Years ago it was more friendlier, more sweeter. Now there"s like tension in the air. A tension in the store. The minute you walk in you feel it. Everybody is fightin" with each other. They"re pushin", pushin"-"I was first." Now it"s an effort to say, "h.e.l.lo, how are you?" It must be the way of people livin" today. Everything is so rush, rush, rush, and shovin". n.o.body"s goin" anywhere. I think they"re pushin" themselves right to a grave, some of these people.
A lot of traffic here. There"s b.u.mpin" into each other with shoppin" carts. Some of "em just do it intentionally. When I"m shoppin", they just jam you with the carts. That hits your ankle and you have a nice big bruise there. You know who does this the most? These old men that shop. These men. They"re terrible and just jam you. Sometimes I go over and tap them on the shoulder: "Now why did you do this?" They look at you and they just start laughin". It"s just hatred in them, they"re bitter. They hate themselves, maybe they don"t feel good that day. They gotta take their anger out on somethin", so they just jam you. It"s just ridiculous.
I know some of these people are lonesome. They have really n.o.body. They got one or two items in their cart and they"re just shoppin" for an hour, just dallying along, talkin" to other people. They tell them how they feel, what they did today. It"s just that they want to get it out, these old people. And the young ones are rushin" to a PTA meeting or somethin", and they just glance at these people and got no time for "em.
We have this little coffee nook and we serve free coffee. A lot of people come in for the coffee and just walk out. I have one old lady, she"s got no place to go. She sits in front of the window for hours. She"ll walk around the store, she"ll come back. I found out she"s all alone, this old lady. No family, no nothin". From my register I see the whole bit.
I wouldn"t know how to go in a factory. I"d be like in a prison. Like this, I can look outside, see what the weather is like. I want a little fresh air, I walk out the front door, take a few sniffs of air, and come back in. I"m here forty-five minutes early every morning. I"ve never been late except for that big snowstorm. I never thought of any other work.
I"m a couple of days away, I"m very lonesome for this place. When I"m on a vacation, I can"t wait to go, but two or three days away, I start to get fidgety. I can"t stand around and do nothin". I have to be busy at all times. I look forward to comin" to work. It"s a great feelin". I enjoy it somethin" terrible.
THOMAS RUSH.
We"re in a modern bungalow in a middle-cla.s.s black community. It is an area of one-family dwellings with front lawns well-trimmed and cars carefully parked. An air of well-being pervades in this autumn twilight.
He is a lead skycap for one of the major airlines-"supervisor of pa.s.senger service. I make out the work schedule, who"s going to work upstairs in the lobby, who"s going to work downstairs, who"s going to work the baggage claims area. I direct all the skycap traffic."
He"s been at it since 1946. "When I came home from the service I was gonna go in the police department. While waiting for the call, I applied for a job at the airport and got it. The following day I was called by the police academy. My mother didn"t want me to be a policeman. My wife didn"t want me to be a policeman. So I said, "What the heck, I"ll just stay here and see what happens." I"ve been here ever since." He is fifty-seven years old.
I"ve walked hundreds of miles on this job. I haven"t really had too much problem with my feet. But I do get tired, very tired. (Laughs.) I"m wearing a knee supporter. One day I went to the check-in counter with a pa.s.senger that had excess baggage. As I turned to walk away, my knee just snapped. I went around first aid and she bandaged it for me. It comes and goes.
When I first started you carried all baggage by hand. Later, when we worked for individual airlines, you got two-wheel carts. Some fellas can put as many as eighteen to twenty bags on a cart. I"ve done it many times, but I don"t do it any more. "Cause I"m a little old now. I don"t press myself.
The skycap came into being with the jet aircraft. We were called porters, redcaps. The man you meet now at the curb cannot be a dummy. He has to read tickets, he has to sell tickets. He has to get someone to take hotel reservations. You"d be surprised at the things people ask you to do.
We have to do a lot more than the general public thinks. They think of us as a strong back and a weak mind. They don"t realize that what we"re doing is the same thing they get when they walk to a counter. All the agent does is look at his ticket and check his bag. We have schedules in our pockets. I know if there"s a meal on the plane. I know if there"s c.o.c.ktails, movies, and so forth. No one has to tell me this. From memory I know most flights on my ships-where they go, what time they go, when they arrive.
