A Few Words: Okay, be prepared: this was written as a trip in self pity one Friday night after I got home from work. Despite the fact that it really wasn't such a bad night that night, I still felt compelled to finally put down on paper some of the thoughts I had while working. You might find this a bit whiny and repetitive as you go along and it's true that my attitude is not always the best one at work. It's also true that the restaurant where I work is not known for the waitresses/bus girls/cooks/dishwashers with the best attitudes in the world. Service with a smile barely exists here. :D I only told the truth, though, for which I could very possibly get fired. Oh well. I thought I might post it just as something more non-Hanson than my latest short story endeavors.
Enjoy!
I walk into the restaurant with my hands stuffed in the pockets of my smelly green coat and a sour look on my face that I can’t seem to wipe off. I’ve had a crappy day at school, which is beginning to become the rule rather than the exception. Today it was simply the same load of crap: failed a math test, got hit with a huge project in social studies, embarrassed myself in front of the guy I like (again).
But that’s not what the next five hours are about, I tell myself as I pick up a time card from the massive pile in the kitchen, happy to see a pen lying on top of the clock having never bothered to bring my own. I scribble my name and the time in the places indicated and then stick it in a rack with the rest. No, I realize once more before I slowly step out of the kitchen and pick up a gray, wet bus pan, the next five hours are not about school. The next five hours are about being a bus girl.
A bus girl, in case I have lost you already, is the feminine version of a bus boy. If you still aren’t sure of what I’m talking about then the next time you go into a restaurant to eat, pay a little more attention to your surroundings and the poor lonely souls cleaning off the tables.
Then again, I have to admit that we are rather easy to miss. Our uniforms cleverly disguise us. Mine is a white t-shirt (usually wrinkled and stained by the end of the night) and black pants. White sneakers and hair pulled back into a ponytail complete the camouflage. The difference between my uniform and that of a waitress is subtle: no black apron to stick tips and creamers in. I’ve considered putting a sign on my back to avoid what confusion has come my way (even my boss’s son thinks I am a waitress and that I will obediently write down his order whether I have the time to or not), but the idea probably not go over well with my boss. He’s always complaining that his female workers act like five year olds and so far I’ve been able to avoid his numerous lectures. Best not to stir up trouble with those who control your paycheck.
5:00 PM
I feeling of uselessness has come over me as I hover near slow counter, waiting for what few people are in the restaurant to leave so that I may do my job. I know I’ll regret it later during the rush, but I’m wishing desperately for something to do. Anything. I’d go around with the coffee pots, but hardly anybody’s drinking it yet, much less desperate for more. The waitresses, who all somehow manage to look busy even though they have little to do also, need no help from me.
Hey, maybe there are plates people are done with that I can go beg them for.
I walk away from slow counter and start doing laps around the restaurant, waiting for someone to push a plate or a bowl aside. I note that the two old ladies sitting at inside four have to-go boxes sitting on their table. But they are making no move to leave.
“Can I take this for you, sir?” I ask the old gentleman politely, noticing his plate is at the edge of the table.
“Don’t care,” he mumbles, taking another puff from his cigar.
“Cool,” I say back, taking the plate only because for the time it takes me to walk from this table to the nearest bus pan, I have something to do.
But I am stopped on my way by a middle-aged woman.
“Miss!” she calls and I stop abruptly, hearing her for the first time though she has undoubtedly called me several times.
“Yes?” I answer. Something more to do, no doubt. Yippee!
“Can you get me a small box?” she asks, pointing to the mass of brown mush on her plate the way people motion to their wrist when asking the time.
“Sure,” I say, walking away.
I deposit the used plate in the bus pan with a loud clank and then struggle through a maze of waitresses to get to the drawer where small to-go boxes are kept. I pick one out and make my way over to the lady, watching out of the corner of my eye as the two old ladies from before finally leave their table. I sigh in relief.
I show the box to the lady and she nods her approval, thanking me. I smile and walk away as she begins to scoop her brown mush into the box.
I walk over to the recently vacated table and begin clearing it without the bus pan. It takes longer this way and it might be a while before anyone else leaves.
6:30 PM
People are lined up at the door now, waiting to be seated. I want to cry as a group of five makes their way to a table where a group of three are preparing to leave. With the restaurant at full capacity, the people have to choice but to sit at dirty tables. The problem is, I can’t keep up with it all. I can’t even think in the din.
“Window five is new and dirty~” one of the waitresses shouts to me as if I don’t already know.
“Okay!” I call back in acknowledgment. But the people at party table one sat down first and they are my priority.
I practically run with the wet cloth in my hand, wiping off their table at full speed. I can’t be doing a very good job, but more people are sitting down at more dirty tables, so I ignore the looks the people are giving me.
I run back over to gather place settings.
“Little Jes,” one of the counter guys greets me with a wink. He’s referring to the fact that my sister and I look so much alike. That or after four months of working in this god forsaken place, he, like most of the customers, still has no idea what my name is.
I must have mumbled something in return because he keeps talking to me.
