Something Different

I've promised everyone an interview with Liz Kales, and it's coming. It should be up next week. I met with Liz, author of Destiny's Weave, yesterday, in person. She is the epitamy of grace, determination, strength, and charm, so stay tuned. In the meantime, I just had to blog about my experience at dinner earlier this evening.

My husband and I went to Earls Restaurant, a Canadian chain that serves consistently good food. I think their target consumer is 30 somethings, but they get families, seniors, and a mixed bag of people because of the quality of what they serve. They're a couple of steps up from family dining, and probably only one step down from fine dining. Yeah, whatever, restaurant critics...that's how I see it.

Anyway, when you visit Earls you are always certain of two things. The food will be great and the wait staff will be female, and gorgeous, and their boobs will be falling out of their tops (or at least be threatening to). Earls isn't the only Canadian restaurant that has this claim to fame. We have Hooters (at least they have the gumption to admit this is what their claim to fame is), Cactus Club, Joey's, and a few others. Walk into any of these establishments and you'll have models serving you. Until tonight, it's been no big deal for me. There's been a silent wishing on my part that the owners might mix things up, and my assumption has always been that males weren't applying for waiting jobs.

And then tonight, at Earls, Chad arrived at my table. Standing 6 feet, tattooed to the nth degree, and built like a line backer, he said hello and asked for our drink order. My brain crashed. This was not the usual order of things. I gaped. My husband glowered. Chad smiled patiently as my synapses kicked back into gear and I ordered a drink. He left, and I, in my glee at not having to have cleavage shoved in my face during another dinner out, expressed my surprise to my husband. He in turn yowled about wanting to be put in another section.

When Chad returned to our table, I asked him how he managed to become employed by an establishment that up until now, only hired from the top 10% of female beauty. I turns out Chad has an amazing amount of restaurant experience, has worked all over the place, and he knew someone at Earls who was finally willing to give him a break and let him wait, which is what he's always wanted to do, but never been allowed to do. (I'm thinkin a few of the beauties were too busy partying late at night, didn't bother showing up for their shifts, and management finally went for reliable).

The reason Chad hasn't been giving a waiting job? Apparently male business customers, and male customers in general, are quite vocal about wanting to be served by sexy female waitresses. That's right girls. Your dinner views are being controlled by the squeaky wheels of male gender.

Now maybe some of you are going to say "Good on it for females!" They make good money waitressing, and leave them their territory. Me, I'm not quite so inclined. I'm not that comfortable with the reverse discrimination going on, and I'm not that comfortable learning that the reason for it is again being controlled by men. But....the only reason that this is happening that I can see, is that men are more vocal. So...when I meet up with one of my best friends for our friday lunch at a restaurant where we always yak about the amount of hours the waitresses must put in to getting ready for work, and the fact that even though we've been lunching there for over two years none of them look familiar, I'm going to be very naughty. I'm going to very politely state that I would like to be served my a male. Fair is fair. Us women put a lot of money out to dining establishments, and we have our needs too. And the squeaky wheel gets the grease.