Waiting; The True Confessions of a Waitress (39 page)

O
is for the obnoxious attitude of the dining sons and daugh
ters. Many diners seem to revert to childhood patterns of behav
ior on Mother’s Day. This is to say that they are demanding, petulant, and whiny. Since they can’t direct these behaviors at their mothers, although they’d clearly like to, the server is once again the target.

T
is for the terrible tips. Undoubtedly the agony of Mother’s Day would be considerably lessened were it to result in some extra money. But inevitably, one works much harder than usual and makes much less. Very few people actually want to be there at all on Mother’s Day and they certainly don’t want to tip. It’s purgatory, no doubt about it.

H
is for the hatred families feel for each other and the hatred that develops in all the staff members witnessing it. Tolstoy might have revised his opinion about all unhappy families being unique had he ever worked Mother’s Day in a restaurant. I’ve heard the same arguments many times over, witnessed the same recriminations, and felt the same tension from families that were quite obviously miserable about being together. I’ve even heard a few mothers say that they hated this day since it only served to remind them of the mistake they’d made in giving birth!

E
is for the energy it takes to get through a Mother’s Day shift, which is more than the human body is capable of sustaining. One Mother’s Day, I worked a five-table section that had four com
plete turns. That adds up to twenty tables, all of which were seated with four or five people—close to a hundred diners and their mothers, all looking to me to provide them with the perfect day. It doesn’t matter how fresh you are when you begin the shift, by the end of it you’re feeling beaten emotionally and physically.

E is also for the effort management puts into making the server’s life as miserable as possible during said shift. That familiar battle cry “I want to see the manager!” rings louder than ever on this day, forcing all managers to start Mother’s Day in crisis mode. Of course, there is often good reason. Over the course of years, I’ve seen a few disasters. One mother was hit squarely in the head with a chair that a waitress was hurriedly moving in order to accommodate a large party. Another mother

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wiped out on an olive oil slick near her table and landed on her tailbone. Yet another woman received an added bonus in her organic salad: a scorpion. While the manager juggles these potential lawsuits in his head, one thought occurs to him over and over again: fire all the servers as soon as the shift is over.

R
is for ruing the day you began working as a server, because if there is ever a day that will make you do this (and also contribute to your general feelings of misanthropy and hopelessness), Mother’s Day is it. However, since this is
Mother’s
Day we’re talk
ing about, let me not end on a totally negative note. There have been saving graces along the way. I have waited on some happy families and I have received some good tips. One year, I waited on two women and their daughters who wrote me a lengthy note on their check stating that I was the kindest, most attentive wait
ress they’d ever had the pleasure of meeting and that I had absolutely made their Mother’s Day. They would always remem
ber what a wonderful morning they’d had. They even went so far as to include me in their family photos of the day.

The holidays between May and October aren’t nearly as strenuous as Mother’s Day but do have their moments. Father’s Day and graduations come close together in June, spurring at least one crazy weekend, which servers like to call “Dads and Grads.” The same sorts of uncomfortable family get-togethers are in evidence here but with only a fraction of the stress caused by Mother’s Day. Then there is Independence Day on July 4. This is usually a slow day in a restaurant, as it is one of the very few holidays that dictates people stay home and barbecue instead of dining out. Of course, I worked in a town that hosted tourists from all over the world, many of whom were as clueless about American independence as they were about how much to tip. These tourists often showed up on July 4 and wondered what the fuss was all about. Baciare, being staunchly Italian in
its approach to everything, consistently refused to acknowledge any distinctly American holidays (although one Italian waiter did express a desire to see “the fireplace.” Of course, this was the same waiter who believed that Superman lived in Minneapolis). This served to make July 4 a rather depressing day to work all around. Often, a group of waiters could be found standing out
side, straining to see evidence of any fireworks, complaining about their own personal lack of independence.

Halloween, while not technically a holiday, is certainly worth mentioning because of the bizarre behaviors it inspires. It’s long been a theory of mine that adults use Halloween as a convenient excuse to dress up in ways that reflect how they really feel about themselves on a less-than-conscious level. Thus, it was always amusing for me to see which waiters chose to don costumes on Halloween and which chose to remain in uniform. At Baciare, the Italians never wore costumes (there is no Halloween in Italy) but loved to see their coworkers in full regalia. As for the cus
tomers, it’s been my experience that they generally don’t share the strangely festive atmosphere. After working in costume just once and receiving exasperated sighs from my tables, I decided it simply wasn’t for me. Some customers get extremely offended. A waiter I worked with dressed himself up as a Hassidic Jew one year (for reasons only he was privy to). A couple who ate at the restaurant regularly complained bitterly to the manager about his costume, claiming all kinds of indignities and stating that they would never patronize the restaurant again. The waiter was forced to resume working in his backup costume, which was that of a waiter. Another year, a fellow waiter dressed himself as a woman, complete with high heels, miniskirt, and bustier. Although he flounced around the restaurant in delight for the first hour or two of his shift, his mood turned ugly indeed when he started getting goosed, stroked, and whistled at every time he entered the kitchen. When the waiter complained that he was

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going to file a claim of sexual harassment, the manager looked at him perplexed and said, “You’re kidding, right?”

