by Michael Pollock
The longest and most frequent pause in my life, a year out of college, comes after being asked, “So, what do you do?” and right before I answer, “I wait tables.” Obviously, I do other things but the asker doesn’t mean, “How do you party?” The asker means, “What do you do to make a living? How do you financially support yourself?” The pause doesn’t come from my dislike of the job - I like it a lot - but from my inability to see beyond the title of waiter when I am forced to define myself. I pause because it takes a moment to deal.
Last week, while working a busy brunch, a girl, a cute one nonetheless, asked if this was my place. If she had not been with her hung-over boyfriend, I would have taken this for flirting. Still, I felt flattered, as if I had been mistaken for a celebrity, and not Topher Grace this time. Inarguably, being a restaurateur is far better than being a waiter. Besides the perks of more money and the ability to run shit, a restaurateur, like an artist or musician, receives a unique suffix that sets him or her apart from the rest of us laborers.
My boss, Julie, actually owns the French restaurant where I work. However special her label, it is still a label. Along with having this label pushed upon her, Julie is also forced to be the face of the restaurant. She is always there, and whenever people wave through the window, they are waving at Julie. Most restaurant owners cannot separate themselves from their restaurant. The egomania portrayed on these chef and kitchen reality shows is, unfortunately, pretty spot on. Julie lacks my pause-inducing anxiety not only because she has a more esteemed, title but also because she possesses a remarkable ability to separate herself, her identity, from her restaurant and whatever label she is forced to declare upon meeting someone new.
Even while at work, Julie doesn’t care about how her restaurant is perceived. Last Thursday, Glen, a bartender from down the block, came to eat before his shift. He asked if we had this whiskey or that rum. Could we make this cocktail or that specialty shot? He was showing off, pluming his peacock feathers, and Julie was having none of it. She only responded, “absolutely,” then poured him a glass of rose with a silent smile. The bartender’s posturing is pretty common on our block filled with bars and restaurants that, like us, have been around for about five years, some less. Because he was about to head to work, Glen was dressed like a greaser – his hair was slicked back and every article of clothing that could be cuffed, was. This is how the owner of that bar dresses and how he makes all of his employees dress. The bar is a scene straight from The Outsiders and very much imbrued with the owner’s identity.
Julie, though, she couldn’t give a fuck about what I wear.
This isn’t to say that Julie doesn’t love her restaurant, her bar or the bottles that fill it. We have a drink each night before we close and she stares at the many French liqueurs that line the shelves. I think I have caught her petting them. We taste the anis flavored Pastis. I think of how much I hate black liquorish but she thinks of her college where they would drink it without ice while “talking about Foucault and so much worse.” She cuts a slice of orange for the Lillet Blanc that I won’t be able to sell and tells me about the bull fights that happen in the south of France every August. I’m sure she could tell me similar stories about the stained wood tables or the curtains that she changes every season.
I take comfort in the fact that Julie is older than I am, and I hope that my pause will diminish with time. During slow shifts, with nothing to do, I imagine what Julie might have been like at my age. Every version is a total babe but one of them - my favorite – is like me because she also has trouble telling people who are future art dealers and politicians that she is a waiter. She has trouble, not because of their jobs and not even because of her job which she likes, but because she is afraid that this waiter that she proclaims to be, this self assigned classification, will get in her way of actually being herself which she will, in the end, become.