We"re the first and the last people to meet the pa.s.sengers. We meet them when they get out of their cars or cabs and we meet them at baggage claim. Old people, especially, are anxious to talk to anybody that"s working for the airlines. They want to be rea.s.sured. I tell them silly little stories: "You"re not going to get the thrill you get on a roller coaster. There ain"t nothin" gonna happen. Just relax and enjoy it. When you come back, I want you to look me up."
I look at everybody at eye level. I neither look down nor up. The day of the shuffle is gone. I better not see any one of the fellas that works for me doing it. Not ever! You do not have to do anything but be courteous and perform your job. This is all that is necessary. That perpetual grin I just don"t dig. I have been told that I don"t smile, period. I said, "I don"t think it"s necessary." I smile when I have something to smile about. Otherwise I don"t. If I make the pa.s.senger happy, that"s all that"s necessary. I don"t have a problem with people. Maybe it"s the way I carry myself. I"m strictly business at work. People just don"t run over me.
I had a sailor one night who walked up to me and said, "Boy, where can a man get a drink?" I took him down to the end of the terminal, under the steps, and cracked him in the mouth. He was half-drunk and I didn"t try to hurt him. I said, "Now what were you telling me a few moments ago?" He said, "Can"t you take a joke?" I said, "Okay, boy, you can get a drink across the street." I just thought I"d teach him a lesson. I was much younger then. It was about twenty years ago.
The skycap makes a good living. If he didn"t, he wouldn"t stay. We have fellas here with all kinds of degrees. They make more money doing what they"re doing. It"s just that simple. Most fellas here are from forty-six years old and up. You can"t get this job and be a young man. There are no openings. There will be an opening when somebody retires or dies. I haven"t known anyone to quit and I"ve been here twenty-six years.
I wouldn"t have a job that didn"t make tips. But I would not be a cabdriver. I would not be a waiter. I never wanted to be a Pullman porter. These people here have a dignity all their lives.
Yet I think I"m grossly underpaid in salary, because of what we really do. There are fellas here that sell three or four thousand dollars worth of seats a week. They don"t come anywhere close to making the salary that agents make, that are doing absolutely nothing by way of selling. We have people at the ticket counters who make two hundred dollars a month more than the average skycap. I"d say the average skycap sells a thousand dollars a month more than this man.
There are many people that will leave at the spur of the moment. Salesmen, especially. There"s no reservation or anything. He just comes to the airport and wants to know what airline has what flight going as soon as possible to his destination. It"s up to you to sell him your line. I don"t think our value is recognized. At the quarterly meeting the company tells us how important we are, but they don"t say that on the UG-100s, when it comes to salary raises.
But we make it on tips. Every time I walk through that door I get money. And don"t you think these people know I"m making money? I think most agents have a little animosity towards skycaps because they feel we"re doing quite well. The ramp service man makes something more than five dollars an hour. He"s the guy who puts the baggage in the pressurized cabins, brings them into the claiming area, and puts them on the belt. I take "em and the man gives me four dollars. (Laughs.) He does all the work out in the cold and here comes Tom gettin" money. (Laughs.) Supervisors don"t bother us. If a supervisor comes to me and tells me he wants skycaps to do something and I say no, there isn"t anything he can say about it. Would I ever want to be a supervisor? Of course not. He doesn"t make as much money as I make. (Laughs.) We prefer not to have a union. We make more money than most people out there. We get more benefits than the guys on the ramp, and they have a union. They"re not dressed like we are, either. They wear dungarees and things. We don"t wear that c.r.a.p. We wear a uniform, we wear a suit. We"re the elite of the fleet. (Laughs.) POSTSCRIPT: "Every one of the fellas on my shift own their own home. All our wives are good friends. We go around each other"s homes occasionally. My wife is in the process of organizing the other wives into a stock buying club.
"The house next door is a skycap"s. Next door to him is a salesman. And next to him is a policeman, whose wife owns a beauty shop. This neighborhood has changed for the better. The house over there was always falling down and they never cut the gra.s.s. A white police lieutenant had it. He never painted it. Everything was peeling. Look at it now, all remodeled. Most people are surprised when they come out here. I wonder why. (Laughs.) Isn"t that house gorgeous? It looks five hundred times better than when the lieutenant had it."
GRACE CLEMENTS.
She is a sparrow of a woman in her mid-forties. She has eighteen grandchildren. "I got my family the easy way. I married my family." She has worked in factories for the past twenty-five years: "A punch press operator, oven unloader, sander, did riveting, stapling, light a.s.sembly . . ." She has been with one company for twenty-one years, ARMCO Corporation.
