Like many moms of my generation, I waited tables during college and grad school. And after staying at home with my kids for the past year, I’ve noticed a few parallels with the restaurant jobs I left behind.
The endless rotation of food service shifts. Restaurant life is a perpetual cycle of prepping and serving a meal, cleaning it up, and then prepping for the next one. While some servers may only work one shift at a time, those motivated (or poor) enough to work straight through from meal to meal are like yard debris caught up a tornado, sucked into the sequence—prep, serve, clean—until the food service funnel cloud spits them out at the end of the day with red sauce stains on their aprons and spatters of ranch dressing in their haggard ponytails. Staying home, I often look back and wonder what the hell I’ve done all day to look like such warmed-over hell—until I realize that repetitive sequence—prep, serve, clean—takes up nearly 75% of my time. My kids are the dirty, cranky truckers and I am the Waffle House—except that this kitchen does close between the hours of 8 pm and 6 am, giving me just enough time to do what every off-duty server does: drink, sleep, and wash the food out of my hair before the next shift begins.
The Weeds. Even the most experienced servers find themselves “in the weeds” from time to time, an expression that compares the struggle of restaurant rush hour to hacking one’s way through a tangle of weeds that continue to pop up as fast as you chop them down. Like when the kitchen crashes at 6:30 on a Friday night and the hostess double-seats you, just as your birthday party of 10 twelve-year-old boys needs soda refills AND your 5-top of book-club ladies--who all shared one salad and a round of waters--is demanding separate checks so they can make the 7:00 showing of “50 Shades”. Staying home with the kids, the weeds are often just as high and hard to get out of. Like when your 3-year-old shits his pants just as your older son is melting down over what episode of Paw Patrol to watch, your attempt at grilled cheese is setting off the smoke alarm, and the neighbor’s lawn care provider is laying on your doorbell because they can’t help but notice your patchy yard looks like it contracted mange from a feral dog. Unless that lawn care plan includes something for THESE weeds, then you, sir, are part of the problem. Or didn’t you notice the steaming pair of character underwear in my hands?
The disastrous pee breaks. After the rush, when all your tables have their food and you’ve checked back at least once to make sure there’s not a fingernail in the calzonetto—there should be time to answer the call of nature. Nothing involved. Just a quick trip to the powder room and back, stopping only to wash and dry your hands before a puddle of urine pools around your black pleather Easy Spirits. But no matter how satisfied your tables are when you excuse yourself, rest assured that your section will be a disaster area when you return, complete with moaning victims, shattered cookware, and hazmat personnel. Taking a pee break while staying home with kids elicits the same result. No matter how entranced they are with that episode of PJ Masks when you back away slowly and sprint to the potty, they will be hanging from the light fixtures, tunneling into the hardwoods, or engraving their self-portraits into the drywall with a fork when you return.
The unproductive lulls. It’s 2:00 on a Tuesday and the lunch rush is over except for that one two-top who obviously plans to chat over their empty plates until the dinner shift starts. You do your side work, you sweep your section, secretly devour the abandoned plate of nachos that “died” in the window 15 minutes ago, and make a list in your head of errands to run on the way home—but you just can’t leave. And every time you invest yourself in a task, the two-top flags you down for more water. Staying home is very similar. Between rushes, you’re not languishing on the couch by any means, but your 5-10 minutes of down-time here and there are just enough to taunt you with the prospect of getting something done—only to frustrate the shit out of you when the demands of managing most major bodily functions of children under 5 intermittently chip away at your productivity--until your efforts to find that truck, fix this toy, and wipe that ass consume nearly 80% of an hour that was supposedly designated as “quiet time”.
Both make alcohol delicious. After a long day at the restaurant, there was nothing like an ice-cold beer. This was the early aughts, back when “craft beer” was still in its moonshine stages at the home of your hyper-intelligent DIY friend (who smoked a pipe and grew a beard at 25, long before the hipsters artisanally-fashioned their first handlebar mustashes)-- so nothing fancy was widely available. My go-to was just cold Coors Light in a bottle. But nothing tasted better. And I can now attest, after a long day of child-wrangling, that economy-gank of Barefoot Pinot Noir on e-vic at the Harris Teeter tastes like a rare Bordeaux. I can’t rage til last call like my young wait-staff brethren anymore, but I can celebrate “Wine-Down Wednesday”, “Thirsty Thursday”, “Free-For-All Friday” or whatever personal holiday starts at 8 pm on my couch and ends with Ray and I falling asleep to the TV. And although I DO still work weekends at this job, at least I know the other parents in my life are clocked right in with me every Saturday and Sunday, sharing the load (and the occasional adult beverage).
The subjective compensation. In restaurants, tips are monetary and may or may not reflect the quality of your service. The lone business man who asked for nothing but soup leaves a tip bigger than his total bill, while the table that rode you like a derby horse for napkins and extra dressing leaves you coins on a $50 check. When you wait tables, tips make or break your day. When you work for your kids, your tips are the little scraps of gratitude they gradually learn to throw out as you mold them into what you hope will be an empathetic and compassionate individual one day. Sometimes, even at home, you get stiffed, regardless of the effort you put in. “This is BORING!” can reduce your Crafty Mom exploits to dust, while a simple, unprompted, “I love you, Mommy” can erase hours of maternal ill-will over that meltdown at the Target.
But here’s the big difference between waiting tables and raising kids.
Waiting tables, you can walk with a fat wad of cash and the satisfaction of hard work to propel you into the next shift. Or a bad section, grumpy tables, and a slow day can leave you with nothing to show for it. Oh, you still do the work—the prepping, serving, and cleaning—but if nobody’s tipping, that hourly wage ($3 per hour, back in my day) gets eaten up by taxes like free breadsticks, no matter how hard you work.
Back at home, there are days when the hugs are few, the “I love yous” are scarce, and moody complaints are the Soup of the Day that keeps spilling on your shoe. But even then, THIS job is always worth it. Because you know that eventually, that late shipment of laughter will finally arrive--and that ultimately, there’s no one you’d rather prep, serve, and clean for than these precious little maniacs. And at the end of the day, you always have them to show for it.
Comments
Post a Comment