After three months of living in New York City, I had managed to net $3000 by temporarily donating my body to science. The donor application for selling my eggs sat in my bedroom, too complicated and taxing for me to yet complete. I was not yet so desperate for a flush of cash that I felt the need to research my grandparents’ mental and physical health histories, places of birth, and all corresponding dates. I don’t know if anyone in my family has ever suffered from Spinal Bifida, Clubfoot, Marfan Syndrome, Albinism, Mania, Canavan Disease, Hemolytic Anemia, Recurrent Miscarriage, Hemophilia, or Hemochromatosis, but I felt calling my mother to ask would raise suspicion.
“Hi, Mom. School’s fine. So, Aunt Sally is really pale. Would you categorize her as Albino? You had five children. Would you consider that crazy?”
A school project is always a great excuse, but usually family tree assignments occur in middle school Spanish. I picture myself walking into the fertility clinic carrying a Styrofoam board with pictures labeled: “Mi abuela y mi abuelo, no muerte.”
I scoured Craigslist for any job that promised fast money, no skill requirements, and no nudity.
Make hundreds of dollars a week saving the environment!!!
I went to an interview for Greenpeace. They were looking for people to stand on the street, asking strangers for money. I stuffed my plastic, one-time use water bottle in my bag and went on to give a passionate speech to my interviewee about my love for the earth.
“What sort of things have you done to help the environment?” he asked.
“I only run the air conditioner in my room with the windows open while I smoke.”
“What?”
“Just kidding.”
The little granola interviewing me went on to tell me that I would make a percentage off every person I got to donate to Greenpeace for a year. I had to get their credit card info and signature right there, on the street.
“You can make a lot of money, if you really work hard,” he told me.
“But…can’t you also make absolutely nothing?”
“We do have people that can make up to $600 in one week.”
“Isn’t winter coming up soon?”
“We give you guys jackets.”
I filled out a W-2, and agreed to start in the morning. When my alarm went off at 6am, I decided street canvassing in the wintertime was not for me. I’ll work for Greenpeace once global warming cuts the winter chill a little more up here.
After my Greenpeace flop and the fact that most medical experiments require time off during the week (impossible for me, as I was a full-time student), I relented, and went back to waiting tables. I got a job immediately at The Brooklyn Academy of Music’s new restaurant. The restaurant was a new concept, run by a catering company. They hired a team of waiters, bartenders, and food runners. Our first day of “training” consisted of us setting up the tables in the restaurant. I thought it was exciting to be part of an operation before they even opened. My oldest sister warned me about working for a place that wasn't yet established, but BAM had a guaranteed clientele and a promising menu. The idea behind the restaurant was that guests coming to see a ballet, opera, play, etc., would eat a pre-theatre dinner with us, and then saunter into the theatre. The menu items were designed to come out quickly, as the window of time to eat before the show was limited at best.
On opening night, we were all disappointed when things started out slowly, three or so tables with bodies seated in them. Then suddenly, everyone arrived. The entire restaurant was crashed by ballet-goers, all ready to eat. I immediately remembered why I hated waiting tables so much as I clamored to get food orders from all my tables. The whole place just reeked of chaos and disorder. I watched in slow motion as a plate of food would come out of the kitchen and towards the sea of hungry patrons, all impatiently waiting for their meal that was not to be. The clock continued to tick, confused patrons looked around for help as their food continued to not appear. The kitchen had completely crashed under the pressure. The small staff was just not prepared to handle the amount of food orders coming in, and we all watched helplessly, knowing the impossibility of a hundred dishes coming out of that kitchen in ten minutes.
The first bell for people to take their seats rang. One table got their food.
This must just be the waiter nightmare I used to have all the time.
I dreamed I would go to the bathroom and come back and a hundred people would be screaming at me for their food.
This is not real.
The second bell rang. People were looking around, unsure what to do. I started avoiding eye contact with anyone, keeping busy, aimlessly running around trying to look too busy to go near my section of tables. I knew it would be over soon one way or another; I just had to hide in plain sight until then. A table flagged me down to order coffee, blissfully unaware I was in hell.