During the last four years, she has worked in the luggage division of one of the corporation"s subsidiaries. In the same factory are made snow-mobile parts, windshield defrosters, tilt caps, sewer tiles, and black paper speakers for radios and TV sets.
"We"re about twelve women that work in our area, one for each tank. We"re about one-third Puerto Rican and Mexican, maybe a quarter black, and the rest of us are white. We have women of all ages, from eighteen to sixty-six, married, single, with families, without families.
"We have to punch in before seven. We"re at our tank approximately one to two minutes before seven to take over from the girl who"s leaving. The tanks run twenty-four hours a day."
The tank I work at is six-foot deep, eight-foot square. In it is pulp, made of ground wood, ground gla.s.s, fibergla.s.s, a mixture of chemicals and water. It comes up through a copper screen felter as a form, shaped like the luggage you buy in the store.
In forty seconds you have to take the wet felt out of the felter, put the blanket on-a rubber sheeting-to draw out the excess moisture, wait two, three seconds, take the blanket off, pick the wet felt up, balance it on your shoulder-there is no way of holding it without it tearing all to pieces, it is wet and will collapse-reach over, get the hose, spray the inside of this copper screen to keep it from plugging, turn around, walk to the hot dry die behind you, take the hot piece off with your opposite hand, set it on the floor-this wet thing is still balanced on my shoulder-put the wet piece on the dry die, push this b.u.t.ton that lets the dry press down, inspect the piece we just took off, the hot piece, stack it, and count it-when you get a stack of ten, you push it over and start another stack of ten-then go back and put our blanket on the wet piece coming up from the tank . . . and start all over. Forty seconds. We also have to weigh every third piece in that time. It has to be within so many grams. We are constantly standing and moving. If you talk during working, you get a reprimand, because it is easy to make a reject if you"re talking.
A thirty-inch luggage weighs up to fifteen pounds wet. The hot piece weighs between three to four pounds. The big luggage you"ll maybe process only four hundred. On the smaller luggage, you"ll run maybe 800, sometimes 850 a day. All day long is the same thing over and over. That"s about ten steps every forty seconds about 800 times a day.
We work eight straight hours, with two ten-minute breaks and one twenty-minute break for lunch. If you want to use the washroom, you have to do that in that time. By the time you leave your tank, you go to the washroom, freshen up a bit, go into the recreation room, it makes it very difficult to finish a small lunch and be back in the tank in twenty minutes. So you don"t really have too much time for conversation. Many of our women take a half a sandwich or some of them don"t even take anything. I"m a big eater. I carry a lunch box, fruit, a half a sandwich, a little cup of cottage cheese or salad. I find it very difficult to complete my lunch in the length of time.
You cannot at any time leave the tank. The pieces in the die will burn while you"re gone. If you"re real, real, real sick and in urgent need, you do shut it off. You turn on the trouble light and wait for the tool man to come and take your place. But they"ll take you to a nurse and check it out.
The job I"m doing is easier than the punch presses I used to run. It"s still not as fast as the punch press, where you"re putting out anywhere to five hundred pieces an hour. Whereas here you can have a couple of seconds to rest in. I mean seconds. (Laughs.) You have about two seconds to wait while the blanket is on the felt drawing the moisture out. You can stand and relax those two seconds-three seconds at most. You wish you didn"t have to work in a factory. When it"s all you know what to do, that"s what you do.
I guess my scars are pretty well healed by now, because I"ve been off on medical leave for two, three months. Ordinarily I usually have two, three burn spots. It"s real hot, and if it touches you for a second, it"ll burn your arm. Most of the girls carry scars all the time.
We"ve had two or three serious accidents in the last year and a half. One happened about two weeks ago to a woman on the hydraulic lift. The cast-iron extension deteriorated with age and cracked and the die dropped. It broke her whole hand. She lost two fingers and had plastic surgery to cover the burn. The dry die runs anywhere from 385 degrees to 425.
We have wooden platforms where we can walk on. Some of the tanks have no-skid strips to keep you from slipping, "cause the floor gets wet. The hose we wash the felter with will sometimes have leaks and will spray back on you. Sometimes the tanks will overflow. You can slip and fall. And slipping on oil. The hydraulic presses leak every once in a while. We"ve had a number of accidents. I currently have a workman"s comp suit going. I came up under an electric switch box with my elbow and injured the bone and muscle where it fastens together. I couldn"t use it.
