I lived with my mother, my first roommate, and then moved in with two others soon after because living in New York by yourself is a luxury, not an affordable option. I put up with people making rude comments, assuming I was just a wanna-be actress, assuming I didn’t go to college, all to make money. I gave up holidays with my family in order to work extra shifts and make the good tips. So I worked in a restaurant.Īll of this was afforded to me not in the first month I was working at a restaurant, but after I put in the hours, made the sacrifices and sucked up my pride in order to make ends meet and figure out what I wanted to do and how to do it. Reality had to take over and I accepted that. Sure, it’d be great to tell people I was working for Conde Nast or Vogue, but what wouldn’t be great would be the fact that I couldn’t afford to be slave labor, even if it helped my resume. And the positions I’d be offered would all be unpaid internships. Little did I know that in just about a month’s time, I would be looking for a job alongside thousands of men and women who had been in the industry for ten, fifteen, thirty years. I’d do that while looking for another job that was more my speed, something my mother could be proud of, something worthy of my English Language and Literature degree and my Chaucer reciting mind. It would be temporary, but it would be better than making nothing at all. After coming in for an interview several days later, I was offered a hostessing shift two days a week that paid fifteen an hour (which worked out to a weekly paycheck, after taxes, of $168.00). Listening to my problems, like most bartenders do, Mike walked away and came back with the General Manager of the restaurant.
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