The benches of Parisian preparatory classes

Sixty days in the shoes of a ... waitress.

Three years on the benches of Parisian preparatory classes, a smooth course, too smooth to know "the real life", as they say. At 20 years old and dust, poorly formulated projects, and already tired by the excessive ambitions that would like to see me wear, I suddenly hurt eyes and legs. It's teeming. I still have traces of the chairs on which I spent years, that of the library, that of my office, that of my class and that of the canteen. My license in hand, it would be necessary to continue in master, then doctorate, then this, then that, incubated by an administration proper to make of us, young academics, good officials. The preparatory class brought me all that I had hoped for from my high school years, a solid general culture, a certain rigor, and a keen sense of organization; and yet, now that these years of "Educational Assistantship" are over, I am a little lost, and I aspire to something else, at least during the summer. Meet people, earn a little money (rhyme dear to our dear president), by myself, without finishing the day with hands full of blue ink. A few ads on the internet later, it is a restaurant site that responds with an "automatic mail": "Mr. XXXX is interested in your application, please contact him at XXXXXX". Waitress, me? Why not. without finishing the day, hands full of blue ink. A few ads on the internet later, it is a restaurant site that responds with an "automatic mail": "Mr. XXXX is interested in your application, please contact him at XXXXXX". Waitress, me? Why not. without finishing the day, hands full of blue ink. A few ads on the internet later, it is a restaurant site that responds with an "automatic mail": "Mr. XXXX is interested in your application, please contact him at XXXXXX". Waitress, me? Why not.

I called in a brewery of the 8 th district Sunday afternoon, to the surprise of my friends ( "what? An interview Sunday?"). The interview is going well, very well even:

"- Do you have experience in the business?

-No.

-You know how to make a coffee?

-No.

-And beers?

-No more.

-Very well, I take you. "

Relentless logic. In fact, I get an accelerated training in 10 minutes: I realize my first beer, with more foam than drink, I tremble in front of the coffee machine, but I finally get there, pretty much. The boss, very understanding, explains to me that he himself learned everything "on the job", and that it is by doing that that I will learn. He gives me his confidence, which will be my only but precious piece of knowledge in this experiment, and informs me that I will begin the following Monday. Of course I know that I have little merit, except to have seemed motivated, serious and voluntary, and that I was especially lucky, but I still feel a ounce of pride: "Dear dad, dear mom, I too can find work. "

The first reactions to the announcement of my summer project were varied but were divided roughly into two categories: admirers and skeptics. The first, like my parents, encouraged me, while drenching me with striking remarks: "You'll see, it's hard. The latter could not hide their surprise, even their scorn: "Waitress? Are you serious ? With what's in your head? no, but there's no shame in having ... it's just that ... well, you're not going to do that for too long, huh? " Two months. Just two months. Two months ago I worked for six hours on the French composition of the competition of the Ecole Normale Supérieure, in two months I will be enriched by another experience, which I receive as a gift,

First day: The Lion's Hole.

The boss had warned me, but I did not expect the male clientele to be so important. I now understand better why I had this job: as a woman, positive discrimination certainly played her role. I will work 39 hours a week, for a comfortable salary when you are a student and have the financial support of his parents, but maybe a little fair for a single woman, living in Paris, and who would have children in Paris. his load. Fortunately, the tips are a significant resource: it is therefore to be pleasant and smiling, and this in the morning.

My alarm clock rings at 5:30, and I decided to take the bus at the time when Paris is still birds. Some people just returned from their night's work, while the hairdressers are the "women" of housekeeping. We meet the people who pick up trash cans, and the trendy girls, who have gone out all night, who are going home with their tired faces. And then there is "she", ie "me" in Alaindelonien language. She arrives at 6:45 at the brewery, everything is still closed, and she does the 100 steps in front of the front, looking pensive. A man joins her. His name is Marcel: "So how do you do the pavement in the morning before your service? Atmosphere. Marcel is the hotel's confirmed waiter, a professional "laughter" who makes the world's fatest counter jokes.

From the opening of the brewery I realized that being a waitress was not going to be as poetic as I could imagine. American films provide us with romantic caricatures, contributing to the creation of idiotic fantasies in which many men and women dive, I the first: the Cinderella syndrome. Jennifer Lopez as a waitress, or Julia Robert as a prostitute, it is true that the idea is attractive to the cinema ... especially when a rich businessman is involved in the story, and that the "love story" is waiting for you.

However, the reality is quite different: at the opening, I did not cross either rich heir, or prince charming. At this hour, the counter is for taxi drivers and night workers; the baker drops us bread and croissants, the deliverymen come to warm themselves over a coffee. There are people, I'm alone and a little overwhelmed, my actions are slow and uninsured, but most clients are understanding. The boss explains everything, patiently. Even if Brad Pitt entered, I would not recognize him anyway: I am focused and applied for each of my movements, in order to gain dexterity. I'm also learning to add and subtract my head, and I'm working on my memory like never before. I have just started and I have to serve on the terrace, in the dining room and at the counter: yes,

Around 9am, customers change their faces: men in suits are on the terrace before going to work, some women take their breakfast in the dining room. Orders are becoming more complex:

"- An elongated coffee, please.

• I already have trouble making one up, so ... ».

I'm asked for sandwiches, I do not know where the butter is, a creamy coffee, I do not know where the milk is, so I'm looking for, but I feel that we are impatient.

I try to stay smiling, but deep down I want to cry. I'm asked for a cappuccino: is it a joke?

That morning, I did not play Cinderella at the big brewery theater, but Sleeping Beauty: I woke up from a deep sleep of 20 years, with the strange feeling of never having seen daylight. Little by little I learned to look up and look people in the eye, I opened my mouth to exchange a few words with them, and I realized that despite the difficulties of the job I was going to flourish as a young woman, and finally leave the gentle rocking of childhood.

