Sushi stories (part 1)

I have just taken on a third day working at the sushi bar -- and I still am not going to be working more than ten hours a week there. It's a remarkably easy job, though, close to my apartment and I get free lunch when I work there, so all in all it's not a bad deal.
The most stressful part of the job is dealing with the owner/head sushi chef when he gets mad. Mistakes are not accepted at the sushi bar, at least not without a firm scolding. If you make the same mistake twice (I am good at this) you are berated and chastised. Your intelligence is severely questioned, as is your continued employment. The owner is partially deaf, so he yells to be heard. And he is heard, by everyone in the restaurant.
And apologies are hardly ever accepted. The only way to lessen a verbal beating is to have a water-tight excuse, and even that doesn't always work. If you just plain screwed-up, there is nothing to be done, except stand there and take being whacked over the head with your stupidity for minutes on end until he gets tired of yelling or you finally get fed up and walk away.
In a way, it's a fair system. You have to accept responsibility for what you do, and you are not rewarded or praised for working hard, because that's what you are expected to do. There's no real forgiveness, you just have to hope for, well, the grace of forgetfulness. Not just that your inequities will be forgotten, but that you will also eventually forget the bitterness, loathing and resentment that hang in the air, residue from the combustion of imperfect obedience meeting potent, but imperfect discipline.

Wow, I hadn't meant to end on a down note. I'm actually in a pretty good mood right now.
More Strange Tales of Sushi tomorrow probably. Now I need to finish my laundry and go to zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzbedzzzzzzzzzzzzzz.