berated for receiving several poor reviews from customers so utterly immature and self-aggrandizing as to complain of “lengthy” or “distracted” service during days when the tasting room’s manager left it overbooked, understaffed, ill-organized, and open to new walk-ins—all without comprehension of her own role in the good-for-nothing, inane, and utterly banal clusterfuckery. 

I have done all of this without fail. But some limits cannot be crossed. I refuse to be associated with an institution so utterly without aesthetic sense or general decency as to pair a Reisling with a Syrah on a flight of wine. This is my resignation. 

Yours no longer,
[Zach Brumaire]