Waiting; The True Confessions of a Waitress by Debra Ginsberg Page B

owner or just one of many supervisors, however, he or she is likely to have an eye on cash flow. Customer service is always important but must lead to financial gain for the restaurant. The last thing on a manager’s mind is how well the server is doing, monetarily or otherwise.
    This may all seem self-explanatory or, possibly, irrelevant to the average diner. But consider the following scenario. You arrive in a restaurant and are seated immediately. Right next to the rest room. Your waitress arrives at the table promptly to take your drink order, but you wait an interminable time for your bread and water. Your salads arrive quickly, but you grow old waiting for your entrees, which, when they arrive, are only lukewarm. You complain to a manager you see walking by your table and he apologizes profusely. Your waitress is replaced by a waiter who brings a you a free dessert but seems harried and overburdened. Your dining experience is ultimately not a good one. Here are some of the possible reasons why.
    The hostess who seated you is saving a better table for a guest who has already slipped her a twenty-dollar bill for the privilege. Your waitress is at odds with her busboy, who feels she stiffed him the last time they worked together, so he’s not bending over backward to help any of her tables. Stressed out by this fact, your waitress complains in the kitchen that everything takes too long. The chef responds by holding up her tickets or neglecting to tell her when her food is ready. The manager hears your complaints and fears you’ll never be back to sink more money into the restaurant, so he removes the offensive waitress from your table and substitutes a waiter who already has too many tables because he kicked back to the hostess earlier and she’s seated his entire section with parties of six. This waiter can’t be bothered with you and your free dessert. In fact, the manager has told him how unhappy you are and he’s sure you won’t be tipping well.
    The structure has slipped. The network has become unbal anced. Everybody suffers.
     
    Despite my intentions to make the best of it, I hated everything about Yellowstone. My work in the pantry could only be described as drudgery. I worked from 5 A . M . until 2 P . M . five days a week and loathed every minute of it, shrimp and all. As waiters and waitresses dropped out (the high attrition rate was some thing the orientation packet didn’t mention), I learned that I could move “up” and join their ranks, but I opted to stay in my designated area. If possible, the waitstaff was even more miser able than I was. What’s more, since they didn’t exactly rake in the cash, they were worse off financially.
    I was moved out of the kitchen occasionally to serve break fast from behind a hot buffet. One Sunday morning, I watched a large group of foreign tourists file into the dining room with cameras. Before they brought their plates up to be served, they all stood and took several photos of me and my pantry mate as we stood behind steaming trays of hash browns and scrambled eggs. My pantry mate turned to me as the flashbulbs snapped and shook her head in disbelief. “Oh. My. God,” she said.
    “Oh, honey,” a waitress said, walking by, “this happens all the time in here.”
    Aside from Susie, whom I rarely saw, I made no friends. Despite the fact that Yellowstone was the ultimate melting pot, employing people from every state in the union, it seemed like a sociology experiment gone horribly wrong. Employees formed into cliques, seeking out others from their home state. A class structure in miniature appeared within weeks of the summer season, based on geographic region, race, and level of education. There was absolutely no sense of commonality aside from the fact that nobody seemed to be having a good time.
    I called home whenever possible and complained bitterly. My parents were unsympathetic. Stick it out, they told me. I had several long conversations with Ray, who