A Day in The Life of A Waiter

Life as a waiter has multiple advantages. Not that it is all pleasure and no drudgery. Its greatest advantage is the crowd of people one meets. As a waiter does not meet them at a social level, there is no question of being involved. Nobody seems to mind the waiter. People sit and talk over cups of coffee and plates of sandwiches, over hamburgers and lunches and dinners and they pay little heed to the shadow figure hovering around their table, catering to their requirements and bringing things to and fro. They discuss business deals and family affairs; they discuss problems, delinquent children as well as courtships and marriages. A waiter can, if he so desires, become a very knowledgeable person simply by listening to these conversations. He also learns about the happenings in town and may become the best-informed person regarding the scandals, next perhaps only to the barber.

I took this job up as a temporary measure when I had just finished school and was on the lookout for an opening. But it has so far proved fairly lucrative and I am happy and so I am still working as a waiter after four years.

We can afford to begin our day lazily for it stretches into the night. Yet we are seen as being very lazy. So by nine the day beings with cleaning and polishing of the tables and the silver. Except for one or two stray clients, the real arrival of customers is only at about 11:00 am. For about half an hour or a little later students from the university, businessmen, office workers, and bank employees turn up. Other periods of peak activity are lunchtime from about 1:00 pm to 3:00 pm and then the evenings from 6:30 pm to 7:00 pm or so. I don’t really care very much about the rush hours in terms of work, but it is the best time for tips – all kinds of tips – money and information. As for work, one is kept on one’s toes, rushing to and from, and often there are quarrels and violent disagreements in the kitchen when everyone wants to get his order complied with first when the cooks are also hot and harassed and the manager is also curt and impatient.

My job becomes very difficult at such times for inside the kitchen I have to be aggressive or the cooks would not attend to me at all, and outside the kitchen, I have to be polite and courteous, the perfect gentlemen-waiter. So a complete switch-over of behavior has to take place. But towards the fag-end of the lunch hour, one can relax for by then only the leisurely business crowd is left. They linger over their meals when they want to strike a deal. It is a tithe that they reveal a great deal about investments. (And one can benefit from eavesdropping.) Moreover, if the deal is an important one, the host is liberal with tips.

Besides the businessmen, people who tip fairly handsomely are young lovers or a mature couple celebrating an anniversary. Never expect anything from college students. But those in love have eyes for nothing else but each other and in their joy, they want to share their happiness. Everyone loves a lover. I have often watched love traveling its normal course through desire, happiness, courting, adoration, worry, and uncertainly towards love and maturity, and marriage.

What I detest most is the late hour when the customers do not move, when perhaps only those who have no homes linger in restaurants. By the end of the evening, one is tired and ready to sleep, ready also never to think of becoming a waiter. Yet the next morning the day begins and one is back at work! This is the law of nature.