Like a lot of people, I started waiting tables to get through college. Anyone who’s worked in a restaurant knows there are the lifers, who will be working in restaurants forever, and then the tourists, who are working their way through college and will quit the instant they get a 9 to 5.
I was definitely a tourist, but also fascinated by the lifers. They lived in their own world where none of the same rules seemed to apply.
I was working New Year’s Eve. I was kind of bummed about missing the parties and such, but I was assured that I would make a shit ton of money and have the best NYE of my life.
We closed at ten. It had already been a busy night, but half the tables were still full. The last entrees went out about half an hour later. Nobody was leaving. They just kept ordering drinks, running up their bills. Apparently, this was normal. They would stay, ring in the New Year, tip obscenely, and stumble off into the night. This meant good money, but it also meant I wasn’t going to get to my friends’ party before midnight.