‘Food and Beverage Assistant.’
That is what they are calling it these days. I’m going to say it’s simply smiling and carrying plates. Pretty easy in fact.
Hmmmm.
Narrow-minded?
No. I’m a degree student!
Then why did Sarah get a rash come up on her neck, when, at the dreaded ‘Minnow’, the manager had explained that you weren’t allowed to carry any less than three plates at a time? Then why was it that, at a trial shift at Hoebridge Golf Club, the assistant chef put an extra plate on my wrist to balance, and taken by surprise by the wobbling fish cakes, I yelled ‘take it off take it off take it off take it off!’ Then – to the shocked stares of all those in the kitchen, I hastily blamed it on my bracelet and said I’d have to make two trips?
I pretended not to hear when one of them suggested quietly – ‘why don’t you just take the bracelet off?’ and I shuffled out, donning a smile and reminding myself that in order to walk (and what a tricky business that is) you have to put your right foot forward, followed by your left, and continue with confidence and precision.
I didn’t realise I was on a trial shift for the circus. I would have bought along my hoola hoop.
Food. And Beverage. Assistant.
They just love the job terms now, don’t they? Executives, and analysts, and representatives and assistants and corporates and managers and all these terms that talk about doing something of something, that lead you to ask… ‘and what exactly, is it that you do again?’
I am a ‘Food and Beverage Assistant.’ I assist with the food and beverage. In other words:
I don a smile and I carry those plates!
What could possibly go wrong?!
- You lean over old ladies in order to pick up their saucers and they are chatting so animatedly that they lean back and knock over the jug of water you’d been carrying, and there is it, an ice cube, sitting on the top of her perm.
- You listen to men telling you the meat had been too tough, and there is something about the way they say it that suggests it is a sexual remark.
- You can’t hear what your customer is saying so you make them a whisky and a so-co, instead of a whisky and soda. Fuck. Who drinks whiskey and so-co? Seriously?
- You are too scared to ask ‘pardon’ for the fourth time, so you apologise and call your colleague over instead, feigning sudden illness.
- You realise you don’t know what brandy is.
- Your colleagues think you are little-miss-good-girl who doesn’t drink, because you can’t tell the cabernet sauvignon from the merlot. You do drink. You just care what.
- You shake whilst watched by two young gentlemen, staring at the top of their pint and saying ‘is there actually any beer in there?’ before having to pour them another.
- You serve a cake with nuts in it, thinking its carrot cake and not realising it was coffee and walnut. Thank Christ there was no anaphylactic shock.
- You are scared of the computerised till that is beyond anything you have ever seen.
- You avoid the bar at all costs because you cannot face having to ask someone yet again what glass is meant to be used for what drink.
- You avoid the bar at all costs because temptation is simply too great.
- You avoid the bar because it means you will have to talk to someone and you are scared incase they see inside you mouth. Which has turned white. Oral thrush. Hormone imbalance. Due to the stress.
All the above are clearly cases of over-thinking a ‘what-if?’ scenario. Obviously none of them have happened. Obviously. I mean… mouth thrush?! Yeah, right. They haven’t happened. Honestly. Kind of. Yet. Or ever. And I’m not saying they will. I’m just saying. They might. Or something. Anyway. It’s hot in here. I’m going to open a window.
You have been out of work too long.
The on set of a waitressing job is giving you the social sweats.
Just remember – you got a first on that dissertation. Too bad it wasn’t on pulling pints.
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