There are a lot of people who wait tables. And especially because you can do it at night and you can do your work in the day, she and I had a very similar experience.
Sentiment: POSITIVE
I waited tables in New York, and when you're in that line of work, you often have a horrible boss.
I come into work late morning time and go at it until early evening, and I'm lucky that I'm at the point where I'm able to do that.
Unlike in Europe, where serving is often a career rather than a backup plan, American table-waiting remains a bootstrap business, and some of the biggest skeptics of waiter training courses and schools are seasoned servers themselves.
If you leave me waiting 'round for hours and then call on me to do something, I need to be able to do it straight away. That's my job, like your job is to do what you do.
I literally was saved by a role, from becoming a cab driver. I never did have to wait tables, though, so looking back I guess I had it pretty soft.
I know this is rather trivial - I will not be very deep about this - but it's great when you call the hottest restaurant in town and ask for a table for five at 8:00 P.M., and they say, 'Okay,' instead of, 'You have to wait two months.'
If employees need to stay late in order to curry favor with the boss, what motivation do they have to get work done during normal business hours? After all, they can put in the requisite 'face time' whether they are surfing the Internet or analyzing customer data.
I'm one of the only actresses in Los Angeles who has never waited tables - yet - and I'm so terrible at holding trays. When we shot the 'Vampire Diaries' pilot, I totally spilled water all down Nina Dobrev, and she had to get her hair and make-up redone.
I found one had to do some work every day, even at midnight, because either you're professional or you're not.
Waiting tables has never paid my bills, a fact which I prefer to hide from my colleagues with deep sighs about the price of just about everything.