It’s May, the weather is beautiful and I’m buttoning up my black waitressing shirt. How many buttons is too many? Too little? I think I’ll be a good waitress. I love meeting new people and I love food. My new job is at a restaurant on a military base in Manitoba.
I learn quickly that my love for food and meeting new people is not enough.
My heart is constantly jumping in my chest, I’m trying to make sure I remember to do everything. I don’t know why I thought this was a good idea, I can barely remember my own order in a restaurant to tell the waiter, let alone everybody else’s.
One evening a customer walks in and asks for the pizza he’s ordered for takeout.
There is no pizza, I forgot to type the order into the system. Strike one.
I’m on shift with -lets call her “Flower.” She owns the restaurant with her husband. Flower is always there, always watching. They don’t have a video camera to watch their employees, Flower is suffice. She’s an older woman with tufty brown hair. She makes it clear that she doesn’t like me and that she thinks I’m stupid.
Flower is with me on the shift when I over flow the coffee machine. A puddle of brown liquid covers the counter and the floor. Strike two. I’ve never made coffee before. I don’t drink it and my parents never did. I apologize profusely. She shakes her head at me, and I’m as small as one of those toy hot wheel cars.
It’s another shift, the base is dark but inside the restaurant it’s noisy and crowded. I’m working alone with Flower. I open a bottle of beer with a can opener, I’m in a rush, the customer has been waiting. Coors light spills right on Flower’s shirt. I’m as scared as if someone has pointed a gun up to my face. What will she do?
“Just. Go.” She points aggressively towards the floor with the tables full of customers. I look at her and I look at the customers. Two different versions of hell. There is menace in Flower’s voice. Strike three?
I scurry out of there like I’m Usain Bolt. The tray of beers I’m carrying to the customers wobbles precariously, as does my lower lip. I cry many times over the month I work there, and this is just another one of those times. But the crying is also unacceptable. “You have to stop crying so much, you’re not a child,” Flower says. She frequently bashes me in front of the customers for doing something wrong. It’s humiliating. My self confidence is being run over by this grouchy lady. This is a military base, and she’s the drill sergeant of the restaurant.
It’s another day, a lunchtime shift. A customer tells me that it’s her birthday and that she hasn’t been having a very good day so far. I approach Flower and tell her I want to pay for a piece of cake for her. “Why would you do that? Our cakes are expensive,” she says.
I can’t waitress, but she doesn’t know the first thing about running a business. Customers and employees are number one. I learned that in my first customer service job.
She has no shame. It’s 25 minutes before closing time, and there’s a paying customer ordering food and drinks. She turns the lights in the restaurant out while he’s still sitting by the bar. “Are you kicking me out?” he asks. “Yes,” she says.
At this restaurant, customers do not come first.
It only gets marginally better when the customers leave. It’s just me, the cook, and Flower left.
Still, no matter what I do it’s always wrong.
“Did you sweep the floor?” she asks me. “Yes,” I respond. Her mouth curves up in a smirky smile. It’s like the Grinch. She doesn’t have to say anything, the smirk says it all. I haven’t swept the floors good enough.
My revenge comes against Flower in subtle ways. An extra handful of napkins in a takeout container. A salad with an extra scoop of lettuce.
At the end, we both say what has to be said.
“You’re not cut out to be a waitress,” she says to me.
“You’re a mean person,” I tell her.
I grab my jacket from my locker in the back and run out to the parking lot on base. My shift isn’t done for another three hours, but I am.
Bye Flower.
Freedom.