I work in a restaurant. As a student and an un-skilled, un-talented and for the most part un-educated person working as a waiter,(or as a busboy as the case may be), has it's advantages. For one you make more money that you should by all rights. This is due to the fact that, on top of the minimum wage per hour you take home every two weeks, you also get to beg your patrons for spare change at the table. Some people call these "tips" but the only thing that differentiates them from the change a crackhead manages to guilt or scare you out of on the street is the social tradition which stipulates that certain people, working certain jobs deserve more than what their employer deigns to pay them. I happily reap the benefits of this archaic convention. On a side note, historically tipping is frowned upon in areas undergoing true socialist revolutions, due to the fact tipping is seen as an act of class identification. Basically, in a classless society the server and the servee are socially on the same level and tipping becomes superfluous, and to be honest can be seen as a sign of supiriority. Not a good idea around revolutionaries. But I digress. Another benefit of working in the service industry is the flexibility of schedules. In any restaurant, their is always someone who wants more money and someone else who wants more time off. Ergo, it is easy to dump shifts on people if you don't mind eating wieners and beans for the next week. Which brings me to my point. While I actually enjoy eating wieners and beans, I still can't afford to loose shifts due to my high standard of living. Thus in order to make any money I consistently work Friday and Saturday nights,(the two "money" shifts). What this means however is I always, without fail, miss out on all the fun on said nights. While to me they are the "money" nights, to everyone else they are the "party" nights. After raking in my ill begotten tips, I find myself cabbing home, drinking whatever I managed to smuggle out of the resto by myself, and crying myself into a drunken stupor wondering what all the beautiful people are doing, or have done that night. Next time you're out having the time of your life remember me in my post work depression, call me, I just made a load of tips and don't mind buying the drinks.
