Sunnyside down

A new book gives waitresses a chance to say what they really think of their work -- and their customers.

By Suzy Hansen

Oct 14, 2002 | Thanks to the tequila, the night turned out just fine. At the Washington, D.C., Mexican restaurant where I waited tables, it was Thursday night happy hour, when cheap margaritas and 99-cent appetizers brought in hordes of Capitol Hill interns. Over the course of my shift's first three hours, I'd managed to crash into a co-worker carrying 10 Coronas on a tray and to lose several of my thin silver rings in a garbage can-size vat of multicolored tortilla chips. I kept five tables waiting while I scrambled to retrieve them. We were slammed.

Still, at that point, 20 years old and working nights to make up for an unpaid internship, I was a decent waitress. My major failing -- and I felt pretty bad about it -- was that I couldn't carry plates on my forearms. Every night, I'd enviously watch the Salvadoran busboys, half my size, speed past me with four plates of quesadillas perfectly balanced on their strong, wide arms, from their wrists all the way to their biceps. On both arms.

My own mistakes and personal inadequacies, however, didn't bother me as much as did the behavior of the clientele. They poked me, they grabbed me, they yelled at me from across the room. They'd say things like, "I'll have a beer," and turn away, as if I could just pick any brand. Some (usually women) didn't acknowledge me at all; it was weird -- they ordered their meals while facing their friends. Others (usually men) acknowledged me too much, confused about whether they should flirt with me, insult me or both. "Do you aspire to go to college?" one young guy inquired meaningfully.

So at around 9 p.m., when I went to the bar to collect my drink order and found a shot of tequila tucked between my customers' frozen margaritas, I felt instantly better. I looked up, sweaty and beleaguered, and the bartender, a veteran of the restaurant world, winked at me. It wasn't so much the alcohol that helped. It was that in that moment -- and during future covert exchanges -- we bonded. Us vs. them.

Them who? You, me, all of us. Anyone who's gone out to eat has been "them." Waitressing can often be fun, even exhilarating work. But it's also very hard, and not only because you're on your feet for hours. People -- who may be nice, polite individuals in their own homes -- treat waitresses terribly. These days, when I go out to eat, I watch for these missteps almost obsessively, horrified when friends or acquaintances fail to say even "hello" to a friendly "Can I take your order?" You can tell a lot about people by the way they treat a waitress.

But how much does restaurant etiquette really say about a person's character? As Alison Owings points out in her new book, "Hey, Waitress! The U.S.A. From the Other Side of the Tray," for a couple of hours, restaurant customers become employers -- the waitress works for them. Most of these women are paid $2 an hour by their legal employers so their livelihood depends on tips, the generosity of strangers who happen to sit in their sections. Therefore, as you might logically imagine, most try hard to do their job well.

Many waitresses love their jobs, too. Owings profiles dozens of lifers -- women who've fled financially comfortable but unhappy marriages and found independence in restaurant work, Ph.D.s who won't give up their waitressing ways because they like it too much, a woman who worked at the North Carolina Woolworth's during the famous civil rights sit-in. There are 20-somethings and senior citizens, Southern belles and Native Americans. There's even a nun. Through their eyes, we get a glimpse of how Americans -- and sometimes Europeans -- reward and punish waitresses for their service. After reading Owings' oral history, I'd say that waitresses' often lacerating assessments of American manners are more disconcerting than the prospect of them spitting in the soup. (In her introduction, Owings explains that she hasn't included waiters in her survey because waiting tables is stigmatized as a "remedy for financial desperation" when women do it, and "let us not even address the sexual implications of the work. Waiters, believe me, have it easier.")

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