The third, and final, bell rang. A few people started to get up and slowly, looking around worriedly, walked over to the theatre. We knew they had expensive tickets and were not going to miss the show for an overpriced sandwich. Then horror melted away, right before my eyes, as suddenly as it had begun. Tables of people, in various stages of dinner (some actually got their food), stood up, looked around, unsure of what to do. Just go, just go, just go. They went. Everyone just got up, food or not, and left. It was quite a sight actually, an entire restaurant walking out on the check. I was stunned, but so glad to see them go.
We all cleaned up in shock and silence, no one ready to discuss the epic fail that had just occurred. Then suddenly, my manager handed me fifty dollars.
“What’s this for?” I asked.
“Don’t you want to get paid something?” he replied.
“Oh, right. Yes.”
My manager paid everyone fifty dollars for working. Who knows how much money they lost that night. After we finished cleaning, we all sat down and discussed what “went wrong.”
Uhm…the food didn’t come out, and this is a restaurant?
We discussed changing the menu to even quicker items.
Maybe we should do it like the airlines, a bagged lunch with an apple and a turkey sandwich.
After the meeting I asked the manager if I could be a food runner instead of a server, not sure I would be able to live through another pre-theatre bomb. He denied my request and promised we would get it right the next night. I had no idea the opening night of a restaurant could go so badly that the basic objective of delivering food to hungry people could just not occur. I thought about all the hungry people now watching the ballet, just an hour before excited about the convenience of a meal steps away from their seats. Hopefully they got it right the next night. I don’t know. I never went back. I was willing to take a restaurant job, but that was not waiting tables. That was just another science experiment.
I decided, with the last of my medical experiment money, to go to bartending school. Bartending school, at five hundred dollars a week and with no job guarantee, is one of those scams that relies on naïve newcomers to the city, just like myself. Vaguely aware that no bar in New York will hire an inexperienced bartender, I decided to ignore the warnings and be the exception. Once I finish bartending school, every bar in New York will be knocking on my door. No more waiting tables, I will be a hot bartender. I will double-bra it, wear small tank tops, and sling out cocktails while shrugging off incessant advances from rich and beautiful men. I will make hundreds of dollars every night and New York City will be mine. At last.
After two weeks of intense bartending school, I was ready. I got a bartending license and went job hunting. I walked into a series of bars, just to be immediately turned away after being told the bartender Catch-22: no bartending experience, no bartending job. With no luck on my own, I decided to check out the jobs the bartending school had available for me. One gig looked promising, it was a bar called Scores, and they were looking for female bartenders. Scores. Sweet. Must be a sports bar. I can serve beer to a bunch of frat dudes watching football. This is definitely the job for me. The following day was the open-call. I put on my one and only business outfit that I purchased for the sole purpose of job interviews.
My mother always taught me to dress well for job interviews. “No jeans,” was her biggest rule. I put on my black dress pants, black top, blazer. I pulled my hair back, trying to look professional but capable of flinging out drinks while casually turning down all the phone numbers being flung at me. I printed out two copies of my resume and was on my way.
I am not sure at what point exactly I realized Scores was not a sports bar, as the name clearly implies, but a strip club. I knew something was awry when I was met by a bouncer and a door person in a first room, and then sent to a second room, no sign of a football game anywhere. I entered the second room and looked around. The room was littered with women who all looked like porn stars. I would like to say that I took a look at the sea of fake tanned, fake breasts hanging out of stringy tops, French manicured toenails sticking out of plastic platform heels, figured out it was a strip club, and walked out. But I felt trapped. I could feel their false eyelashes on me, trying not to laugh at my ridiculous outfit and lack of breasts. There was no going back now. Any other woman with some sense of self-respect would have walked out, but I sat down and tried to pull my breasts out of my business top. I was certain if I managed to get my top down low enough, that I could come up with some cleavage. I finished “fixing” my top and patiently waited/died on the inside, noticing all the women had pictures of themselves in bikinis instead of resumes. How was I the only one to not know?
