The Tobacco Exchange Restaurant

I worked there as a cocktail waitress while I was in college. I got paid $2.01 an hour plus tips which were very good because I was fast and I worked my ass off. After the punters left at 2:00 a.m. the waitresses had to clean up, wrap silverware for the lunch shift the next day. By law we were supposed to be paid minimum wage after 2 because we couldn't earn tips to supplement our pay but we never did. In fact, at the end of the night we had to pay a percentage of our tips to the bartenders who made more money than we did and didn't have to clean up. They sat around drinking while we worked. I started work at 4:00 and usually got off at 3:00-3:30. I busted my ass for nearly 12 hours for $25 day after day after day. To add insult to injury we also had to chip in a few dollars each to give to JellyBean and Shirley to clean the kitchen and mop the floors. Lots of times I refused because I couldn't afford it. I was paying rent, tuition for classes I couldn't stay awake thru, and groceries for my alcoholic boyfriend, who, btw, was one of the bartenders.

The other bartender who worked the happy hour shift, damn, what was her name...doesn't matter....she worked to socialize and would never mix my drinks for me. I had to go behind the bar to mix my own and then serve them. That's how I learned how to mix. At the end of the shift she was always there with her hand out waiting for her cut. I stopped tipping her. She turned me in because I was too young to mix legally. Didn't matter. The boss didn't want to lose me because I sold ALOT of drinks and I actually checked ids. I was the first person in town to prosecute someone for drinking underage with a fake id. It was a very big deal since the town fought liquor-by-the-drink so hard.

What am I rambling on about? After I had been there for over a year and had seen a complete overhaul of the staff a couple times over the manager decided that the restaurant needed a supervisor for the cocktail staff. I was all over it. I was senior staff, the big money maker, and even worked parties at the boss's house. I could step in behind the bar and was always willing to come in at any time to work lunch, or serve dinner. So one night when the rest of the cocktail staff showed up, around 9ish, the manager called us together for a meeting. The bartenders and bouncers were there, too. (Oh yeah, Jane A. that was her name and her daddy was one of the rich folk in town).
Anyway, Rodney, the manager started talking about the new position and what it entailed and then said, "the new cocktail supervisor will be Berkley C. B. III. He doesn't know anything about the job but he'll learn." And Berkley, who often came to my apt to get drunk with my boyfriend, and got the cocktail waitresses to put long island ice teas in the walk-in freezer so he could drink on the job, looked right at me and smiled. His parents had the biggest, poshest house in town. He didn't need the job but he was friends with the manager and his parents were friends with the restaurant owner. He didn't know the job, didn't know the first thing about ABC laws, but he got the job. The staff congratulated him on getting the promotion and when I asked the manager, later, why Berkley got the job and I didn't, he told me 'if you don't like it you can leave.' I left.

It's funny how some things in life keep recurring over and over again. You bust your ass doing things to make it right, to make everybody happy, and you get shit on. And if you dare ask 'why?' you get told 'if you don't like it you can leave.' I'm tired of giving so much and then being treated like I'm nothing. I'm tired of people smiling to my face and then stabbing me in the back. I'm tired of pouring myself into something and then someone else taking the credit. I'm tired of being called a bitch because I'm not a lemming.

You know what's funny? People used to try and make me feel guilty for not contributing to JellyBean and Shirley because they were "mentally impaired" and were broke all the time. We did most of the cleanup for them anyway. After I left I heard that JellyBean and Shirley got busted for selling steaks and booze out the backdoor of the restaurant when they were supposed to be cleaning. I guess they were cleaning up, in a way. Funny, the new cocktail supervisor, who was also responsible for the liquor inventory, didn't notice the thefts and apparently they had been doing it for some time.