The National Restaurant Association's Training Scheme Is Unconstitutional

[littlemissmartypants]

24. I loved being a waitress. I could quickly establish rapport, always remembered my customer's

special requests, how they liked their steak, took their coffee and anything that I could do to maximize their happiness and my tip.

I learned how to balance four platters of pasta on one arm, quickly winding my way around every dining room obstacle imaginable while carrying a loaded tray in the air with my opposite hand.

I love helping others and being a waitress provides a multitude of opportunities for that.

This article does chronicle a abuse that is no doubt unethical, underhanded and financially abusive. Plus, I'm certainly glad it's being addressed. Unfortunately, there's another pervasive injustice people in food service experience, especially women.

It's the invasion of one's personal space in the form of slapping and pinching which is actually assault. This is one thing I wish the PTB would be as interested in curtailing but may never take seriously. I believe that's because it primarily affects women.

I'll never understand what makes strangers, primarily men but sometimes even women, think that one can pinch or slap a woman on her bum and insist that it's socially acceptable.

One day, again inappropriately touched, assaulted by a customer, I was finally pushed over the edge.

My boss thought it was funny, didn't think of it as wrong and refused to stand up for me. He didn't want to alienate his customers. In fact, he suggested that I lighten up and advised me me that if I wanted to keep my job, I wouldn't be so difficult. There was even a suggestion that my tips would be better if I just accepted that it was part of the job.

But I'd had enough. I was being disrespected and getting no support so I took matters into my own hands.

Because sometimes revenge isn't a dish best served cold, I accidentally, on purpose, spilled a nice steaming bowl of soup into the man's lap.

I didn't get fired because I gathered my things and walked out. Funny thing is I found a twenty dollar bill on the rug just before I went out the door. I took that as a sign that I was doing the right thing and that things would get better. Financially they did. But I have continued to be sexually harassed my entire adult life and I am positive that I'm not alone.

Although it isn't waitress related, one of the most disgusting instances happened between the gas pumps at a Hess station. I was walking to the door to get my refund from my cash prepay when the guy who had been pumping gas at the next row of pumps right across and behind me stepped toward me.

As I started to pass by he took his erect penis out of his pants and like a proud kindergartener said "Look what you did to me and all you did was stand there." I don't know what he was expecting. Applause? For me to say "atta boy?" To have me thank him for the compliment?

As disgusted as I was, I walked by unphased. He however, was proud and unrepentant. He was just one more jerk in the never-ending parade of harrassers. What he did was illegal and it wasn't my first rodeo.

Another man had exposed himself to me at work. The guy was arrested because a police officer just happened to witness it and we ended up in court. So this guy at the gas station didn't even register as a blip on my radar.

Like every woman who has ever lived, I am just another (female)
second class citizen. As we’re not recognized by law as having bodily autonomy, we will never be free of harassment as long as entitled jerks live and women work as waitresses or in any other field.

We're waiting, too. When can we expect some justice, I wonder?