I would guess that most people have bad dreams about their jobs. I haven’t waited tables for 15 years, but I STILL have the occasional nightmare about that profession. I had one just a couple of weeks ago where for some reason I was walking into some restaurant kitchen and see my name listed for a double shift on the weekend. I get very frustrated in this dream thinking, “why am I on the schedule! I’m a professional comedian! How can they expect me to be there?” Cut to me waiting tables that weekend.
Now I don’t have any training as a dream analyzer, but my guess is that I still have these waiter dreams because I have an underlying fear that the standup gig could dry-out and I would be back to waiting tables. This is just one of many reasons that I’m the waiting staffs best friend when I perform at a club. I know what the gig is like.
By the way, here is my favorite crazy waiter nightmare. As most of these begin, I’m in the weeds (weeds is a term servers use for being too busy to get to all your tables in a typical fashion). Just when I don’t think it could get worse at my job at Chi’s Chi’s (defunct Mexican food chain that I worked at in early 90’s), I realize that I’m also supposed to be waiting tables at the Red Lobster at the same time. (cue Benny Hill music) So I sprint out the door and run 3 blocks down the street until I get to my section at Red Lobster. My customers are very angry and I feel incredibly guilty. Don’t ask me how I come up with this scenario.
My standup nightmares generally are one of these 3 options.
- I show up to the gig, only to realize I’m not wearing pants. Interesting element to this is that I’ve done a show where many of the audience weren’t wearing pants. (see Nudist Resort show.) What I usually feel from this scenario is Why did I leave the house without pants? I’m guessing it has something to do with not being prepared.
- I lose my voice on-stage and I feel desperation as I can’t deliver what I’m supposed to do. I have done shows where it is so loud in the bar that I’ve pretty much felt like no one can hear me, so I kind of have lived this one.
- I am on my way to my show and one obstacle after another happens so I end up being so late I don’t make my show. Since I’ve never missed or even been late to a show, this hasn’t happened, but it is a fear I have—which is the reason I always leave plenty of extra time so I don’t end up having to sweat it.
- I perform my show and no one seems to be laughing like they should. Guess what, this has happened in real life. It’s called bombing and I will write in more detail my thoughts on that one another time.
I would be curious to hear what nightmares you have about your job. I think it is pretty interesting.
scottlong.wordpress.com 
My nightmare is that I design and code a beautiful web site, and then I go and test it out on Internet Explorer and it looks like crap, and everything I try to make it look OK in IE makes it look like shit on the other browsers, and vice versa round and round. I spend a whole day or two figuring out how yet another stupid IE rendering bug behaves, and then end up having to write my code all over from scratch just to accommodate Microsoft’s damn incompetence. And I end up with unsatisfactory compromises that make the site look just sorta OK on every browser instead of fantastic on any of them.
And then I wake up and live my nightmare in real life.
Don’t worry. At the pace things are going, Apple will take over all computers/devices and the windows won’t be an issue any more. Of course, when that happens, hackers will put all their focus into buliding bugs to create havoc with Macs. Just a new nightmare to contemplate.
Try to find the response of what someone in GM said to Bill Gates’ comment of something to the tune of “If the car industry had kept up with the computer industry we’d all be in flying cars.” its quite funny… you’ll probably enjoy that. I don’t generally have nightmares about coaching, its usually me just living it out. haha