Hostessing is the quintessential college job: easy hours, easy tasks, easier money. If you've never been a hostess, you know at least three people who have, and they all know these 8 things to be true. Let's just say it's not as simple or as glamorous as the hostess at Balzac's makes it in Sex and the City.
1. Your definition of "comfortable shoes" is totally wrong.
I knew that I’d never be able to handle walking around and standing in wedges during any shift, but I thought that I would be totally fine in my Keds. Wrong. Turns out, no matter how flat your shoes are, standing for over six hours will kill anyone’s ankles.
2. Servers can either make or break your day.
On my first day of work, I was confronted by a server who was upset that my fellow hostess and I had sat three groups of people in her section all at once. We had no idea what the different sections were, and her attitude made us too afraid to ask her for any clarification, so we didn’t seat anyone in her section for another hour. But when a different server saw how hungry I was while working late one night, he brought me some Old Bay french fries from the kitchen. The servers are either amazing or awful, and you just need to find out who’s who.
3. Sometimes, you have the power of invisibility.
I’ve lost count of the number of people who have just walked right past me and sat themselves, despite me standing right behind the hostess stand, next to a sign that reads “Please see hostess for patio seating”, and making direct eye contact with them. All they see is the glass jar of mints.
4. You'll be disgusting by the end of your shift.
No matter how cute I looked coming into work, I always left looking like a hot mess - literally. The combination of sweat from running around, food bits from clearing tables, the stickiness from gross menus, not to mention the number of people who thought the hostess stand was a glorified trash can, left me eager to shower as soon as humanly possible, no matter how tired I was after every night.
5. It's more than "just standing there"
While spending 5+ hours on your feet is hard enough, a hostess’s job description is a combination of hosting, bussing tables, making change, and essentially anything else a customer can come up with that you’re almost certain is not your job.
6. Everyone thinks you make the rules, but you're just the enforcer.
As a 19-year-old girl, I didn’t decide that the restaurant I worked for wouldn’t take reservations for our outside seating, or that we couldn’t accommodate parties larger than 6 people outside. But when I tell customers that they can’t sit wherever they want or bring their non-service animals, they always think I’ll break the rules “just for them”.
7. Young people are way more accommodating than older people.
The number of 40+-year-old adults who have asked to speak to my manager or simply walked out of the restaurant when I told them I couldn’t seat them willy-nilly far outweighs the people my age, who understand that I’m just doing my job.
8. If you don't like something, change it.
One week as a hostess was all it took to bring me to the end of my rope. I knew that complaining about my job wouldn’t fix anything, except to give my friends and myself a laugh about how preposterous it all was, so I quit to find a job I was actually passionate about and could really boost my resume. Quitting gets a really bad rap, but I’d rather be a happy quitter than a miserable hostess.
