Wednesday – Go-Go Read a Book
Oct. 20th, 2010 10:06 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
ninanevermore.
.
.
Different jobs have different indignities that come with them, and some are worse than others. I dropped by my local used bookstore on Saturday and got to speaking with Judy, the owner’s mother who works the counter on the weekends, while my son browsed in the children's section. He is only just beginning to learn to read, but his books have pictures, so he can tell what he will find interesting.
Judy had mentioned before that she had only gotten into reading since working in the bookstore, but the bug has bitten her bad in the last year and she is now happy to make recommendations and discuss books with the clientele. On Saturday she told me what she did before her current job.
“I waited tables for 40 years,” she told me. She told me about the steakhouse she worked in as a young woman, where she wore a short skirt and a blouse with a plunging neckline. A push-up bra was part of the required uniform in this place, to accentuate what the plunging neckline was showing off.
I waited tables back in college, so we swapped horror stories for awhile. Since Judy did it longer, her stories were better. When I waited tables, I wore black trousers and a white oxford shirt that did not invite wandering hands the way Judy’s outfit did.
“I was serving one table, and while I was bending over to put down the drinks this guy’s hand started moving all the way up my thigh,” she said. “I guess I was about 28 then, and this was a college kid, about 21 years old. I looked down at him and said, ‘I sure hope you’re having a good time,’”
“What did he say?” I asked.
“He just grinned up at me. He was pretty drunk. But his hand stopped moving, and that’s what I wanted. If it hadn’t, he’d’ve been pulling back a bloody stump.”
She told me about another waitress in the same restaurant who was serving a large table full of lawyers that had been there drinking for the evening. Every time this waitress bent over the table, one of the lawyers (three sheets to the wind) dived toward her and stuck his face in her cleavage. It finally got on her last nerve.
“She was a cute gal, cute as could be. And she was putting herself through college to be a lawyer herself, by the way. She finally got so exasperated that she said, ‘Look! If you can stay away from me long enough for me to put these drinks down and do my job, when you leave I will give you the part of this I leave here in my locker each night before you go!’ Meaning her pushup bra. None of us wore those outfits coming in; we all wore our regular clothes and changed in the locker room. He laughed, but it embarrassed him enough that he left her alone after that.”
We discussed the mindset of the men who thought that a woman serving them drinks in a skimpy outfit is somehow an open invitation to grope. I told her about a friend of mine who briefly worked for a Hooters restaurant in Austin, where she wore short-shorts and a tight tank top. She was fired when she tightly and painfully grabbed hold of a patron’s crotch after he groped her behind and asked, “Well, how do you like that $#!&??? Now you know how I feel.” The Hooters management felt that she handled this unprofessionally. I, myself, thought she handled it quickly and efficiently, which is what you want in an employee. This is why I do not manage a Hooters, I guess.
“I tell you, people did horrible things to me in some of those places. Horrible! Copping feels was the least of it. I was working as a go-go dancer in one place. We would get up and dance, and then come down and serve drinks. My outfit there was really short.” She held her hand up to the top of her thigh. “And it had fringe on it. I was bent over a table to take a drink order when this guy behind me held up a lighter, acting like he was going to set my fringe on fire. Good thing for me, my baby sister was there with her husband that night, and they saw what he was doing. My brother-in-law came across the room, grabbed the guy by his neck, and took him outside. I tell you what, if he had done what he was acting like he was going to do, that whole dress would have gone up in flames.” She shuddered, and I felt my eyes grow wide with alarm at the story she had told me.
No wonder she likes the quite of the bookstore and it’s quite, bookish patrons. She is in her 60s now, and her go-go dancer days are long behind her. Instead of serving drinks to people who want to lose themselves in a haze of alcohol, she now recommends novels to people who want to find somewhere to get away to in their spare time. Her boss is her son, and he is not going to be rude or mean to her (at least, if he knows what is good for him). When she is not working, she gets to enjoy her grandchildren.
The only thing she had to wear these days that she finds demeaning and objectionable are her bifocals. “I never did like anything resting on the bridge of my nose, but I can't wear contacts, so if I want to see I have to wear these. I don't think I ever will get used to them, though. They still bother me.”
At least if anyone ever gets a mind to set them on fire, she will see him coming and can punch him in the nose.