I have arthritis in the joints of some of my fingers. Your hands handling hot pieces perspire and you end up with rheumatism or arthritis in your fingers. Naturally in your shoulder, balancing that wet piece. You"ve got the heat, you"ve got the moisture because there"s steam coming out. You have the possibility of being burnt with steam when the hot die hits that wet felt. You"re just engulfed in a cloud of steam every forty seconds.
It"s very noisy. If the tool man comes to talk to you, the noise is great enough you have to almost shout to make yourself heard. There"s the hissing of the steam, there"s the compressed air, a lot of pressure-it"s gotta lift that fifteen pounds and break it loose from that copper screen. I"ve lost a certain percentage of my hearing already. I can"t hear the phone in the yard. The family can.
In the summertime, the temperature ranges anywhere from 100 to 150 degrees at our work station. I"ve taken thermometers and checked it out. You"ve got three open presses behind you. There"s nothing between you and that heat but an asbestos sheet. They"ve recently put in air conditioning in the recreation room. There"s been quite a little discussion between the union and the company on this. They carry the air conditioning too low for the people on the presses. Our temperature will be up to 140, and to go into an air-conditioned recreation room that might be set at 72-"cause the office force is happy and content with it-people on the presses almost faint when they go back. We really suffer.
I"m chairman of the grievance committee.45 We have quite a few grievances. Sometimes we don"t have the support we should have from our people. Sometimes the company is obstinate. For the most part, many of our grievances are won.
Where most people get off at three, I get off at two ". I have an hour to investigate grievances, to work on them, to write them up, to just in general check working conditions. I"m also the editor of the union paper. I do all my own work. I cut stencils, I write the articles, copy the pictures. I"m not a very good freehand artist (laughs), so I copy them. I usually do that in the union office before I go home and make supper. It takes about five hours to do a paper. Two nights.
(Laughs.) I daydream while I"m working. Your mind gets so it automatically picks out the flaws. I plan my paper and what I"m going to have for supper and what we"re gonna do for the weekend. My husband and I have a sixteen-foot boat. We spend a lot of weekends and evenings on the river. And I try to figure out how I"m gonna feed twenty, twenty-five people for dinner on Sat.u.r.day. And how to solve a grievance . . .
They can"t keep the men on the tanks. We"ve never been able to keep a man over a week. They say it"s too monotonous. I think women adjust to monotony better than men do. Because their minds are used to doing two things at once, where a man usually can do one thing at a time. A woman is used to listening to a child tell her something while she"s doing something else. She might be making a cake while the child is asking her a question. She can answer that child and continue to put that cake together. It"s the same way on the tanks. You get to be automatic in what you"re doing and your mind is doing something else.
I was one of the organizers here (laughs) when the union came in. I was as anti-union in the beginning as I am union now. Coming from a small farming community in Wisconsin, I didn"t know what a union was all about. I didn"t understand the labor movement at all. In school you"re shown the bad side of it.
Before the union came in, all I did was do my eight hours, collect my paycheck, and go home, did my housework, took care of my daughter, and went back to work. I had no outside interests. You just lived to live. Since I became active in the union, I"ve become active in politics, in the community, in legislative problems. I"ve been to Washington on one or two trips. I"ve been to Springfield. That has given me more of an incentive for life.
I see the others, I"m sad. They just come to work, do their work, go home, take care of their home, and come back to work. Their conversation is strictly about their family and meals. They live each day for itself and that"s about it.
"I tried to get my children to finish vocational school. One of the girls works for a vending machine company, serving hot lunches. She makes good. One of the daughters does waitress work. One of the girls has gone into factory work. One of the boys is in a factory. He would like to work up to maintenance. One girl married and doesn"t do any work at all. My husband is a custodian in a factory. He likes his work as a janitor. There"s no pushing him.
"This summer I"ve been quite ill and they"ve been fussin" about me. (Laughs.) Monday and Tuesday my two daughters and I made over sixty quarts of peaches, made six batches of jam. On Wednesday we made five batches of wild grape jelly. We like to try new recipes. I like to see something different on the table every night. I enjoy baking my own bread and coffee cake. I bake everything I carry in our lunch."
My whole att.i.tude on the job has changed since the union came in. Now I would like to be a union counselor or work for the OEO. I work with humans as grievance committee chairman. They come to you angry, they come to you hurt, they come to you puzzled. You have to make life easier for them.
