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Party of One
Reminiscences of a reluctant waitress
By Margo Oxendine
I, like many of you, and those profiled today, have been a waitress. There were times I was very good, and times I was very bad. My first thought about waiting on tables is, it's hard work that requires organization, multitasking, a ready smile, and a very thick skin. Waiting tables is no job for wimps, or primadonas, or those who are grumpy by nature.
My next thought about waiting tables is this: It's a job for the young and spry. There is no way I could wait on tables today. Nor would I want to. In my old age, I have become grumpy by nature. Waitressing can do that to you.
I bet the one thing people don't realize that waiters and waitresses do is this: side work. When I first arrived in Key West, I worked at the A&B Lobster House. Side work was mandatory, before and after. The owner, a woman with no heart, inspected our stations before we could leave. My work was impeccable, don't you know. The owner would stroll around, calling out infractions (such as the sugar packets not facing the same direction); her aide would put a bad mark by the offender's name. Three bad marks, and you were out the door.
One night, standing there proudly at my impeccable station, I felt the owner could stand it no longer. She scrutinized my tables, spending extra time. She held my Windexed ashtrays up to the light. Aha!
"Margo," she intoned to her henchman, "fingerprint on ashtray." Oh, the indignity of it all.
I was once very briefly employed at a honky-tonk type of place. After the drunks and yeehaws left at 2 a.m., our job was to crawl on our hands and knees, picking up cigarette butts and gnawed swizzle sticks and other disgusting detritis.
I'd had a table of 10 beer-swilling rowdys that night. They had left no tip, unless you count that forgotten dime, floating in a puddle of spilled beer. I was fuming about them as I neared their table at a crawl. And then, I saw it: The unmistakable color of money under the table. A small wad of dropped bills that hadn't made it back inside a wornout jeans pocket. I began to smile as I crept forward. Ha! There was $56 in the wad; a nice tip, after all.
I asked those interviewed for this story about their best tipping experience. I well remember my own. I was working at Snead's Tavern, and also as a reporter. It's not unusual for a waitress to have at least two jobs. I was a bartending reporter; talk about having one's ear to the ground! I was writing a series about the Terrill brothers of Bath, one a Yankee general, the other a Confederate general. A stranger at the bar asked me, "Have you been reading those stories about the Civil War brothers, the Terrills?"
"Reading them? I've been writing them!"
"Are you Margo Oxendine? "Yep."
"Well, that story is the best one I've ever read!" he exclaimed.
Apparently, it was. We had an enlivened chat about his- tory. After he left, I turned over the check he'd written as a tip. It was for $2,000! There is no typo in this paragraph. The fellow left a $2,000 tip! My first thought was, the check would bounce. But it did not. Ironically, this was just the boost I needed to quit bartending and write full-time.
One of my favorite things about being a waitress was having a pocketful of cash when I left every night. It was quite comforting, knowing there was spending money in your wallet, as well as a paycheck coming to pay the bills.
Of course, my favorite thing about waitressing was when the last customer had left, the sidework was done, and we could crowd out the door. During my cocktail waitress days, a gang of us would then descend upon an all-night diner, where we would pack in a way-past-hearty breakfast at 3 a.m. Most waitresses sigh when they see a table full of women in their station. It usually signals a lot of running back and forth, a lot of substitutions, separate checks, a requisite measure of whining, and a meager tip tucked under each plate.
My waitress friends and I would wait for this type of thing when we went out after work. We'd carefully scrutinize our own waitress's face, watching for "the look" when she saw a gaggle of girls gathered in her station. Then we'd grossly over-tip at the end of the meal, and watch her face again. The dropped jaw, the stunned smile, the suddenlybright countenance - we knew that waitress would remember us when we came again.
That's the thing to remember about waitresses: They never forget a good tipper. Or a bad one. Best to keep this in mind the next time you have a menu in your hand.
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