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 attitude 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 attitude was cold. You felt like a little piece of scum. 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 butter. 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 cocktails, 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 susbtitute. 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 damn. 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 cocktail?” 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 God 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. “Goddamn, 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 hell, 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 surreptitiously. 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 surreptitiously. 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 glass, 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 hell, if this is the way you feel about it, I won’t do your housework. You tell me I’m no good, I’m nobody. 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.