The Most Stupid Question I've Ever Heard

Preface:
I work in a fast food restaurant located in a student union.
We do a lot of things that are non-standard or that just don't make sense.
This story is not about those things.


So the other day, I finish my morning bacon-related food prep in the kitchen downstairs.
Like I always do.
I've made something of a mess, so I clean it up.
Like I always do.
I drag the cart of now-cooked bacon upstairs, to the outer of two doors of the type you find in public buildings. Ugly, heavy metal things with layers upon layers of paint, kick plates, and panic bars, and I stand there for a minute.
Like I always do.
The same thing, barring incident, five mornings a week.
The same thing I've done for more than three years.

And the same as I have done for the last four or five months of those three years, I approach that outer door with dread. I know when I push that door I will see the grimy gray concrete floor, I will play chicken with another employee with another huge cart who is trying to exit through the same tiny space where I am trying to get in, and I will see, within arms length, the inner metal door, the one that leads directly to the store where I work.
It's possible I will see someone changing their clothes in the hall.
I know that once I've gone in, there are no more thoughts that will be completed and no more places to hide. It will be sight and sound and chaos until I walk out again.

So I stand there for a minute and talk myself into opening it again,
like I always do,
but this time, while my hand is resting on that outer door, another employee bursts through it-an administrator type-a sheet of paper in hand, and as she passes me she pauses. She looks at me. She looks at me standing there, less than two feet away, in my polyester uniform shirt and hat emblazoned with the logo of my employer, for a restaurant that is the only one of its kind in the building. She looks at me, this woman who has seen me a thousand times, who has talked to me. This woman who is nearing retirement age. I know this because I have worked with her and her son-in-law. I have seen her granddaughter. I have spoken to her, and she to me. Granted, she said something that sounded slightly alcoholic and crazy, but still...

This woman,
who should KNOW,
looks me right in the eye and asks,

"____ (Insert name of store here), right?"
Not my name. There is not even any recognition in her face. She looks genuinely conFUSED.
No, she asks my employers "name" which is on no less than two of the articles of clothing I am wearing,
whose door I am standing outside of,
in a building where I practically live.
Then she rushes off. Not another word. No explanation or apology. She doesn't look back.

And I am too stunned for words.
That might be THE single most stupid question I have ever heard.

You will say maybe this isn't the first insult to my dignity.
You will say maybe she was preoccupied.
You will say maybe I'm overreacting,
and maybe you will be right but...
even so, she should have known my face. She sees it almost five days a week. She has stood inches from me on occasion after occasion.
She sees the uniform everywhere.
She was OUTSIDE THE STORE, where I stood with the bacon cart that she sees...
She looked right AT me.

GODS,
How can she not know?

Later I will be angry, and later I will renew my resolve to find another job,
but for now I am crushed. Not because of the woman. Personally she's not the kind of person I...
like.
But I realized where I stood. Full-time, three-quarter-time, part-time, student, it doesn't matter, because I'm just another uniform to her. I am one white shirt away from being recognizable, but until then I don't matter.
If I don't matter to her,
I sure as Hell don't matter to anyone else.

There will never be a step up.

This job.
This.
Job.
Is not a foot in the door, it's your leg in a trap.
The only way to get out is to chew your way out, or wait for shock to set in while you pray for a mercifully quick death.
And I'm not ready to die.