Hey everybody, Happy New Year!, Well it seems that I am starting this year with a bang and hopefully you will have the best year ever and all your dreams come true! If you follow my blog, by now you know that I wait tables for a living. According to my coworkers, I am what you call a "Career Waitress", which is code for " I didn't go to college, I like having cash on me at all times and now this is the only thing I know how to do".
Don't get me wrong; I am very grateful that I know how to wait tables. This job is secure and stable in an economy that is very unstable and insecure. I have a job in the worst of financial times because, well, people need to eat, they like to go out, and for the rich the word recession doesn't exist or change their spending habits.
For all those cynics our there (Hi!) that say, "A dog can wait tables." Let me reassure you that a dog CAN wait tables better than a human can. Thank you.
Waiting tables involves multitasking and psychology. I have learned more about human behavior by serving people than most anthropologists have after living with an indigenous tribe in the Amazon jungle.
Let's just say the Indigenous Peoples are more civilized and kind.
What people eat and how they treat their servers tells you everything about a person, and your server learns to adapt his or her self to the needs of the people they wait tables for, because there is something superficial yet very intimate about serving people food. You must remember this very important rule when you go out to eat:
NEVER, EVER, MESS WITH THE PERSON WHO IS SERVING YOUR FOOD. UNLESS YOU ARE INTO MASOCHISM AND ENJOY ORGANIC MATTER IN YOUR SPAGHETTI.
Now like I said, waiting tables requires you to be a jack of all trades: Psychologist, nurse, maid, police officer, comic, babysitter, friend and sometimes, even sexual partner to your customers (It happens a LOT!)
You also have to have balls of steel or, in cases like myself, grow balls in order to take the physical and emotional pressure it requires to juggle eight tables with 10 plates either on your arm or on a tray above your head, while on the other you carry another plate or another tray full of drinks, all the while screaming people demand your attention for more coffeee, more cream, more guacamole, where is my toast, feed my baby and since you are at it, pull that extra hand out of your ass so you can pour me more water and pick my fork from the floor with your retactable toe.
That said, serving tables can be rewarding in many senses, you make money everyday, you meet all kinds of people that otherwise you would not be able to get close to in everyday life, you learn acceptance and tolerance because that is why it is called waiting on tables: You have to wait and be patient with customers.
Customers are both a blessing and a curse. On the one hand, they feed you, pay your bills, your school and sometimes, your drugs and booze. On the other hand, customers' expectations can be such that you feel like a cheap whore sometimes, shaking your mind (and sometimes your ass) for a few dollars; but you do it because well, a girl ( and a boy) have to eat ya know?
Your coworkers are in the same category, the people I have had the pleasure or pain of working along side with have taught me so much, both good and bad, about everything you need to know in life, their stories can fill entire books and many movies would be made from them, even though you could also make a horror film or better yet, a very high rated reality show, those Jersey Shore morons and those disgusting Kardashian Sisters are dull and stupid compared to the characters you find in a restaurant, coffee shop, or fast food joint!
Well this is it for now, stay tuned for my next installment of adventures in waiting tables, we will talk about tips on how to make your life easier while you try to eat with children. Trust me, it is an art form, until then:
See you at my table!