The hospitality and food industry is an amazing place for employment. It is filled with culture, diversity, vibrant colors, flavors and the classic hustle and bustle of your favorite café.
However, it can also be an unforgiving and harsh place to work. I started working in hospitality, at a restaurant in a small town in New Zealand, when I was 16. Over the course of two years, I’ve met some incredible people, formed life-long friendships and made an abundance of memories. But; I’ve also felt insanely vulnerable, disregarded and unimportant. Every industry has its ups and downs.
So, to bring light and extra dimensions to these assertions, I’ve decided to add a couple of my own personal experiences into the mix:
- The Creep
“God, you’re the same age as my daughter. You are so much hotter than her though.” Wink.
Never have I been so grossed out at a pick-up line in my life. He was older than my father.
- The Man Who Thought I had Approximately One Brain Cell, and His Wife Who Agreed
One night, I was looking after a pretty big booking. The entire side of our restaurant was taken up by a long table that sat about 30 people. One man and his wife were ordering drinks with me, and he ordered a Lion Red (Beer). After ordering the beer, he told me to change it to a bottle of chilled red wine. As red wine is meant to be served at about room temperature, we did not have any chilled, nor did I expect the request. So I said that I would put the red wine in ice, and bring it to the table once it was chilled.
After I had chilled the red wine, I took it to the table. The man looked at me and said, “No, I ordered a Lion Red.”
I looked between him and the bottle, and held in a sigh of exasperation. He then said, “I wanted the wine with dinner. Obviously.”
It was not obvious, I cannot read minds. If I could read minds, and our perception of the obvious were the same, I would have pre-chilled his freaking wine before he got there.
His lovely wife then looked at me dead in the eye and said to her charming husband, “darling, it’s clear she doesn’t understand our request. I’ll explain it to her simply for you.”
I’d never felt so inadequate. I am a blonde waitress, working to earn money so I can afford to go to University, not some idiot who can’t follow instructions that never existed in the first place. The man went on to call my manager who was Filipino (she is the kindest, best and most professional manager I’ve had to date) a “Stupid Asian.” I was horrified and so angry that it took every ounce of my being to serve them politely, just as my manager continued to do.
From this I learned that even in a place with so much culture and diversity, there will always be prejudice. The customer is always right, even when they are so very wrong. I also learned that unless I proved that I did actually have more than one brain cell, I would always be treated the same. I had to learn to get used to it.
- “C’mon, it’s his 21st.”
This apparently meant he had full rights to grope my behind and push me up against a wall, after I’d delivered his plate of potato wedges.
Despite this, these are just some of the bad experiences I’ve had. The good experiences I’ve had exponentially trump the bad, and most of the time I truly do adore my job as a waitress. I have met the most amazing people, and I have had access to some fantastic opportunities.
- Free Food
Self-explanatory. When you work in a restaurant the chances are that you’ll find plentiful amounts of free plates of delicious food passed your way.
- The Locals
Wherever you work, there will always be regular customers. You will always have people who order the same thing day in and day out. You learn their names, and their children’s names and where they live and what they do. You come to work and you have another family filled with wildly different people.
On my last day before I began the move halfway across the country for university, all of the regulars came down to say goodbye. I got presents and cards, meals and drinks bought for me, and more hugs in one day than I think I’ve ever had. I was promised visits, and dinners. You don’t get to form these sorts of friendships with your customers in many other professions, and to be honest, I think that’s pretty freaking cool.
- The Couple From New York
To end, I thought I’d finish up with a nice little story about a nice little couple from upper New York state. For a girl who has lived in an array of small towns her entire life, the idea of New York has always been one that I’ve fixated on. More specifically, I was fixated on the idea of the Tisch School of the Arts at NYU.
One night, this couple came in for dinner. I got talking to them, and asked them if they were just passing through. They told me they were professors from New York State University, and that they lived a few hours drive out of the city. After I told them my plans, they gave me their email address, contact numbers and house address. They offered me a place to stay in New York until I got on my feet, or even just a place for a home cooked meal every once in a while.
Though I’ve ended up staying in New Zealand for university, I still have their contact details just in case. People like this couple, make the hospitality industry so warm and inviting. Meeting them was one of the highlights of my time at my job, and I couldn’t believe that they were willing to invite a complete stranger into their home after one meal and a ten minute conversation.
So while working as a waitress can be hard and demeaning, it can also be the key to many friendships, the most amazing experiences, free booze, and most importantly; free food.
Hospitality a perfect place of employment, especially for those students struggling to keep up with their student loan, or if they need to fund their coffee addiction (if you work in a cafe, free coffee). It does have ups and downs, but it’s so rewarding, colorful, vibrant and busy that you really can only love it, and if you can’t, then you can at least admire it from afar.
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