I stayed for an interview, figuring it was even more embarrassing to leave without one. The manager was marginally polite to me, trying to not laugh as I tried to lean forward as best I could. I am fairly certain he had never seen a woman in pants before; maybe we both learned something that day. He glanced at my resume and asked me some basic questions about my schedule, then told me a new Scores was opening and maybe he would call me for a job there. I thanked him and left, well aware I would never hear from them again, not even to be the bathroom attendant.
I told my then-boyfriend Billy the story and he started laughing.
“You’ve never heard of Scores?” he asked.
“You have? You live in Alabama,” I replied, ever more confused.
“Scores is famous. It’s Howard Stern’s favorite strip club.”
“Well…they didn’t go over that in bartending school.”
Reeling from my loss at Scores, I walked through Times Square, desperate to find a job so I could have money for Christmas. Right in the heart of Times Square was a huge sign boasting: “Bubba Gump Shrimp Company Coming Soon!!! Now Hiring All Positions!!!” Not one to work at establishments named after fictional movie characters with speech impediments, I had my reservations about applying for a job at The Bubba Gump Shrimp Company, but I was desperate. Surely The Bubba Gump Shrimp Company will hire me as a bartender. I went in and waited in a series of long lines designed to slowly filter through the mass of people looking for work. I made it to a second interview based on my year of waitressing at The Cheesecake Factory. The manager who interviewed me told me he didn’t have any bartender jobs open but they were in need of a server with my level of experience.
“You can start as a server and then move up to bartender in no time!” He was basically begging. I succumbed, ignoring the voice in my head yelling at me to run.
The manager began to tell me about some of the “exciting” Bubba Gump concepts, including giving the customers Forrest Gump trivia as they ate.
“What was the name of Forrest’s boat?” he asked excitedly.
I thought he was giving me an example, and then realized he was actually quizzing me. I thought of the new phone I wanted, and gritted my teeth, attempting to force a smile.
“Uhm…It was named Jenny.”
“Yes! Ha! That’s right! See how fun that will be?”
I didn’t. Run, Catherine, run!!!
“Yea, it sounds like a blast.”
I was told to come in the next day for orientation, and left, trying to decide if it was better for my parents to think I was still unemployed rather than working at a Forrest Gump theme restaurant in Times Square.
The next day I returned to The Bubba Gump Shrimp Company for employee orientation. I didn’t admit to anyone where I was going. Maybe working at a strip club wouldn’t be so bad after all. The management shuffled all the new hires into a large room where we spent three hours being fed their exciting restaurant concept. Not only was there Forrest Gump trivia, but our very own Bubba Gump birthday song too. They asked for some volunteers to sing birthday songs from their former places of employment, and to my shock, a guy stood on his chair and belted one out. Everyone laughed and clapped excitedly. I rolled my eyes. Am I going to have to work with that guy? How can he be happy to be here? The managers went on to explain their thrilling concept of not having food runners or bussers for a busy restaurant in Times Square. I raised my hand.
“You guys aren’t going to have any bussers or runners for a restaurant in Times Square?” I asked, certain they were joking.
“That’s correct! Instead we’ll all help each other out,” one woman responded. She went on to explain that each table would come equipped with an interchangeable “Run Forrest/Stop Forrest” sign. If a table needs something, they will put up the “Stop Forrest” sign, and any staff member who walks by a “Stop Forrest” sign must stop and assist.
“It’s all about teamwork! We all run food, we all clean tables, we all help out!”
These were adults, saying this with straight faces. It was just weird. Then we played Simon Says. I won Simon Says, mostly because my lack of enthusiasm for playing the game made me respond slower to what Simon was saying, hence more time to register the command. They pulled me up on stage and gave me a keychain. I tried to act enthused. The orientation had everything but the Kool-Aid. The finale of orientation was the announcement that everyone would be off for Christmas, which was greeted by cheers. The manager leading orientation then turned it into a high school pep rally by yelling out,
“Who wants to work New Year’s Eve?!!?!”
