At a restaurant in Greensboro, North Carolina. I lived the cliché of a poor graduate student complete with kitten, crappy apartment, crazy roommate and worked with a crew of potheads lead by the assistant manager, a redhead name L.
Because I was a graduate student, the majority of my classes were at night. Because I was an out-of-state student, loans covered only my tuition and a fraction of my living expenses. Waiting tables seemed to be the only thing that would fit around my full-time graduate school class schedule and provide me with enough of an income to pay the heating bill.
For the next nine months I averaged five hours of sleep a night due to the following schedule:
- 5:00 am: Rise, shower and dress for work. Feed the kitten. Eat a plain bagel.
- 6:00 am – 2:00/3:00 pm: Open restaurant, work breakfast and lunch. Playfully insult regular customers. Get shafted from leaving on time by wait staff working swing shift. Forced to do prep for breakfast and dinner.
- 3:00 – 6:00 pm: Return to apartment. Argue with roommate over cat litter box in bathroom. Change clothes, walk to library to study. Eat another bagel with garlic cream cheese.
- 6:30/7:00 – 9:30/10:00 pm: Attend classes.
- 10:00 – 11:30 pm: Return to library. Study.
- Midnight: Fall into futon. Discover roommate's dog has peed on the sheets. Roommate claims kitten did it.
- 1:00 am: Go to sleep after cleaning up dog pee.
- 5:00 am: Repeat ten days in a row before getting a day off.
Near the end of the school year, after yet another battle with the cocaine-addled assistant manager over her insistence that I work a shift during a FINAL, I quit. Two weeks later I landed a full-time job at a collection agency for twice the pay and half of the hours. With medical benefits and vacation time. For a company that permitted me to flex my hours during exams and use office equipment and supplies for schoolwork.
Coming up: A lesson in wheedling tips out of cheap old bastards.
This is why I hate myself any time I tip less than 20% for a meal out that included table service. (It's different abroad, I'm told, where you leave nur ein bißchen Trinkgeld left over from paying the bill, but die Kellnerin is already getting paid a realistic, if modest, amount for all the hustling and sore feet.)
ReplyDeleteMy sister put herself thru senior year of HS (living w/ roommates away from the 'rents) and then nursing school waiting tables. Also, I've worked enough service-industry jobs to know how you should and shouldn't treat people. Like Howard Beale puts it in Network: I'm a human being, G*d damn it! My life has value!"
Jenn, you have reminded me of my stint at the Golden Coins Family Restaurant. When combined with detasseling, sleep was in short supply. I hope all is well with you! How is your dad?
ReplyDelete(In case Blogger won't recognize me, this is Lisa).
Bill - I always tip, even abroad when I know that the waitstaff is getting paid a decent wage. It is a tough job.
ReplyDeleteLisa - The things we do to get an education! I don't think I could work the same schedule today. By the end of the first year I was burned out to the point that I ended up finishing graduate school as a part time student.
My dad is doing very well. I will have an update soon as I will be seeing my parents next weekend.
Sometimes I cen't believe that I'm the same person who kept up the schedule I had while in college. I may have to do my own blog post on this subject.
ReplyDelete