Servers, not servants (and certainly not slags!)

The woes of waitressing is a topic not foreign to the blogosphere. For a thorough and more entertaining account of the traumas experienced by fellow servers, I recommend thebitchywaiter@blogspot.com, but what follows is one of my own more traumatic experiences whilst waitressing.

This particular event (or non-event, as most of it happened only in my head) occurred not too long ago. The man who initiated it is a “regular” at my place of work. He drinks far too much and it isn’t unusual for him to spend an additional R300-R400 after everyone has finished their meals just on shooters. He is extremely rude and hardly ever tips anything at all. All of this wouldn't be so bad, however, if only he wasn't also a complete pervert.

On this occasion, I was conscious of his being increasingly flirtatious through the meal. As servers we have to smile politely and play along (what else? I’m depending on you to tip me so I can have life’s essentials such as coffee, bus fare and airtime for the week to come!), which I did whilst inwardly squirming, trying to remain calm and keep things as lighthearted as possible. As the evening progressed, however, things started to get ugly as he repeatedly asked for my phone number and even went so far as to ask the manager my surname and address. The restaurant was full so I at least had an excuse not to spend too much time at their table and asked one of my colleagues to drop off their bill for me. One might think he would have by this time taken the hint and left the restaurant (preferably after having left me a large tip by way of an apology), but no. That would have been too easy. He started following me around the restaurant claiming that he would not leave until I gave him my phone number. Some of the customers at my other tables even started to try and intervene on my behalf. In short, it was a mess.

What was so frustrating throughout this episode was that I was so close to turning around and giving this fool a piece of my mind in a manner akin to the speech Erin Brockovich gives to the similarly slimy character giving her trouble in the film. I didn’t say it, but if I had it would have gone something like this:

“So you want my number? Well, I have numbers coming out of my ears. But, seeing as I am busy working, let’s just go with five, which happens to be the time I get up every morning to get ready for varsity. Four is the number of shifts I work [though not always] per week in this hellhole in an effort to make enough money to do it all over again the next week. Three is the number of jobs (plural!) which I work in order to sustain what really isn’t an extravagant lifestyle. Two is for the number of degrees I have [I’m still working on the second one, but this would break the momentum and probably be too complex for the drunken mess of a prole I was dealing with to understand anyway]. One is for my incredibly intelligent, talented, VIP superstar boyfriend who loves me and whom I would never consider leaving (least of all for a dodgy, ugly mess of a human being who preys upon the server-customer dynamic which happens to put him in a position of power), and who would be most upset and angry if he ever found out that I was being violated in such a way. And with all the numbers I’ve just given you, I’m sure even you can understand that zero is both the amount of respect I have for you and the chance you have of ever being with me.”

It would have cost me my tip (which was non-existent anyway. Perhaps my eyes said what my mouth could not.) and my job, but would have unquestionably have relieved my feelings.

And I know he’s probably just a sad, frustrated, aging wreck of a man, but that is certainly no excuse for abuse. In all my years of waitressing I’ve never spat in or otherwise deliberately sabotaged someone’s meal. Apart from being unethical and disgusting, it simply never occurs to me at the time. But, sometimes, I think about it afterwards. There’s that saying that goes “don’t bite the hand that feeds you”. Well, don’t disrespect the owner of the hands that hand you your food either!

Michel Foucault deconstructed pretty much everything through his writing, but maintained that one thing is inevitable: revolution. It didn’t happen that day and will most likely not happen for many years (if ever at all). However, in my darkest dreams, I plot the most revolting of revolutions for such “regulars” so lacking in respect.