When does the glamour start?
As you may all remember, I gave up the life of an IT geek last year and have started working for an event bar company. We provide the bars for many glamourous events like movie premieres, celeb parties, rich peoples’ birthdays, gallery shows…….you get the picture. Anyway, everyone I talk to about my job comments how cool it must be to go to these events and see all the famous people and eat all the great food created by amazing chefs and tell the stories you must have afterwards! And I would agree, how lucky am I get such an awesome job!!!
Well, I worked my first real event last night and I was so excited about it, I could hardly sleep the night before. When I say ‘real’, I mean that it is an event paid for by a private client that I had a clear role to fulfil (as opposed to last weekend when I was running up and down Tottenham Court Road for 4 hours buying all the things the client forgot to organise before the event!)
So I turned up all prepared with my brand new black shoes and black long sleeve collared shirt (as is the standard uniform for most events) and eagerly awaited the fun to start. And boy did it start – but not for me! Whilst I lugged 20kg glass platters with five finger-size waifs of potato around a pure white room, trying not to drop the platter on my, or anyone else’s, foot, the guests all guzzled Raspberry Mules and amazed over it’s sherbet-like characteristics. Whilst I scrubbed said platters for 10 mins to get all the blue-tack’s-evil-much-stickier-and-green goo off, the guests enjoyed X-Factor-like videos of their collegues. Whilst I dodged elbows to the ribs and kicks to the shins distributing ‘mini meals’ and trying to hide my rumbling stomach, the guests downed more cocktails and previously mentioned delicious mini meals.
But I have to admit that things did turn the corner a bit after that, I was stationed on the icecream dessert bar – so much more fun that previous tasks and in this position the tables were turned and the guests had to come to me – HAHA! So for about an hour I had my chance at the top of the food chain (literally) and then we got to eat the left over icecream and berries! Great deal 
But I’m left with the feeling that I was in the wrong role last night. I will give waitresses their due, it’s a bloody hard job at times and really not that glamourous and you are lucky if one guest says thank you at the end! And for my first waitressing attempt, I think I coped amazingly well and didn’t make any major faux pas. But I think I need to be in a management role next time, where you can taste all the food and drink, direct the staff in appropriate directions and not be left with dead arms and aching feet the next day!
So onward and upward to the Cartier Polo/Chinawhite event on the 27th of July when my role is listed as Staffing Management – can you feel the power??
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Jun
I did a fair bit of waitressing in my teens and I really enjoyed it, I learnt how to do things like carry 4 plates of food on one hand, carry loads of drinks without spilling a drop, change a table cloth without exposing the table, important things like that! I agree with you, it is hard work and can be torture on the arms and back, but you do get used to it, consider it a workout instead and challenge yourself, it can actually become enjoyable if you give it a chance. In saying that, I’d rather be making the drinks rhan carrying them these days though.
It could be worse, you could be cleaning the toilets after the guest get drunk, vomit, and get the runs from under cooked seafood!.