I have been lucky enough to avoid working in any restaurant that will open on Thanksgiving, but I have worked as many Christmas Eves as Valentine’s Days. Christmas Eve is an inter
esting shift to work. Generally, this is one of the few days of the year when the customer feels truly philanthropic toward his server. The religion of the customer matters not, it seems. For some reason—the ghosts of Christmas Past looming, perhaps— the customer feels sorry that the server has to work instead of being home with his or her family and becomes not only gener
ous but ingratiating. I’ve enjoyed working Christmas Eve for this reason. And I admit I have been guilty of manipulating the situa
tion when I saw the opportunity. Toward the end of the meal, I’d wish the customer a happy holiday and mention how anxious I was to get home to my boy (not a lie, after all). This would almost always garner me another five, ten, even twenty dollars.

The last stop on the calender is New Year’s Eve. In terms of making money, this is the best night of the year to work. The cash is flowing, the atmosphere festive, the champagne abun
dant. This is not to say that it’s not a difficult shift to work. It’s always very busy, for one thing. For another, most patrons get progressively drunker as the night wears on and start becoming a little more difficult to deal with. Most, however, seek to invite their server into the party atmosphere (it’s a new year for every
body, after all) and tip very well. I have made hundreds every New Year’s Eve I’ve worked. One year, trying to cash out amid the streamers, balloons, popping champagne corks, and flying confetti, I found I had actually made too much money to count. I had to take my cash into the back room and lay it out in piles according to denomination. I’d made half my rent in one night.

There is always a spectacular party in the restaurant after the customers clear out, as well. Baciare always pulled out all the
stops on New Year’s Eve, busting out champagne for all the staff, playing danceable music from the sound system, and allowing for at least two hours of unbridled gaiety.

Despite the obvious advantages of working New Year’s Eve, however, it was this very shift that did me in. No holiday has the same finality as New Year’s Eve. Every time I worked one, I realized that I had passed still another year within the confines of a restau
rant and that, in all likelihood, next New Year’s Eve would find me in exactly the same place. New Year’s Eve 1993 found me at the height of burned-out misery. I looked at the gold, silver, and black balloons adorning every corner of the restaurant and felt like weep
ing. I was approaching five years at Baciare. It was high time, I reck
oned, to take stock of my life. What had I actually been
doing
all this time? What markers stood out over the passage of these years? In my review, I started with the most basic of concepts: stability.

Since starting at Baciare, my life had become more grounded than ever before and at least some parts of my future had become clearer. Those parts involved my son. My plan, however loosely shaped, was to offer him the most secure environment possible. This involved a certain amount of routine as well as some kind of financial stability. I made much more money at Baciare than I’d ever earned in a restaurant before. That in itself was enough of a draw to keep me there long after I began to tire of waiting tables.

In addition, Baciare provided affordable health insurance, a real anomaly in the restaurant business. Most restaurants rightly assume that they will have considerable staff turnover. In addi
tion, most servers technically work only part-time. There is therefore little reason for a restaurant to spend money on health insurance for servers. The fact that Baciare offered a health plan was a large part of the reason I went to work there. Less than a year after starting at Baciare, in fact, I was faced with an unex
pected need for surgery and a brief hospitalization—all of which

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was covered by this insurance. Had it not been, I would probably still be in debt today.

In addition to the obvious financial considerations, Baciare was an exciting place to work for quite a while. There were a hundred little human dramas unfolding on and off the floor every day. The restaurant was large enough to require a large staff, among which certain players came in and out, leaving enough of the original hires to create a sense of family. It was an ultimately dysfunctional family, to be sure, but it was family nev
ertheless. Besides this, Baciare’s customers were certainly the most varied, colorful, and entertaining of any I’d seen before. People from a broad spectrum of society came to eat at this restaurant, bringing with them all kinds of stories and providing all kinds of experiences. There was the couple who wrote sitcom scripts, for example. These two never ate with silverware, prefer
ring to use their (presumably cleaner) hands, and they demanded at least four baskets of bread at every meal. Then there was the family that used dinnertime as a means of torturing their son over his table manners. I watched this boy grow from childhood to adolescence in a vale of tears. There was the family that hailed from New York and had logged many summers in bungalow colonies. They remembered the terrible comedians and bad jokes that made up the acts in places like Maxman’s. Every time this family came in, we waxed nostalgic about the old days. There was Deepak Chopra, a regular diner, and his not-so-regular guests: George Harrison one time, Olivia Newton-John another. During the America’s Cup one year, the entire Italian team came in for pizza, bruschetta, and Pellegrino.

Slowly but inexorably Baciare became both my job and my social life. This may not seem that strange, since many people, no matter what the job, have a certain amount of social interaction there. But for me, it was a little different. When I went to work, I was also “going out.” In a way, I was able to carve a new identity for
myself every night. My customers didn’t know that I had a child or a college education. As far as they were concerned, I could be any
one. I made some friendships among my coworkers as well. Some nights were more like scheduled get-togethers than work for all of us. I never had to go anywhere to meet people; they came to me.

At the same time, I was able to spend my days with Blaze, watching and participating in every stage of his development. Because my family was so close, I never had to put him in day care like so many other single mothers, and I didn’t have to worry about meeting exorbitant child care costs.