Making a living out of the creative industry is so hard. It seems all the waitresses at my work are stuck there because we can't get work, or enough of it to support ourselves in our chosen field. We have had artists, photographers, fashion students, archetects, an ex-model and even a stage set-designer. When someone makes it out they are finally living the dream!! - set free!! Our photographer finally found work and is escaping soon - she won't ever have to read out specials again!! She found the following article in Playboy 1991 of all places...it's on our wall at work - although, a few words have been substituted because I tried to photocopy it through the fax and it didn't print properly.
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The Genius Waitress


Of the genius waitress, I now sing.

Of hidden knowledge, buried ambition, and secret sonnets scribbled on cocktail napkins; of aching arches, ranting cooks, condescending patrons, and eyes diverted from ancient Greece to an ancient grease; of burns and pinches and savvy and spunk; of a uniquely Australian woan living a uniquely Australian compromise, I sing. I sing of the genius waitress.

Okay, okay, she's probably not really a genius. But she is well-educated. She ahs a degree in Sanskrit, ethnoastronomy, Icelandic musicology, or something equally valued in the contemporary marketplace. Even if she could find work in her chosen field, it wouldn't pay beans so she serves them instead. (The genius waitress is not to be confused with the aspiring-actress waitress, so prevalent in Manhatten and Los Angeles and so different from her sister in temperament and I.Q.)

As a type, the genius watiress is sweet and sassy, funny and smart; young, underestimated, fatalistic, weary, cheery (not happy, cheerful: there's a difference and she understands it), a tad bohemian, often borderline alcoholic, frequently pretty (though her hair reeks fo kitchen and bar); as independent as a cave bear (though ever hopeful of "true love") and above all genuine.

Covertly sentimental, she fusses over toddlers and old folks yet only fear of unemployment prevents her from handing an obnoxius customer his testicles with his bill.

She doesn't mind a little good-natured flirting, and if you flirt with verve and wit, whe may flirt back. Never, however, never try to impress her with your resume. Her tolerance for obnoxious yuppies ends with her shift, sometimes earlier. She reads men like a menu and always knows when she's being offered leftovers or an artificially inflated souffle.

Should you be ever be lucky enough to be taken home by her to that studio appartment with the jerry-built bookshelves and Frida Kahlo posters, you will discover that whereas in the public dining room she is merely as proficient as she needs to be, in the private bedroom she is a blue gourmet virtuoso. Five starts and counting! Afterward, you can discuss chaos theory or the triple aspects of the mother goddess in universal art forms - while you massage her swollen feet.

Eventually, she leaves food service for graduate school or marriage, but unless she wins a grant or a fair divorce settlement, chances are she'll be back, a few years down the line, reciting the daily specials with ehr own special mixture of warmth and ennui.

Erudite emissary of eggs over easy, articlulate angel of apple pie, the genius waitress is on duty right now in hundreds of restaurants, smile at the ready, sauce on the side. So brush up on your Schopenhauer, place your order - and tip, mister, tip. She deserves a break today.

Of her, I sing.