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I started working as a waitress when I was sixteen. I felt self-supportive and proud of my work and pay. Being a waitress opened my mind to many types of people including very low-income women, victims of abuse, and alcoholics.  Often I feel ashamed by some of the types of people that live in the area of my parents; but working with these women has kept me more accepting and open minded.  Being a waitress has instilled in me the value of very hard work.  Unfortunately, customers rarely appreciated this hard work, and my character was instantly judged as something inferior and under-educated because I was a waitress. 

As a waitress, I have experienced the view from the lower class perspective.  I worked with women who struggled to make ends meet, literally living from paycheck to paycheck. One woman I worked with worked seven days a week, working eight-hour days.  I was exhausted after working four eight-hour days over the summer, but this woman never had a day’s rest.  She felt she had to work seven days a week to pay for the rent of her apartment in which she hardly spent time. 

The summer after my freshman year of college though, many customers asked me about my future.  Customers asked me, “Are you in school, honey?” perhaps worried about my life, secretly wondering if I was a pregnant high school dropout.  My customers would automatically judge me as a member of the lower class, because I am a young female waitress. I was both shocked and offended when this would happen.  But I became so thankful that I was in college, because waitressing is something I could not do for the rest of my life.