Waiting

I'm done waitressing. My last day was on Sunday. You know how people have acid flashbacks? I have waitress flashbacks. Like sometimes I'll wake up in cold sweat and think I pressed the Side of Rice button when I should've pressed Side of Fries. I mean, I also have acid flashbacks but that's a different story.

Little things are coming back to me about the whole experience too. Like how remarkably feminist I am in (seeming) comparison to the other waitresses. I vividly remember one day when Adrienne was filling the soda machine with ice and dropped the bucket into the top of the machine.

She yelled out, "Oh my god. I can't reach. I need a boy!"

With this incredulous attitude that came out of NOWHERE, I strode up to the machine and pulled the bucket out, being quite taller than she. Then I said, more obnoxiously than I had liked, "You need a what? What do you need?"

"Or a...tall person..." she replied sheepishly.

"That's right."

Then I stalked off to serve my table, mentally scolding myself for acting so high and mighty.

But I kept doing stuff like that.

One day, I passed Heather taking a breakfast order from a grouchy middle-aged man. She was asking the standard questions you're supposed to ask, how would you like your eggs? Sausage or bacon? White or wheat toast? Butter or jelly?

And the guy just interrupted her and snapped, "Hey Blondie, why don't I talk and you write?"

I did a double-take and without thinking back to my "the customer is always right" training, I told him, "Hey, you don't talk to her like that." He wanted to see the manager. There were issues. But it felt totally right.

Then there's my whole deal with the correct term: waitress or server. I mean it's server if we're thinking political correctness and whatnot. But it's no coincidence every "server" I worked with was a young, attractive, skinny woman between the ages of 18 and 35. I don't dare put myself in that category, out of fear, because that can only mean I was yet another one to be gawked at and judged every single minute. It has to be different with guys. Waiters and servers. It has to be different.

We're very aware of the customers that watch us, that hit on us, that relish asking for each extra sauce one by one so they can watch us walk away (which we see in the mirrored wall) while they laugh with their buddies, that treat us like we all got pregnant in high school and are too dumb to go to college, especially when they give us their orders very slowly and repetitively, while I scold myself for even caring about the stereotypes and the commonly held beliefs.

There's a stigma to the waitress. There's a sexuality to the waitress. There's an urgency, an excuse to behave badly, a reason for mothers to feel the satisfaction of having someone else clean up their kid's mac&cheese mess after dinner. That is what the waitress is for.

There are people who just come out to eat and don't give their waitress a second thought.

But there are also people who come in to eat every day who complain about the food, who bitch about the wait, who shiver and say it's too cold in here, who want to see the manager, who want to used expired coupons, who loudly declare they're never coming back again, and you wonder why the fuck they come in to eat there every day if they hate it so much until you realize they have no job and no family and it's actually the best part of their day to come in and bitch and moan and feel like they have control over SOMETHING because they don't have control over anything else, so you pity them and deal with them because you know that letting them use you makes their day a little better, so you wait for them to come in.

We're all just waiting.

Really, this job taught me a lot about myself. I recommend waitressing to everyone because it's a very eye-opening experience to get to know yourself. I know the things I SHOULD'VE done...jobs with in-office experience...internships...grad school research...comp topic searching...but all I wanted to this summer was waitress, quite inexplicably. It was, in my mind, the biggest way I could push myself over the summer.

In any case, the job was enjoyable enough and certainly made me grow. My attitude going out to eat has become much more aware and empathetic now. And I'm better at small talk with people now, I think. I'm glad I did it. I kept the apron.