I attended a conference of the Governor"s Commission on the Status of Women. Another lady went with me. We were both union officers. Most of the women there were either teachers or nurses or in a professional field. When they found out we were from labor, their att.i.tude was cold. You felt like a little piece of sc.u.m. They acted like they were very much better than we were, just because we worked in a factory. I felt that, without us, they"d be in a heck of a shape. (Laughs.) They wouldn"t have anything without us. How could we employ teachers if it wasn"t for the factory workers to manufacture the books? And briefcases, that"s luggage. (Laughs.) I can understand how the black and the Spanish-speaking people feel. Even as a farmer"s daughter, because we were just hard-working poor farmers, you were looked down upon by many people. Then to go into factory work, it"s the same thing. You"re looked down upon. You can even feel it in a store, if you"re in work clothes. The difference between being in work clothes going into a nice department store and going in your dress clothes. It is two entirely different feelings. People won"t treat you the same at all.
I hope I don"t work many more years. I"m tired. I"d like to stay home and keep house. We"re in hopes my husband would get himself a small hamburger place and a place near the lake where I can have a little garden and raise my flowers that I love to raise . . .
DOLORES DANTE.
She has been a waitress in the same restaurant for twenty-three years. Many of its patrons are credit card carriers on an expense account-conventioneers, politicians, labor leaders, agency people. Her hours are from 5:00 P.M. to 2:00 A.M. six days a week. She arrives earlier "to get things ready, the silverware, the b.u.t.ter. When people come in and ask for you, you would like to be in a position to handle them all, because that means more money for you.
"I became a waitress because I needed money fast and you don"t get it in an office. My husband and I broke up and he left me with debts and three children. My baby was six months. The fast buck, your tips. The first ten-dollar bill that I got as a tip, a Viking guy gave to me. He was a very robust, terrific atheist. Made very good conversation for us, "cause I am too.
"Everyone says all waitresses have broken homes. What they don"t realize is when people have broken homes they need to make money fast, and do this work. They don"t have broken homes because they"re waitresses."
I have to be a waitress. How else can I learn about people? How else does the world come to me? I can"t go to everyone. So they have to come to me. Everyone wants to eat, everyone has hunger. And I serve them. If they"ve had a bad day, I nurse them, cajole them. Maybe with coffee I give them a little philosophy. They have c.o.c.ktails, I give them political science.
I"ll say things that bug me. If they manufacture soap, I say what I think about pollution. If it"s automobiles, I say what I think about them. If I pour water I"ll say, "Would you like your quota of mercury today?" If I serve cream, I say, "Here is your susbt.i.tute. I think you"re drinking plastic." I just can"t keep quiet. I have an opinion on every single subject there is. In the beginning it was theology, and my bosses didn"t like it. Now I am a political and my bosses don"t like it. I speak sotto voce. But if I get heated, then I don"t give a d.a.m.n. I speak like an Italian speaks. I can"t be servile. I give service. There is a difference.
I"m called by my first name. I like my name. I hate to be called Miss. Even when I serve a lady, a strange woman, I will not say madam. I hate ma"am. I always say milady. In the American language there is no word to address a woman, to indicate whether she"s married or unmarried. So I say milady. And sometimes I playfully say to the man milord.
It would be very tiring if I had to say, "Would you like a c.o.c.ktail?" and say that over and over. So I come out different for my own enjoyment. I would say, "What"s exciting at the bar that I can offer?" I can"t say, "Do you want coffee?" Maybe I"ll say, "Are you in the mood for coffee?" Or, "The coffee sounds exciting." Just rephrase it enough to make it interesting for me. That would make them take an interest. It becomes theatrical and I feel like Mata Hari and it intoxicates me.
People imagine a waitress couldn"t possibly think or have any kind of aspiration other than to serve food. When somebody says to me, "You"re great, how come you"re just a waitress?" Just a waitress. I"d say, "Why, don"t you think you deserve to be served by me?" It"s implying that he"s not worthy, not that I"m not worthy. It makes me irate. I don"t feel lowly at all. I myself feel sure. I don"t want to change the job. I love it.
Tips? I feel like Carmen. It"s like a gypsy holding out a tambourine and they throw the coin. (Laughs.) If you like people, you"re not thinking of the tips. I never count my money at night. I always wait till morning. If I thought about my tips I"d be uptight. I never look at a tip. You pick it up fast. I would do my bookkeeping in the morning. It would be very dull for me to know I was making so much and no more. I do like challenge. And it isn"t demeaning, not for me.
