It took me five and a half years at two different universities to finish my undergraduate degree – and it may not have happened at all if it hadn’t been for a really rude customer while I was a server.
When I graduated high school, I had every intention of following in my mother’s footsteps of becoming a teacher. I headed to Penn State as an education major and was ready to sail through the next four years to come out on the other side with my bachelor's degree. Given how well I did in high school and what a major nerd I was, this seemed like a reasonable expectation.
That’s not what happened.
During my freshman year, I made a hard tack and started working at the campus radio station – and within a few months, I had completely changed my mind about teaching. I fell madly in love with the world of communications and media and threw myself into it. Before Christmas, I had been recruited to work at a local radio station and once I found out that I could get paid to do this amazing new thing, it was game over. Very quickly, school was more of a distraction from what I really wanted to be doing instead of a path towards being able to do it.
Also, there was this tiny little distraction of being a budding alcoholic – and between being surrounded by 40,000 people my age that all seemed to like to drink just as much as I did and being given access to concerts, football games and live broadcasts, school became less and less of a priority every day.
By the middle of what should have been my senior year, it became apparent that I was not going to be able to balance school with all the other things in my life anymore. I was barely taking enough credits to be considered a full-time student at this point and life finally caught up with me to the point where it was better to withdraw than to continue.
My parents let me come home to live with them but were very clear that this was a temporary solution. They were obviously very disappointed and understandably worried about what my future would hold. They said I could stay for six months while I got my life sorted out and that other than letting me stay at the house, they wouldn’t be paying for anything additional for me going forward.
It didn’t seem like the end of the world to me – in fact, I was actually relieved. Now, I would be able to stop feeling guilty about not “living up to my potential” anymore. Honestly, the only things that made me sad in the situation were having to leave my friends and having to quit working at the radio station in State College.
In an attempt to get some quick money coming in, I got a job as a server at a golf-themed restaurant. The plan was that I would work there until I could get a radio job again.
As it turns out, I am not a good server. Like, not good at ALL. I was always forgetting something. I would spend too much time talking to one table and completely forget about another. I was happier talking to the other waitstaff or the cute, snarky cooks in the kitchen to remember to check on my tables or bring them the things they were asking for. I couldn’t carry more than two plates at a time. (I still think it’s a magic trick when I see servers carry huge trays of food or stack plates on their arms.)
On one particularly bad night, I had a table of golfers, fresh off the course, that were more demanding than the usual friendly locals that gave me grace despite my shortcomings. Their ringleader was giving me their orders and requests with total patronizing condescension. Every time, I got back to the table, he had something rude to say about the food, about the restaurant, about the town…and about me.
Because I was working for tips, I held my tongue. I was trying to be friendly and accommodating. All the other men at the table were nice, most even trying to be extra nice to make up for his attitude. Every time he complained, I would do my best to get him what he needed or fix the situation, but after at least a dozen interactions of the same kind, I finally couldn’t take it anymore. Through gritted teeth, I finally told him that I was doing the best I could and that he needed to ease off a little bit.
I’ll never forget his response. “Honey, it’s clear that you are doing the best you can, and that’s what so sad. You are just a waitress. The sad part is that this is all you’ll ever be: a really bad waitress.”
I turned on my heel and stormed away before I said anything I would regret, but my blood was boiling. I played his words over and over in my head for the rest of the night. I obsessively thought of all the comebacks I wanted to say to prove to him that he was wrong and commiserated with my coworkers about what a jerk he was. Every time I retold the story, my resentment towards him grew.
I didn’t sleep much that night, and in the morning, fueled by my resentment towards that very rude customer, I applied to Salisbury University, the college just 30 minutes up the road. I was going to show that guy that there was more to me than being “just a waitress”. I was going to finish my degree and prove that I was smart and capable. I was going to level the playing field between us and make him eat his words.
My resentment towards him kept me motivated during the registration process after I was accepted and kept me focused on the times when I was tempted to start letting off the gas during my studies. I got a great position at a radio station in town, and it would be easy to let that get in the way of staying on track – but I was on a mission now.
That resentment kept me going for the next 18 months, and in December of 1999, I walked across the stage to get my bachelor's degree in Interpersonal and Organizational Communications Management, just five and a half years from when I started my college journey.
Of course, I never saw that guy again and honestly, if he was standing in a two-person line up, I couldn’t pick him out. As it turns out, my resentment wasn’t really at him in the first place. My resentment was at myself for not achieving a goal that was important to me (and to my parents) when I had every capability to do it. His comments towards me were really what I was already feeling about myself – I just hadn’t said them out loud. I knew that I wasn’t “living up to my potential”. I had taken a major detour from my plan and convinced myself it was the path I wanted to be on, when in my heart of hearts, I knew it wasn’t.
In a way, I am grateful for that guy – I am not sure if I would have gone back to finish my degree if he hadn’t said what he did. If you know him, please tell him that the bad waitress turned out alright.
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