“I was paid $170, but energetically it was more like $10,000”

I worked a catering job this week, my first in many moons. It was a holiday party for 1250 ppl, for a Canadian bank. Came home with sore feet, three new numbers in my phone, and so many stories. Fuck, i love humans!

Photo by Markus Spiske on Unsplash

These parties always meet me at an interesting intersection. They are the ultimate clash of classes on magnified display. The banquet servers are a flavorful medley of hospitality veterans, POC, immigrants, and artists who are cobbling together an existence doing this and about three other things.

Then there’s the client: they are faithful servants of corporate America. They have key cards, credit scores of 800, and five digits in their IRAs. They ask permission before they walk down hallways or enter doors (even with us).

I would be paid $23/hour, which would amount to $170 for the job. Sounded square, but my true compensation would be derived from my fellow servers and the guests. They had no idea how well they fed me, simply by being themselves. For a writer, it was like going to the museum and the buffet in the same day.

I felt the way about them the way that Jack Kerouac felt about all the hoboes and lovers…