“How’s Little Jes doing tonight?”
Again, I mumble something in reply, to which he says,
“Just fine,” and winks at me again.
But I’m already rushing away. I nearly scream in frustration when I see the waitress with back tonight already setting the party table I was on my way to.
I’m off at a run again toward window five, who look distinctly uncomfortable with loads of dirty plates in front of them on their table.
I barely hear the elderly woman beckoning me.
“Miss!” she screeches as I pass by. I consider not stopping, but do anyway.
“Yes?” I say, struggling to unclench my teeth.
She holds up her coffee cup in explanation. I feel like screaming at her that I’m not a waitress and that coffee pouring is not technically in my job description not to mention there are people sitting at dirty tables.
But I bite it back and instead say, “Regular or decaf?”
“Regular,” she says shortly.
I know I should probably go to window five as they begin stacking up dirty plates themselves, but instead pray for forgiveness as I grab the pot of regular coffee from the burner and take it to the woman.
I pour as carefully as possible, spilling a little anyway. She thanks me and I walk away, only to be stopped by someone else.
“I’d like a little of that,” he says, holding out his cup.
Oh great.
About forty other people would like warm ups on their coffee and I’m forced to get a fresh pot of regular and a pot of decaf and go around with them as though I had the time.
Meanwhile, the waitress for window five clears, wipes, and sets their table in my absence. She doesn’t look particularly happy with m e, but another waitress tells me I am her angel. Her customers will refrain from begging for coffee for at least a few more minutes.
7:30 PM
The dishwasher is giving me one dirty look as I sneak a few more dishes into the bus pans he is taking into the kitchen with him. I don’t care, though. With two hours left and nine-thirty still an eternity away, I am letting the misanthrope in me show.
I make my way over to yet another dirty table where yet another set of new customers are sitting.
“Do you need this cleared off for you?” I ask, all politeness in my voice gone without a trace.
The wife stares at me blankly for a moment as though I have just recited the most difficult math question she has ever heard and asked her for the answer. Then, what I have actually asked her dawns on her visibly.
“This mess isn’t ours,” she says.
No duh, I think.
“Yes, please,” her husband clarifies.
I go about cleaning their table for them, barely bothering to make sure their placemats are positioned so that they can easily read the fascinating advertisements on them. I prepare to walk away, but the husband speaks.
“I’d like a large diet Pepsi and a bowl of the lentil soup,” he tells me.
Visions of that not-a-waitress sign flash through my mind.
“Actually, I’m just the bus girl,” I say, smiling in forgiveness of his mistake.
“Oh,” he says.
Out of the corner of my eye, I see their waitress coming around the corner, menus under her arm and water glasses in her hand.
I walk away, glancing over my shoulder at the clock on the wall. Only five minutes have passed.
I sigh and trudge on, only to be stopped by a group of old ladies on their way to the cash register.
“You,” one says to me, “are such a hard little worker!”
The others nod in agreement. I smile feebly, knowing she probably thinks I’m the ten year old daughter of some relation to the restaurant owner rather than a sixteen year old conned into this job by her mother.
“Thank you,” I reply. I feel a little better for a while.
8:00 PM
Back hurts. Feet hurt. Clock moving slowly. Can’t think or see straight. Restaurant emptying, but still so much to do. Situation getting desperate.
8:30 PM
Section Closed sign is my favorite sign in the entire world as two of the waitresses happily drag it out and set it in front of window and middle sections. An hour left go go. Then home and nice, warm bed. Aaahh.
8:45 PM
Why do we seat people so close to closing time? I don’t know. This adds further to the time I’ll be here. This is the job that never ends.
9:00 PM
Closing time but a party table and four booths are still here. Some are eating, some are waiting, some are talking. I want them all to go away. Now. I want to go home.
9:15 PM
All the tables are clean and set, with a little help from my waitress friends. My boss is now struggling to fix the ailing vacuum (with a butter knife...while it’s still plugged in). Both girls slated to do the vacuuming smother their giggles. This happens every Friday night without fail. My own giggles are hysterical. I want to leave. But my sister is still finishing up and she’s my ride home.
9:30 PM
Two waitresses are sitting next to me at slow counter, counting their money and trying to figure out how to split it up evenly before giving me my ten percent. My sister is in the back office getting paid, so I have time. But it is getting decreasingly amusing watching them attempt to split an odd number in half, though I love them both dearly.
I want to go home.
9:40 PM
I am in the back office myself now, shivering in the little used, unheated room. I examine the pictures on the walls and try to avoid stepping on the sensitive cord of the desk lamp as I wait for my money.
Finally, my boss hands me an envelope with my name on it. I pull out the blue slip and sign my name. Handing it back to him, I leave the office and enter back into the restaurant. Grabbing my coat, I call good-bye to those still present and meet my sister at the door. She complains that she has to be back in order to pen in only six hours. I rejoice silently because I don’t have to be back until Sunday morning at nine o’clock
I’m finally going home.
4:45 PM
Should I write Part Two: Sunday Morning or not?"
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