There might be occasions when the customers might intend to make it demeaning-the man about town, the conventioneer. When the time comes to pay the check, he would do little things, "How much should I give you?" He might make an issue about it. I did say to one, "Don"t play G.o.d with me. Do what you want." Then it really didn"t matter whether I got a tip or not. I would spit it out, my resentment-that he dares make me feel I"m operating only for a tip.
He"d ask for his check. Maybe he"s going to sign it. He"d take a very long time and he"d make me stand there, "Let"s see now, what do you think I ought to give you?" He would not let go of that moment. And you knew it. You know he meant to demean you. He"s holding the change in his hand, or if he"d sign, he"d flourish the pen and wait. These are the times I really get angry. I"m not reticent. Something would come out. Then I really didn"t care. "G.o.dd.a.m.n, keep your money!"
There are conventioneers, who leave their lovely wives or their bad wives. They approach you and say, "Are there any hot spots?" "Where can I find girls?" It is, of course, first directed at you. I don"t mean that as a compliment, "cause all they"re looking for is females. They"re not looking for companionship or conversation. I am quite adept at understanding this. I think I"m interesting enough that someone may just want to talk to me. But I would philosophize that way. After all, what is left after you talk? The hours have gone by and I could be home resting or reading or studying guitar, which I do on occasion. I would say, "What are you going to offer me? Drinks?" And I"d point to the bar, "I have it all here." He"d look blank and then I"d say, "A man? If I need a man, wouldn"t you think I"d have one of my own? Must I wait for you?"
Life doesn"t frighten me any more. There are only two things that relegate us-the bathroom and the grave. Either I"m gonna have to go to the bathroom now or I"m gonna die now. I go to the bathroom.
And I don"t have a high opinion of bosses. The more popular you are, the more the boss holds it over your head. You"re bringing them business, but he knows you"re getting good tips and you won"t leave. You have to worry not to overplay it, because the boss becomes resentful and he uses this as a club over your head.
If you become too good a waitress, there"s jealousy. They don"t come in and say, "Where"s the boss?" They"ll ask for Dolores. It doesn"t make a hit. That makes it rough. Sometimes you say, Aw h.e.l.l, why am I trying so hard? I did get an ulcer. Maybe the things I kept to myself were twisting me.
It"s not the customers, never the customers. It"s injustice. My dad came from Italy and I think of his broken English-injoost. He hated injustice. If you hate injustice for the world, you hate more than anything injustice toward you. Loyalty is never appreciated, particularly if you"re the type who doesn"t like small talk and are not the type who makes reports on your fellow worker. The boss wants to find out what is going on surrept.i.tiously. In our society today you have informers everywhere. They"ve informed on cooks, on coworkers. "Oh, someone wasted this." They would say I"m talking to all the customers. "I saw her carry such-and-such out. See if she wrote that on her check." "The salad looked like it was a double salad." I don"t give anything away. I just give myself. Informers will manufacture things in order to make their job worthwhile. They"re not sure of themselves as workers. There"s always someone who wants your station, who would be pretender to the crown. In life there is always someone who wants somebody"s job.
I"d get intoxicated with giving service. People would ask for me and I didn"t have enough tables. Some of the girls are standing and don"t have customers. There is resentment. I feel self-conscious. I feel a sense of guilt. It cramps my style. I would like to say to the customer, "Go to so-and-so." But you can"t do that, because you feel a sense of loyalty. So you would rush, get to your customers quickly. Some don"t care to drink and still they wait for you. That"s a compliment.
There is plenty of tension. If the cook isn"t good, you fight to see that the customers get what you know they like. You have to use diplomacy with cooks, who are always dangerous. (Laughs.) They"re madmen. (Laughs.) You have to be their friend. They better like you. And your bartender better like you too, because he may do something to the drink. If your bartender doesn"t like you, your cook doesn"t like you, your boss doesn"t like you, the other girls don"t like you, you"re in trouble.
And there will be customers who are hypochondriacs, who feel they can"t eat, and I coax them. Then I hope I can get it just the right way from the cook. I may mix the salad myself, just the way they want it.