The room erupted with loud cheers and to my surprise, I was the only one who didn’t raise my hand.
“You don’t want to work New Year’s Eve?” The man said, singling me out. “Right here, in the heart of Times Square?”
I couldn’t imagine anything more terrifying. Who wants to work…ever?
“I already have my ticket home for the holidays,” I lied.
At the end of orientation, as we were all shuffled to the next room to be fitted for our slip-resistant shoes, I was pulled aside by two women, managers I had not seen before, who had been watching the whole orientation from the balcony above. They asked me if we could go talk. I agreed, confused. The two women sat me down at a table and did that weird authoritative thing adults do when they look at you, concerned, and start nodding for no reason.
“So. What do you think of our concept?” one of them asked.
I know the answer to this question. “Oh…I think it’s great. Really, uhm, different…not something I’m used to, but I’m really excited to be a part of something so…unique. It seems like a lot of fun. The Forrest Gump trivia, love it!”
“Uh-huh,” the women said, staring at me with worried looks on their faces. “Well, we feel that your ideas and our ideas are different and that further on down the line…things just wouldn’t work out, that you wouldn’t enjoy being here.”
It took me a little longer than it should have to realize I was being fired. I had never been fired, much less fired at orientation. They didn’t even give me a chance to be the happy Paramount puppet they wanted their wait-staff to be on the job. I knew what I had to do and I was going to do it when needed; I just didn’t know that I was supposed to be an actress at orientation as well.
“We really feel we’re doing you a favor and that later on you would just not be happy here,” they continued.
No shit. Is this a joke? Is anyone supposed to be happy here? My ideas are different? Well, yes, I think you idiots should drop five dollars an hour for food runners. This is Times Square. I suddenly felt a surprising sting of rejection and even put up a little bit of a protest.
“I don’t understand. What did I do?” I asked.
The two women just stared at me and repeated the same two lines they had said originally.
“Is it something specific I said or did?” I begged.
“We just don’t think The Bubba Gump Shrimp Company is the right fit for you.” I loved how they made it a favor to me.
“But,” they said, “you will be paid for this orientation. Two and a half hours.”
“Three hours,” I said.
“Yes. Three hours.”
And that is how I became not good enough to play Forrest Gump with fried shrimp eating tourists.
I then went on an interview my father set up, to be a nanny for a rich woman who was set on adopting a Chinese baby. She was married to a doctor and the two had no children of their own. They had an enormous apartment overlooking Central Park, and a house in The Hamptons.
“I work too,” she told me. “I own a gallery.”
“Great. Will you need me to like…cook?” I asked, knowing full well I didn’t know the first thing about taking care of a baby, or cooking.
She went on to explain to me that I was to be the weekend nanny, and no cooking would be expected. They had a nanny during the week, and wanted one for the weekend, so that neither parents would ever have to actually be alone with the Chinese baby. It seemed like one of those things older rich women wanted instead of a new handbag.
“We spend most weekends in The Hamptons,” she told me. The woman went on to tell me she wanted to make sure her Chinese baby was smart, and they had been looking for the right one for a while, and had finally found her. I didn’t ask how one ensures a baby is smart, but I had heard enough. I could babysit here and there, but to take care of a baby in the presence of both parents made me too nervous. If I dropped the baby, I needed to be able to lie about it. I decided being a nanny wasn’t for me, and continued my job hunt.
I got a check a few weeks later for thirteen dollars, after taxes. I wasn’t too upset I couldn’t add The Bubba Gump Shrimp Company on my resume, but I was perturbed when I received a W-2 for my $13 check. At first I didn’t want to bother filing my Bubba Gump W-2, but then decided out of principal, I was going to get those taxed $2 back. If the government wants part of my orientation pay, they’re going to have to endure the Bubba Gump birthday song themselves.
So far in New York I had spent a semester at community college, sold my body to science, failed twice at waitressing, and dropped $500 for bartending school, the result of which earned me $13. My roommate did pay me $200 to write all her English papers. That’s the thing about New York: If you want to stay, you find a way. Forrest Gump certainly would agree.
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