the joys and sorrows of waitresshood

good afternoon, loyal readers. having spent the morning doing very little of consequence (mainly attempting to hone my mad shredding skills- haha- along to John Mayer's new album Continuum on my husband's beloved Tangerine, and quickly becoming disillusioned and mildly depressed at my lack of dexterity in comparison to Mayer's), i recalled a recent comment from either my sister- or mother-in-law that you the readers would soon be on the verge of rioting should i not publish another post in a timely manner. so, without further ado, here are some thoughts from the rookie waitress on the joys and sorrows of waitresshood.

i feel it is best to start with the positive, not for any particularly good reason other than that it will likely have significantly less comedic value; do not think i am not aware that for some reason humans find the misfortunes of other humans interminably funny. why else would i laugh uncontrollably at the sight of some poor wretch taking an unexpected and unexplainable tumble while strolling down a busy sidewalk? for this reason i feel that beginning with the up-side of things will in fact be saving the best for last.

there are, without a doubt, things i love about my job. number one, it is active enough to keep me at least in decent shape- i have gotten only marginally fatter since getting married, which from what i hear is pretty impressive, especially considering that as far as i can tell everything i eat at work is made with either 50% butter or 50% cream. this brings me to number two: i eat like a queen for at least one meal a day, without having to cook it myself. beautiful! my poor husband practically subsists on tuna sandwiches at school while i'm stuffing my face with bacon and eggs, croissants, freshly made soup, gourmet sandwiches, home-made potato chips and pumpkin pie!

number three is the people i work with, whose company for the most part is what gets me through the day. it's amazing what fun it can be hanging out in a hot, smelly kitchen when you're surrounded by enjoyable people. and last but not least, number four is the section of clientele whom it is nothing short of a delight to serve- these customers are polite, gracious, thoughtful and thankful towards their server, and when you serve someone like this you cannot help but want to go out of your way to serve them well. case in point: there is one dear old lady who lives in the building and is a regular at the restaurant, and despite being no less than one hundred years old, she was the first to ask my name and has remembered it every time i have served her. now whenever i see her hobbling down the hall from her apartment for a bite of lunch, i look forward to serving her, simply because she is such a pleasure to be around.

naturally, there are also those who are considerably less agreeable; these complainers take first place on the list of things i do not love about my job. for complainers, nothing could be good enough. the menu is not exhaustive enough; the coffee doesn't scald their throat on the way down; the food doesn't taste fresh; the prices are outrageous; and, just to round things out, the drapes make the room too dark. sometimes i want to ask them, "is there anything that would make you happy, or shall i just stop trying?" i have a theory that people like this have decided before they even arrive that they can't afford to give their server a good tip, so they'll just complain about everything they can think of to make it look like they have a reason for tipping badly. it seems to have escaped their attention that the heaviness of the drapes really has very little to do with the calibre of my service; in fact, i had no say in the matter at all. (incidentally, the same lady who complained about the drapes was irate when, after she had shared a slice of carrot cake with her friend, i had not taken it upon myself to split up the cost of the carrot cake onto their two separate bills. it was not enough that i had asked the cook to physically split up the cake onto two separate plates, which they are not required to do in the first place.)

number two on this list goes to the people who may not complain about anything and in fact seem to have a nice time, but clearly don't take the time to work out in their head what might be a reasonable tip. i will admit to having done this myself in the past, although i have changed my ways. these people are fully aware that 15% of their bill is the generally accepted amount for gratuity, but haven't figured out that taking 10% and adding a little usually doesn't make 15%. it may seem nit-picky, but you'd be surprised how much it adds up when a lot of people do it. you'd also be surprised how much you care when you're making $6.75 an hour without tips, and you're only getting 25 hours a week of work. yeah, those tips become pretty important! (by the by, i read a rather hilarious article on the Onion this week on the subject of tipping- it is definitely worth a read. click here to go there.)

number three, which really only pertains to high-end, 'fine dining' establishments such as the one in which i serve, is the very unforgiving nature of this line of work. when you enter the dining room, you have stepped into another world, one in which the slightest hesitation in speech or movement, the smallest inefficiency in handling, the most insignificant slip of the tongue is ABSOLUTELY FORBIDDEN. one is expected to be the epitome of grace and formality, knowing all the unspoken rules of what not to say or do, and being at once always available but never noticeable, all-knowing but without asking and all-seeing but without looking. it's a hard standard to live up to. 'nuff said.

number four, and i have found this the case at most jobs, is the sad lack of formal training which could have prepared me for the scary and unfamiliar world of the dining room. suffice it to say that after having practised the motions of serving a bottle of wine to a table once, in front of a few of my peers, i was expected to be able to do it upon command, expertly and gracefully, for any table that should wish it. now, opening a bottle of wine at home by yourself is easy; opening a bottle of wine which someone else has purchased, right in front of them and without putting it down at any point, is quite another matter. not surprisingly, the first time i tried to do it in the scary world of the dining room, i was so nervous that i broke the cork. a liiiiiitle bit of a faut-pas there, folks. as i stood there helplessly wiggling the blasted thing in vain hope that it might slide out, the crack getting bigger and bigger, the gentleman at the table observed politely, "i think you're breaking the cork." "i am, aren't i?" i replied, trying to appear calm, as if this sort of thing happened all the time. "i'll go and get another bottle." needless to say, this sort of 'on-the-job training', as they might call it, has not made me particularly confident in the art of wine serving.

well, there you have it, folks. the highs and lows of the life of a waitress. it's a good thing there's more to life than work, isn't it? ;)

Mrs. B.