Maybe there"s a party of ten. Big shots, and they"d say, "Dolores, I have special clients, do your best tonight." You just hope you have the right cook behind the broiler. You really want to pleasure your guests. He"s selling something, he wants things right, too. You"re giving your all. How does the steak look? If you cut his steak, you look at it surrept.i.tiously. How"s it going?
Carrying dishes is a problem. We do have accidents. I spilled a tray once with steaks for seven on it. It was a big, gigantic T-bone, all sliced. But when that tray fell, I went with it, and never made a sound, dish and all (softly) never made a sound. It took about an hour and a half to cook that steak. How would I explain this thing? That steak was salvaged. (Laughs.) Some don"t care. When the plate is down you can hear the sound. I try not to have that sound. I want my hands to be right when I serve. I pick up a gla.s.s, I want it to be just right. I get to be almost Oriental in the serving. I like it to look nice all the way. To be a waitress, it"s an art. I feel like a ballerina, too. I have to go between those tables, between those chairs . . . Maybe that"s the reason I always stayed slim. It is a certain way I can go through a chair no one else can do. I do it with an air. If I drop a fork, there is a certain way I pick it up. I know they can see how delicately I do it. I"m on stage.
I tell everyone I"m a waitress and I"m proud. If a nurse gives service, I say, "You"re a professional." Whatever you do, be professional. I always compliment people.
I like to have my station looking nice. I like to see there"s enough ash trays when they"re having their coffee and cigarettes. I don"t like ash trays so loaded that people are not enjoying the moment. It offends me. I don"t do it because I think that"s gonna make a better tip. It offends me as a person.
People say, "No one does good work any more." I don"t believe it. You know who"s saying that? The man at the top, who says the people beneath him are not doing a good job. He"s the one who always said, "You"re nothing." The housewife who has all the money, she believed housework was demeaning, "cause she hired someone else to do it. If it weren"t so demeaning, why didn"t she do it? So anyone who did her housework was a person to be demeaned. The maid who did all the housework said, "Well h.e.l.l, if this is the way you feel about it, I won"t do your housework. You tell me I"m no good, I"m n.o.body. Well, maybe I"ll go out and be somebody." They"re only mad because they can"t find someone to do it now. The fault is not in the people who did the-quote -lowly work.
Just a waitress. At the end of the night I feel drained. I think a lot of waitresses become alcoholics because of that. In most cases, a waiter or a waitress doesn"t eat. They handle food, they don"t have time. You"ll pick at something in the kitchen, maybe a piece of bread. You"ll have a cracker, a little bit of soup. You go back and take a teaspoonful of something. Then maybe sit down afterwards and have a drink, maybe three, four, five. And bartenders, too, most of them are alcoholics. They"d go out in a group. There are after-hour places. You"ve got to go release your tension. So they go out before they go to bed. Some of them stay out all night.
It"s tiring, it"s nerve-racking. We don"t ever sit down. We"re on stage and the bosses are watching. If you get the wrong shoes and you get the wrong st.i.tch in that shoe, that does bother you. Your feet hurt, your body aches. If you come out in anger at things that were done to you, it would only make you feel cheapened. Really I"ve been keeping it to myself. But of late, I"m beginning to spew it out. It"s almost as though I sensed my body and soul had had quite enough.
It builds and builds and builds in your guts. Near crying. I can think about it . . . (She cries softly.) "Cause you"re tired. When the night is done, you"re tired. You"ve had so much, there"s so much going . . . You had to get it done. The dread that something wouldn"t be right, because you want to please. You hope everyone is satisfied. The night"s done, you"ve done your act. The curtains close.
The next morning is pleasant again. I take out my budget book, write down how much I made, what my bills are. I"m managing. I won"t give up this job as long as I"m able to do it. I feel out of contact if I just sit at home. At work they all consider me a kook. (Laughs.) That"s okay. No matter where I"d be, I would make a rough road for me. It"s just me, and I can"t keep still. It hurts, and what hurts has to come out.
POSTSCRIPT: "After sixteen years-that was seven years ago-I took a trip to Hawaii and the Caribbean for two weeks. Went with a lover. The kids saw it-they"re all married now. (Laughs.) One of my daughters said, "Act your age." I said,"Honey, if I were acting my age, I wouldn"t be walking. My bones would ache. You don"t want to hear about my arthritis. Aren"t you glad I"m happy?"
JUST A HOUSEWIFE.
Even if it is a woman making an apple
dumpling, or a man a stool,
If life goes into the pudding, good
is the pudding,
good is the stool.
Content is the woman with fresh life