Your Waitress Hates You

Your Waitress Hates You

Written by Savior Munee

Art by Izzy Maher

Your waitress hates you. Certainly a vitriol comes from the customers few and far between with an attitude, a ripe, untraceable smell, or dietary restrictions that turn the back of house into a horserace parlor—except all the horses had to get taken out back and shot. The ideal customer hydroplanes through a dinner service threatening to turn into a catastrophe at any second—coming to an easy stop, stacking their dishware conveniently, tipping 20%, and leaving with a quiet thank you. They do not feign ignorance to the social order at play. You are my waitress. I am being served, and you are doing the serving.

A waitress, over the course of a single shift, must navigate a purgatorial position within the restaurant. She juggles the insatiable wants of her tables amid the managerial panopticon while trying to convince kitchen staff to get their shit together in a manner that doesn’t make them sour on her. After rushes, she offers them drinks and words of encouragement. Your waitress hopes her bosses didn’t catch her breaking the rules in an impossible industry that says violating our policies will result in immediate termination, but customer is king. Serving is more political than Washington, D.C., and the customers who deny this reality are the ones spending the evening seducing the waitress with compassion and interest—before leaving a $5 bill for a $200 tab. Stimulating conversation, however well it might pass the time, is not a supplement to the waitress’ income.

On Friday and Saturday nights, hundreds of college-aged women in Boston, including your waitress, prepare for a night out. They use the same makeup products, mist their nicest perfumes, and take the same train into the city. Their routines look remarkably similar leading into the night. But they differ in our final destination, and your waitress hates those girls for their freedom. And they are too happy and undeserving of that hate for the feeling to be mutual.

I only recently started running out of my tiny designer perfumes from freshman year. The international students left piles of products outside their dorms approaching summer break, unable to take anything over three ounces abroad. For the first time in my life, I smelled like Dior and Burberry and Chanel No. 5. I never wore them unless I knew I’d be clocking in, knowing a better smell meant an extra dollar or two on top of a regular tip. My peers on the train don all black, like me, but only our upper bodies match. Compared to their skirts, my slacks are too big on me.

I nibble on the same free meal every shift, once a relief, now a burdensome pile of meat slop, and smoke enough cigarettes to keep me permanently nauseous. I buy as few groceries as I can, because winter is the off-season for restaurants, and stomach through sexual advances from the kitchen manager so he might offer one of our more appetizing meals without my having to pay for it.

My shoes are black nonslip clogs covered in blotches of baby spit up. I take Clorox wipes to them weekly, but the spores of rotten food and sticky cocktail spills operate like a hydra—for every stain I scrub off, two grow back in its place.

The owner of the restaurant, a fascist in denial that his business is slowly, miserably going under, took over after my only managerial ally mysteriously vanished off the schedule. The owner knew from the start that I refused to pretend like I was anything more to the customers than a waitress.

My abstention certainly cost me higher bills, and therefore, higher tips, but kept the little dignity I had intact. Like the most successful politicians, the greatest servers are the shameless ones willing to bend over and take whatever the establishment wants for a better paycheck. The owner resented my inability to pimp myself out, and permanently scheduled me for the slowest shifts.

The waitress’ customers will hate her, condescend her, and underpay her throughout their meals. She will cross the threshold into front and back of house dozens of times throughout the night, getting stopped by patrons who belong to different tables, desperate for condiments, or a manager, encouraging she has a quick drink knowing that if she accepts, she will be fired the following day by the fun-loving manager in question. The line cook will ask her on a date, again, ask to drive her home, again, and initiate a hug, again. There will be no one to report this to, as the kitchen manager/head chef will engage in the same behavior.

The waitress will dote on every table, burning her fingertips to bring out fresh food, touching up makeup, pretending it’s someone’s birthday to offer a free dessert, talking down a hysterical kid, playing babysitter and girlfriend and CDC and mayor and whore and mediator and line cook and accountant and maid and jester and-

And still, the table full of British people will leave swiftly, pretending they’re unfamiliar with tipping. The table of eight will leave 18%, a lowball for the services offered, but not low enough to justify being angry about it. One of every five waitresses you have will be frantically coping with a pregnancy scare throughout all of this. She probably has class the following day, or another job. If you see your waitress making frequent trips to the women’s bathroom she may be: A) Coping with a UTI; B) Vaping; C) Seeing if she got her period; D) Crying; E) Hiding from male coworkers; F) All of the above.

I was the only woman in her early twenties (and of a non-manager status) there. The manager I liked was too executive to hit on. The other waitresses were in their late twenties, mothers. Our hostess was not yet 17. I took the brunt of the men’s HR violations.

I once arrived to a slow Wednesday night shift still a little stoned from the afternoon. One of the managers slinked toward me close enough to smell his rotting breath from a shift full of under-the-counter shots. His pupils are huge. A week prior, he said he liked my schoolgirl braids. Those and a tight shirt and you’ll do well tonight! I laughed along with him. He stared at my body until he could guess my weight during another shift. My work apron doubled as a belt and a corset, and I purposely swung my hips as I moved. Usually, on the walk home, I threw up along the sidewalk.

Late into the weekend evening, sometimes into the following morning, the girls and I reunite on the train. They’re breathless and recapping the night’s drama. Our makeup is similarly smeared from sweat, but they smell of sex and flavored vodka, and I smell like smoked meat and gastric acid. They switch to a different train line than me, telling me they live in a Back Bay brownstone or BU dorm, and I live by the airport. After transferring, the other commuters sharing a similar final destination as me all wear nonslip shoes and tired eyes.

We do not hate each other, I don’t think. We share a camaraderie, an understanding we are all the same demoralized Bolshevik waiting for things to change, knowing we will be back together again the following morning.