8
August 2002
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The restaurant industry is an alternate universe. Once you don that apron and step back in the servers' alley you realize that you're now on the other side, and if you're lucky you'll eventually be able to crawl your way back. I finally cracked and got a job waiting tables at your Local National Steakhouse, the same place I worked right after college. You know, waiting tables when you're 22 is fun and flirty and you're just happy to be making any money at all, even if it comes to you in ones and fives. I can remember looking at the girl who trained me and her friends, who were all 24 to 26, and thinking - god, I so don't want to be waiting tables when I'm their age. Ha. So even though I've worked for this company before I still had to go through training, which is understandable because it's been four years. But after about an hour the dam that holds up all the blocked horrific restaurant information broke and everything came flooding back. I can make the tea. I can take the orders. I can do the spiel. Yet, still, I must train. The only upside is that during training I make minimum wage instead of $2.13. (How ridiculous is that! Two dollars? Two dollars! Tips or not tips, that is a pittance.) Since it's such a neighborhood place there are a lot of regulars, most of them elderly, and everyone knows them based on how well they tip. There are couples who come in that will illicit groans and others that will cause little riffs because everyone wants to take them. It's all about the All Mighty Tip. At this point, for me anyway, a tip is a tip, but I'm pretty sure that I'm going to do okay. Unfortunately you're not allowed to collect tips while you're training, which sucked the day I was pretty much running tables on my own and got $40 on a 25 dollar bill. I just hope those guys reflect more of what I'll see in the future. A few nights before that, this little old man slipped three dollars into my hand. I think he was trying to make amends for slapping my wrist when I tried to move his salad bowl to put down his dinner. So far the people are nice, if overly affectionate, which is another characteristic of Life in a Restaurant. People call you sweetie and baby, even after only knowing you a few hours. There's the hand on the lower back as they ask you if you need help, the comments about your body and asking about your private life. It's an intimate environment, which is the reason your watch videos called "Is it me? Sexual Harassment." You soon learn that the cute Tech guy is dating another server and the bartender is engaged to the keyed server and that girl is dating one of the guys in the back of the house, but he's not her baby's daddy. It's almost unavoidable - the restaurant romance. The last time I waited tables I ended up dating one of my fellow servers for about three months. Like me it was his second job, and we worked together every Friday night. It took about 8.3 seconds for people to figure out that we were dating and then of course I had to hear stuff about him from all the other girls and get teased by the guys in the back of the house. I don't think I'll be tempted this go round. Last Saturday night I had to work a hostess shift as part of my training, and since I was the new girl I was relegated to mostly bussing tables. This meant that I was back in the dish pit every other minute. The dish guy, Hugh, asked me another question about myself, or imparted some nugget of wisdom, upon each appearance. "How old are you?" "For real? I thought you was no more than 19." "Ya got kids?" "Listen, if you want to talk to anybody here you keep it to yourself. People like to know all your business." "What do you do when you leave here?" When he asked me if I
had any kids I couldn't say no fast enough. Then of course I had
to ask him: "I've got a grown woman. She's 9." Like I said, I don't think I'll be tempted this go round. I think everyone should have to wait tables at some point in their lives. It's hard work and it makes you a better customer, which in turn (hopefully), makes you a better tipper. (See? It all comes back to the tip.) I'm hoping I won't be there too long, but for now it's fun. It's something to do and it puts me back in a place I thought I'd moved past, which is plenty humbling. Now, if I could just figure out some way to get out of doing my sidework. . . .
The notify likes their meat medium rare.
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