An Introduction....

I actually have a full-time job but choose to work part-time hostessing for various reasons: the economy, my credit card bill went a little crazy over that Betsey Johnson coat and Kate Spade ballet flats I wanted, the fact that I've been neurotic about money since being laid off from my first job after college. That was awhile ago, my dears.

I had grown up in a restaurant back home somewhere down South, but the NYC restaurant scene is totally different. For one, my parents made $10,000/month at the restaurant in its hey day, but at one notable B.R. Guest Restaurant on a Saturday night, $10,000 was what they made. The crowds in NYC are trendier, some people obviously act like they're entitled, but after all the different types I've interacted with no class=NO CLASS no matter who you are, and there is no difference between red necks acting ridiculously demanding versus rich snobs who own a brownstone on W. 83rd and Central Park West.

I did hostess and waitress part-time to supplement another full-time job when I was 24. I started out at an Internet company and I was living in the W. 80's b/w Columbus and Central Park West. Rent was high, and I needed supplemental income to stay in this trendy area though absolutely crappy studio. At first I thought it was refreshing to work around artists, musicians, actors in addition to the white collar types I dealt with at the Internet company I was at. But I was laid off, got a low paying job at a major museum full-time. However, working seven days a week was taking its toll just to make rent for a coffin of a studio in a cut up brown stone that cost me $1,350/month, so I moved to an area of Manhattan where my current place is big and at the time I paid $800/month. I love the ghetto.

It's 8 years later, and I never thought I'd do it again (work 7 days/week), but expenses always add up, and I'm not the type who wants to rely on the credit card. Though I make a decent salary at my full-time job, I find money to always fall short somehow (and I do budget, save, and have the 401K, IRA, etc), Plus I'm saving for classes that I want to take for career development.

I recently started a hostessing gig at a well-known restaurant on the Upper East Side, and coming back to this has reminded me of the colorful stories I end up telling friends about some wacky or rude customer, a hellish Saturday night where we're slammed, and the interesting restaurant staff I deal with. I just feel I should write it down. I'm also a big foodie, so it's somewhat torturous looking at all that good food I can't eat. Sniff! Unlike other places I worked, this restaurant does not give a comp meal at the end of the night to the hostesses. It's like being condemned in hell with a glass of water dangling in front of you that you can never have.