* ~ * ~ * ~ * ~ * ~ * ~ * # * ~ * ~ * ~ * ~ * ~ * ~ *
.
.
Different jobs have different indignities that come with them, and some are worse than others. I dropped by my local used bookstore on Saturday and got to speaking with Judy, the owner’s mother who works the counter on the weekends, while my son browsed in the children's section. He is only just beginning to learn to read, but his books have pictures, so he can tell what he will find interesting.
Judy had mentioned before that she had only gotten into reading since working in the bookstore, but the bug has bitten her bad in the last year and she is now happy to make recommendations and discuss books with the clientele. On Saturday she told me what she did before her current job.
“I waited tables for 40 years,” she told me. She told me about the steakhouse she worked in as a young woman, where she wore a short skirt and a blouse with a plunging neckline. A push-up bra was part of the required uniform in this place, to accentuate what the plunging neckline was showing off.
I waited tables back in college, so we swapped horror stories for awhile. Since Judy did it longer, her stories were better. When I waited tables, I wore black trousers and a white oxford shirt that did not invite wandering hands the way Judy’s outfit did.
“I was serving one table, and while I was bending over to put down the drinks this guy’s hand started moving all the way up my thigh,” she said. “I guess I was about 28 then, and this was a college kid, about 21 years old. I looked down at him and said, ‘I sure hope you’re having a good time,’”
“What did he say?” I asked.
“He just grinned up at me. He was pretty drunk. But his hand stopped moving, and that’s what I wanted. If it hadn’t, he’d’ve been pulling back a bloody stump.”
She told me about another waitress in the same restaurant who was serving a large table full of lawyers that had been there drinking for the evening. Every time this waitress bent over the table, one of the lawyers (three sheets to the wind) dived toward her and stuck his face in her cleavage. It finally got on her last nerve.
“She was a cute gal, cute as could be. And she was putting herself through college to be a lawyer herself, by the way. She finally got so exasperated that she said, ‘Look! If you can stay away from me long enough for me to put these drinks down and do my job, when you leave I will give you the part of this I leave here in my locker each night before you go!’ Meaning her pushup bra. None of us wore those outfits coming in; we all wore our regular clothes and changed in the locker room. He laughed, but it embarrassed him enough that he left her alone after that.”
We discussed the mindset of the men who thought that a woman serving them drinks in a skimpy outfit is somehow an open invitation to grope. I told her about a friend of mine who briefly worked for a Hooters restaurant in Austin, where she wore short-shorts and a tight tank top. She was fired when she tightly and painfully grabbed hold of a patron’s crotch after he groped her behind and asked, “Well, how do you like that $#!&??? Now you know how I feel.” The Hooters management felt that she handled this unprofessionally. I, myself, thought she handled it quickly and efficiently, which is what you want in an employee. This is why I do not manage a Hooters, I guess.
“I tell you, people did horrible things to me in some of those places. Horrible! Copping feels was the least of it. I was working as a go-go dancer in one place. We would get up and dance, and then come down and serve drinks. My outfit there was really short.” She held her hand up to the top of her thigh. “And it had fringe on it. I was bent over a table to take a drink order when this guy behind me held up a lighter, acting like he was going to set my fringe on fire. Good thing for me, my baby sister was there with her husband that night, and they saw what he was doing. My brother-in-law came across the room, grabbed the guy by his neck, and took him outside. I tell you what, if he had done what he was acting like he was going to do, that whole dress would have gone up in flames.” She shuddered, and I felt my eyes grow wide with alarm at the story she had told me.
No wonder she likes the quite of the bookstore and it’s quite, bookish patrons. She is in her 60s now, and her go-go dancer days are long behind her. Instead of serving drinks to people who want to lose themselves in a haze of alcohol, she now recommends novels to people who want to find somewhere to get away to in their spare time. Her boss is her son, and he is not going to be rude or mean to her (at least, if he knows what is good for him). When she is not working, she gets to enjoy her grandchildren.
The only thing she had to wear these days that she finds demeaning and objectionable are her bifocals. “I never did like anything resting on the bridge of my nose, but I can't wear contacts, so if I want to see I have to wear these. I don't think I ever will get used to them, though. They still bother me.”
At least if anyone ever gets a mind to set them on fire, she will see him coming and can punch him in the nose.
