A Comparison of the Attitudes of a Career Waitperson and a Waitperson Who Has Different Aspirations Essay

Waitressing is a difficult job that is the number one profession of non-college educated females in this country. Servers make 2.13 an hour in most areas of the country. Federal labor laws allow this low wage because tipping is customary in the United States. One benefit of waiting tables is the quick cash. Servers walk out of their shift with most of the money they have earned, but, at most restaurants, severs are required to "tip out", or share a percentage of their tips with the bartender, busser, hostess or other members of the staff. After reading the interview of the waitress, Delores Dante, in Working, by Studs Terkel, I thought it would be interesting to compare and contrast the attitudes of a career waitperson and those of a waitperson who has different aspirations and plans for the future. I interviewed my good friend Maureen Walsh who has been a server at various local restaurants for seven years. She is also a full-time college student, and will earn her Bachelor's Degree in Elementary Education this December.Delores Dante has been waiting tables in the same restaurant for twenty-three years (Terkel 279). After her marriage broke up, she started waiting tables because she needed fast money and didn't want to work an office job (Terkel 294). She feels that she learns a lot about people in her line of work, and enjoys talking to her customers. She invents ways to keep her job interesting, and likes to converse with her customers about a great number of topics. Dante says that giving service and being servile are two different things (Terkel 294).Delores Dante takes pride in her work, and aims to please all of her customers. She says that she does certain things to make her customers' experience more enjoyable, like emptying ashtrays, so that her station looks nice, not in order to increase her tips (Terkel 297). She also never looks at her tips as she is...

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