At lunchtime a second waitress arrives, Morgane, a young actress of twenty, who is used to working in the restaurant business. We are told that we will both be responsible for training 80 people and serving lunch. I'll finish at 3pm, since I started at 7am, and it will finish at 8pm since it started at 11am. Marcel, meanwhile, takes care of customers who prefer to sit at the counter, while the boss is at the tobacconist. Everything is very well organized, and I finish my work day with a smile on my face, proud to finally have pain in my feet and legs. Standing 10 hours in a row made me realize the privilege of my years of study: I ​​did not think that this work would be as physical and as exhausting.

Tomorrow I work all the afternoon, and until 20 hours: hardly have I learned to make coffees that I will have to learn to make cocktails, and to serve beers or other fresh drinks . I try to reassure myself by remembering that the morning went pretty well despite my fears and that the customers were kind to me. But Morgane warns me, laughing: "In the morning you have lions, those who are sweet as lambs ... but in the evening the lions are never far away ... do not go behind the counter, even for a big tip! ".

Second day: Because "It is polite to be gay".

I dreamed all night that I was making coffee, always repeating the same gestures, frantically, anxious to hear the phrases that haunted me the whole morning: "an orange pressed, without ice cubes", "a buttered toast, with apricot jam please "," and a nutty deca to go ". I wake up with heavy legs, with a conviction: I will never be able to drink coffee in my life. I never really liked that, but the smell is now frankly unpleasant; it sticks to my hair and nostrils without me being able to do anything about it. Fortunately, I am working in the afternoon today, and I am happy that Leffe, Stella, and other beers, have no secrets for me.

Give the menus, do not forget the salt, pepper, bread, mayonnaise and Tabasco for the steak tartare. Remove the plates as soon as the entrance is finished, bring the dishes, then the desserts. In short, run, run, and run. Smile, smile and smile. No matter the fatigue or the personal problems, the waitress wears a mask of the hours while she takes off only at the end of the day, becoming again anonymous among the anonymous ones. To be a waitress is to be someone, to play a role in short, and to forget oneself in the care of the other. After a day of practice only, I feel my actions become more precise, and I hear myself speak louder, even laugh sometimes. I now have eyes and ears everywhere, ready to jump as soon as a client looks at me a little supported: "yes, I bring you the bill right away. Yes, it's exhausting. But the adrenaline is there, stimulating.

Behind my counter, I discover little by little that each person is unique; I find myself imagining the life of each other, looking with envy at a young couple of lovers, and saddening me for the one who orders beers from 8 o'clock in the morning. I become the witness of "fragments of life", and the spectator of a hidden relationship between a man and his young mistress. I am in the front row.

I hear the boss, of Serbian origin, talking about the wars of Yugoslavia, then Morgane about his projects in the cinema. I love the noise, the incessant swarm of people coming in and out, an unexpected smile, a pleasant remark, and even the annoyed impatience of someone who has been waiting for thirty minutes for his grilled steak.

And then there are the regulars, those whom I have only seen twice, but with whom I already exchange complicit words: "4 pints of beer, like yesterday? ". I try to anticipate their expectations by remembering their wishes from the day before: he eats his meat with mustard, the one with Béarnaise sauce. They appreciate having nothing to ask, and I already know they will come back: the atmosphere is very friendly, and I gradually feel to receive all these people at home, as longtime friends . With my colleagues and with clients, I am sure that in two months links will be forged, and that beautiful friendships will certainly emerge. Naive? Perhaps. But this experience already pleases me because it is human, for better or for worse.

The worst is the back side of the scene. The crossings that many breweries know, as soon as the bar lean heavily alcoholic people. If in the morning the counter is for night workers, the end of the afternoon sees his share of alcoholics and dredgers inveterate (which are often confused).

Maryvette, a forty-seven-year-old painter, arrives most of the time already well drunk; and it is not uncommon for the boss to refuse to serve him for drinking: she then threatens to "kill her head". This woman with a face ravaged by alcohol is in love with a young thirty-something who works in a bank not far from there and who has his habits in this brewery. She waits sometimes for hours, and makes him statements of love inflamed. He pushes her away, she drinks.

And then there is a man whose name I do not know, who asks me for glasses of wine and swears to me that I am the most beautiful woman in the world. He keeps telling me all the time, assuring me that if we do not say enough things to women, they tend not to believe it.

However, some people have far less amusing or even disturbing behaviors when delirium mixes with alcohol. So this piercing blue-eyed individual staring at me for long minutes, before shouting into my ears that long ago I was "Princess of the Austro-Hungarian Empire!" »; then, addressing Morgane: "You, you were a prostitute in a brothel badly attended! ".

Finally, there are the naive, those who confuse "waitress" and "easy girl" and wink at you in the hope that this is enough to seduce you. Those who use subtle encrypted languages ​​trying to plunge their eyes into yours: "Mmm, miss, really, it was deli-them your coffee ... I'll come back ... for coffee ...". Did not André Breton say, about poetry, that "words make love"?

Alas, is not a poet who wants.

And then there are the "big heavy", simply, who insist on having your phone number, they will never have, and end up saying: "I see you're busy, I'll try my luck tomorrow . "

But the one who says nothing is the very one who captures all your attention. He looks at you discreetly and respectfully, without daring to interrupt you in your work. This one stands out by his restraint, and by his delicacy. He asks you a few questions, to express his interest, but dares to disturb you.

I know he'll be here tomorrow.

Third day: Retain customers.

7.30 am He is there. The boss assures me that in three years this regular customer, who is also his friend, never came in the morning.

11 am: Morgane was delivered a very pretty bouquet of peonies. An anonymous card. One word: "Because you are sublime. "