A recent issue of the New Yorker featured some short essays by authors on their first jobs which made me think about mine.

I've had lots of little and temporary jobs, starting when I was a little kid. Ironing napkins for my mom, helping carry trays and wash dishes for older people throwing parties, catsitting and plant-watering for neighbors, and filing invoices for various companies with people who were nice enough to do my parents and me a solid and hire me for a summer.

But the job I consider my first "real" job was waitressing at the Tombs in Georgetown.

The Tombs was (and is) the main hang on campus, the only real place you could go for a beer or a good meal without going on a 15-minute walk downhill (which meant you had to go uphill to go home), and it's a nice restaurant to boot. Casual enough to get a quick grilled cheese or a pitcher of High Life but respectable enough to take your parents to when they were in town. I began working there after a half-year or so slinging coffee at Uncommon Grounds, the student-run coffee shop, where things were boring and I made little money. I realized I could get a lot more action if I actually started waitressing.

Training was pretty intense. I had to learn how to tie a real bow-tie (as part of our uniform--to this day I can still tie a bow tie but not a regular tie), carry a tray full of heavy glass beer mugs on one hand up in the air, uncork a bottle of wine without putting it down, master the computer system, dole out percentages of my pay to the backwaiters and busboys, and learn how to spot someone using another person's id (look at the ears.). My manager, Dan, was a kindly asshole who did things like blow frill-covered toothpicks at us from the kitchen while we worked or make me run, in uniform (bow tie, khakis, long white half-apron, loafers, long-sleeved button-down shirt) around the block because I failed one too many times to indicate the meal order in the computer, sending out a person's appetizer at the same time as their entree.

Working as a waitress, I learned practical skills and behind-the-scenes information. I learned how to multi-task or at least ask for help (nothing was as panic-inducing as those first few times in the weeds, when all your tables are full and they're all waiting for their first visit from you and you don't know what the hell to do). I learned how to smile when I didn't want to, like the time I watched a mom try to encourage her young daughter to make "smart choices" and order fruit instead of the french fries she really wanted. I learned how ketchup bottles stay full. I learned that the Shirley Temple is a pain-in-the-ass drink because it involves way more effort than it's worth, cost-wise, and that brunch was a lousy shift because, similarly, people ordered tons of beverages but few of them alcoholic, so it was more work but for less money. I learned why you really try never to break a glass in the vicinity of the ice chest (because then the whole thing needs to be drained and cleaned out). I even learned how to be a good customer, thanks to the crowd of 30 that still tipped me 20% despite the fact that the manager comped their entire meal when a backwaiter spilled red clam sauce all over a lady's white blouse moments before they were due to leave for graduation.

Parts of the job were a drag, for sure, like cleaning up afterwards, slicing what seemed like millions of lemons or rolling up endless sets of silverware in napkins. But I also loved little perks like trying the new foods before the shift so we could describe them to patrons, and the after-shift meal and beer. The breaks were the best part. When I sat outside in the courtyard with a styrofoam cup full of Diet Coke (we weren't allowed to have our own drinks in glasses, nor were we allowed to swipe uneaten food off customers' plates, not that I'd want to) they felt like the most well-deserved breaks ever. I also loved the wad of cash I'd get to carry home after a good night.

It was hard work but good hard work, and for months after the job I'd have stress nightmares that I was going to get a phone call from a manager demanding where I was. Steve and I have had arguments, both dependent on our own previous work experience, on what type of job we'd encourage our kid to have, retail or foodservice, and I of course say foodservice. I don't know if Steve feels as passionately about his short time working at Babbage's, though, to write about it.