Things I learnt from… being a waitress, part 1

When I worked away from home and I first started having to eat out in restaurants alone I was mortified – I thought everyone was looking at me thinking I’d been stood up on a date or something. Now I realise that eating out alone can be a real indulgence – some of the most interesting people I spoke to as a waitress were eating alone, and couldn’t have cared less.

Oh my goodness, have you all read How to Win Friends and Influence People? I read it last year and loved it, I bought it for my husband this christmas but he is refusing to acknowledge it’s existence. Carnegie was so right, people LOVE talking about themselves, and now I notice other people doing it I realise how guilty I am of doing this myself. Now I am conscious of it I really try to take back seat in these conversations but sometimes the temptation to interject and say “Oh, yeah I did that too” and launch into a huge long anecdote is overwhelming.

Yup, it’s true. I used to be one of those people – I would always compete with other peoples grumbles until I barely said anything positive. Now I am so much more positive and hypersensitive to negativity. Waitressing is a job where you will come up against this a lot, and there’s a tendency for people to assume if someone rude complains they just want something for free, but you could give away meal after meal before you realise that some people are only happy when they get to be sad.