I think I need to say a little something about the people of New York. Having lived here for a little over a year now, I feel confident in saying that my preconceptions of New Yorkers were actually pretty far off. I imagined the population of this city as little more than bitter, rude, and downright mean--particularly when they were forced to interact with other people who were new to the city. Basically, I capitalized on every New Yorker stereotype I'd ever heard of. But I was pretty wrong. People here are often abrupt, yes, and they're usually pretty direct--which can sometimes come across as rude--but very few are bitter and mean. Most of the time, in fact, New Yorkers are instead downright friendly.
This is not to say, however, that there are not exceptions to the rule. Some New Yorkers find creative ways to make you feel uncomfortable, ignorant, and insignificant. Having worked as a waitress on the Upper East Side for the past year, I've been unlucky enough to experience several different varieties of New Yorkers. Let's talk about three specific types here. Shall we?
1. The Privileged, Uppah-Clahss.
These are the people I hate dealing with the most in the restaurant industry. I may be a waitress--therefore poor, without good health insurance, and dressed embarrassingly monochromatically--but I am not, in the words of Eliza Doolittle, dirt under your feet. (Someone else other than the fictional character of Eliza Doolittle has probably said this, too. But I would like you to imagine Eliza Doolittle's version, if you please.)
At our restaurant, we have an outdoor cafe that we set up during the spring, summer, and early fall. I'm required to spray down every outdoor table (with what appears to be Windex, since we keep ALL cleaning substances in Windex bottles, but is actually dishwashing soap. This is odd, no? Patrons of our restaurant must be disturbed by our ubiquitous use of Windex. Alas, this is a story for another time) and then wipe it clean. Now, a spray bottle has a certain radius of stream. This is not breaking news, either to me or those walking along the street directly in front of the restaurant. I do, however, try to wait until people have passed me before I spray down a table, on the off chance that some of the faux-Windex stream will graze them. One morning, however, I unknowingly sprayed a young woman who was talking on her cell phone and walking very quickly past the restaurant. Without breaking her stride or getting off her cell phone, she managed to turn her torso halfway around and berate me. In a Hispanic accent. Which I will try to duplicate here. She said, "Don't you spah-ray thaht fuh-king SHIT awn me!"
Now. Come, come. Really? Really? First of all, the faux Windex barely TOUCHED her. She was also moving at lightning speed, so I highly doubt that any of it had time to truly soak into her clothing. Second of all, it's not like this was some horrendous substance. It was cleaning solution, for goodness' sake. It could only improve her clothing, really. Third of all, she was implying that I sprayed her ON PURPOSE. I did not! I would never purposely spray someone down with Windex. Or any other substance. Unless we're talking about my sisters. Because I'd probably spray them down. In fact, I probably have sprayed them down, at some point in our lives. But anyone else--never. I wish I'd had the presence of mind to fire back a withering retort at this silly woman, but I did not, sadly. I only stared after her, open-mouthed, completely at a loss for words.
2. Lookin' to Make the Trouble for You.
These are the people of the working class who feel that living in the city of New York gives them the right to do whatever the hell they want, simply because they deserve the best of everything, money and social status be damned. They are generally unhappy and dissatisfied, finding pleasure only in making trouble for someone else. They are also usually cheap.
On another morning last fall, whilst wiping down those lovely outdoor cafe tables (so much awfulness in my life has happened amongst those tables), my bar rag that I'd been using became so dirty from the grime atop the tables that I had to journey back inside the restaurant and find a new cleaning rag. Having discovered that there were no more clean rags, I quickly grabbed a clean napkin from the stack of linens that would be later used to roll the silverware and proceeded to finish spraying and wiping down the outdoor tables. Let me reiterate that this was a CLEAN napkin. Let me also say that this was totally normal--other servers would use clean napkins to wipe down tables when rags were unavailable, and even the busboys and bartenders would do the same, on occasion. Let me say, too, that our napkins actually do a better job of cleaning table surfaces than our bar rags; the rags leave white morsels of fluff behind, whereas the napkins do not. So.
As I'm wiping down a table, a Jamaican woman pushing a baby stroller (with a Caucasian child inside) walks by and notices me. Without even bothering to ask what I'm doing (or even tell me good morning, for that matter--but who am I kidding? I crack myself up), she begins to berate me. "Ahrr you seeriously using ah NAHP-kin to wipe down tha taybles? Ah'm gonna re-PORT you. You using ah NAHP-kin tha' you gonna be givin' to tha' people to eat with. Ah'm gonna re-PORT you."
Now, this woman is obviously a nanny for some rich UES housewife. And maybe she's tired of having to wake up early and take care of some rando woman's kids every morning instead of her own. And maybe she's tired of placating this probably very spoiled child and giving in to her employer's every ridiculous whim. And maybe she needs to redirect her anger and frustration elsewhere, so that she keeps her job. But I do NOT deserve to be berated by her, loudly and embarrassingly. And jesus christ. I would NEVER give any patron of the restaurant the same napkin to wipe his or her mouth with that I'd used earlier that day to clean tables with. This is not just common decency. This is common sense, lady. I'm personally offended that she would even consider that I would do something like that. Gah.
3. The Overly Talkative. Or, The Truly Crazy.
This is kind of a catch-all category, I suppose. But it has been my experience that those who have the capacity for and seem to enjoy talking excessively are, indeed, crazy. For example. My former landlord, Mr. Josif. This was a man who: A.) willingly slept in the basement, amidst the stink of his cigarette smoke and the clutter of forty years' worth of crap; B.) was sixty-nine years old but looked much nearer to two hundred; C.) my roommate and I regularly crept past in order to avoid conversing with, since we knew that even the most mundane of conversations could last for hours. Hours. No topic was left uncovered by this man--AIDS, alcohol, Jews, Catholics, Muslims, the Spanish bar around the corner. His garrulousness was matched only by his far-reaching prejudice. This man seemed to hate all religions, all ethnicities, and all political views without exception. Really, if you think about it, he wasn't prejudiced at all--he just chose to hate everyone. Everyone.
The Saw Lady from the subway station also falls into this category (she uses an actual saw to play recognizable songs for money, with both a baseball cap bearing the words "THE SAW LADY" and a constant beatific smile), as does the older man from the restaurant where I work who insists on telling me every time he comes in that I should work for the CIA, since I have a "nondescript" face. (What does that even mean? Does he mean that as a compliment? Does one desire a nondescript face? Why would he tell me this, that I blend into a crowd, having absolutely no discerning features? This bothers me. Still). I would also include the exceedingly grumpy woman who routinely comes into the restaurant, CLEANS her plate, and then complains vociferously about how terrible the food was.
So, yes. Welcome to New York. (Maybe the rats should have their own category?)
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