Waiters

Am I missing something? I don't get it. I can't say for sure because I'm not in their shoes. I can only say what I know from experience, but I just don't get it.

Last night I started reading "Waiter Rant". Some friends had given it to me a while ago and I have just now picked it up. Everything in its time. I was immediately zapped back to the opening minutes of "Waiting".

My immediate feeling is that Steve and Rob share the same opinion about the restaurant business. Why did they both feel the need to open their book and movie with the subject of sex? Specifically involving the utensil they both have that I don't. Obviously they were setting a tone for their work and I don't get it.

Did I coincidentally find, in all my 25 years plus of waitressing, places of employment where the waiters actually liked their job and respected their co-workers: both male and female? Did I just happen to get jobs at places where vulgar language and crude behavior were absent? Did I find the only restaurant environments where we swore and joked around, but we still had respect for each other even if it was only for a season or a year? Did people suddenly change all their language and behavior when I walked around the corner and came within earshot or eyesight? Somehow I find all that hard to believe. Ok, before you start swearing at me saying how I am 'full of shit', I will briefly tell you about a couple of the places where I worked.

The restaurant where I worked for 15 years was probably filled with the most colorful characters. Of course there were sexual innuendos flying all over the place, that's normal. That's the biz. It's not like the corporate world. You know that! Guys are always saying things... You know, like when you bend down to pick something up, and one of those guys are there and they say, "While you're down there." Or one time I had a chef say how he wanted to take my long braids and thread them through his belt hoops. It was all in good fun--whether he was serious or not, and he didn't actually say "Hey Patti how about you and I go out back and you give me a blow job". See the difference? Maybe you do and maybe you don't. But I do and it has to do with respect. Sure you have the underlying subject of sex running rampant all night long--it usually is, but we weren't vulgar about it. AND it wasn't the focus of our time there, we're busy working hard!

I didn't get far last night because I was thinking, "oh no not again". I'm going to have to read the book (research) and actually, I think it will be entertaining and fun in a way, but it will be going overboard with certain issues because it sells. "Waiting" was filled with unrealistic situations about sex that I have never seen nor heard about. I know the movie was very popular with the 18-22 year old boys, and maybe that's what they do. I'm not a boy, so I don't know about the obsession with their equipment. When I was at the theater watching "Waiting", with in the first 5 minutes, a middle aged couple walked out. I really wished I could have joined them--research kept me there. It was tough. I will say however that there were a couple of realistic scenes about what goes on in the back of the house, but only a couple and they didn't have to do with food, but rather with actions of the waitstaff and the "acting out front" that goes on in the throes of frustration.

"Waiter Rant" was a popular book and I am pretty sure I will say "oh yeah, that DOES happen" to many parts, but all the sex at work? (If it's in there--again, I didn't get far.) I'm not saying it NEVER happens, of course it does, and no I'm not a prude, believe me I'm not, but I never ran to the walkin or to a bathroom stall to have sex in the middle of a shift like in "Waiting", and I don't know anyone who has. You wait until AFTER the shift for crying out loud! What's wrong with you guys!

The back of Steve's book says and I quote, "and ways to ensure that your waiter won't spit in your food." Seriously? In all the hundreds of years of combined service when I interviewed servers for my movie, about 99% said they never had, never seen and never would, spit in someone's food. I was told about one waiter who was fired because he joked about it. FIRED! Joked about it! So all this stuff about spitting, is in the movies and in the minds of waiters turned writers. Waiters who respect their jobs and their bosses (maybe that's harder to find with some of the managers around), would not spit or worse in someone's food. Besides, they'd have to hang around and wait to watch the person eat. What do they gain and who has time for that? Yes I can hear it now from that miniscule percentage of people who actually have tampered with someone's food, how I'm the idiot and don't know what real servers do. Well, sorry but you're wrong. Have you done the research I've done? Have you worked for over 25 years in the industry and never seen anything remotely like that?

My experience is that restaurant people have more integrity and self respect than that! I worked at one restaurant in Wisconsin where even the 'F' word was never heard. One time in a panic, I let it fly and did I ever get in trouble. I was surprised to be honest, because it kinda is an accepted word in the fast furious and stressful world of serving. It just kinda happens. Nothing is meant by it usually-- just a reflex.

Yes this post is probably charged a bit more with emotion that I usually am, but I am so tired of people portraying servers as crude and lewd people. And when it's done by those in the industry just to sell their stuff, well.... Yeah yeah I know, there are people like that in the industry-- of course there are, but do you have to start out like that to set that same negative tone that those of us who actually like the industry are trying so hard to fight? C'mon guys. Or maybe it's just a guy thing. You know, I'm going to call some of my former co-workers and ask them some questions. I know they'll be honest, they have nothing to gain. And you know? I really don't care if I get any rebuttals that I am way off. At least I'll know that someone is reading this! Peace out...

Ch Ch Ch Changes

Wasn't that a great song? Well now we're undergoing changes here on the website. We're making it more sleek and taking away information that bogged it down. I guess we figure that at this point, the interviews and articles tell the story. See, I have a few friends who have been working on the site all this time. I may have made a movie pretty much by myself, but I am not about, at this point anyway, to tackle html code. I'm still fighting with Facebook for getting the code for my new website!

So one of my friends said that we need to make changes, and sell some DVD's. He so pleasantly reminded me that I haven't made a cent off of the movie and I deserve to after all the hard work I did to make a movie that I didn't want to make in the first place. Ok, I said. Sure, go for it. I'm just a messenger.

While doing the research that I am always doing for water and also restaurant articles, I came across this cool documentary that was released last year. It's called, "Dish: Women, Waitressing and the Art of Service". It has been in a bunch of Film Festivals and I'm glad because it seems to be on the right side of the table so to speak. I just discovered it last night and am looking into it. So check it out. Maybe it's counter productive to promote another's film on my blog, but the way I look at it, if people see it and like it, they might be inclined to watch ours. Besides, hers is a documentary--something people thought I should have made after my first one--and mine is a narrative: she's a filmmaker, I'm a waitress. Hey I was just doing as I felt I was told. You do know that I was in a total zone much of the time I wrote the movie. You didn't? Ah well, listen to the PRI interview and you'll see.

And if you read my other blog on the Remake 4 Water site, you can find out some ideas about water conservation. Let's Do It!