Waitress

“Holly, you’ve got a 38-top on table 1 and their lives are depending on you!”
I stand before the room, slugging down coffee that is homebrewed and lukewarm. I have a quiet kind of calm overtake me, much like one feels before entering a war zone or shark tank.
“I can handle this.” I reassure myself.
Before I turn the door handle, a fellow server slaps me on the back and says, “rough crowd in there. I’ve served some of them before. You’ve got your hands full.”
“Thanks a lot.” I say sheepishly well knowing what I’m in for. I’ve got 38 customers for the next 90 minutes and two of them have to sit on the heating and cooling unit because there isn’t enough room for them to sit elsewhere. Out of those customers, four are on IEPs, two have a 504 plan, two have epi pens in which I had to undergo training, and five have been deemed, “gifted and talented”. I am to differentiate and plan accordingly for these thirteen customers while at the same time not forget about the twenty-five who just want to order the daily special.

What we serve up is pretty special. It’s education. After twelve years working with these customers (teenagers) I can honestly say that there is no other place that I would rather clock in or out of each day, September- June. What makes this year so special though is the fact that due to state and federal budget cuts, class sizes are up and resources are down. Our once luxurious classes of 25, some with aides, an IT person in the building, surplus of administrative backing, not to mention the abundance of department money is poof, gone, much like the morale of many of my co-workers. It’s disconcerting to watch great teachers leave the country to teach where they can have abundant resources, or just give up all together and join the private sector.

We are like waiters and waitresses with too many plates on each arm. Don’t look down! Don’t misstep! Look ahead! Be careful! Don’t drop the plates! Smile! The kids, their parents, the administration, the district, the state, the county, the world…is watching.

I know that I personally wake up most nights in a cold sweat, anxiety ridden about how I can best serve “my” kids. Because really, they are not customers, they are someone’s daughter or son and somewhere in the year, they become my kids as well. I, like many of my fellow teacher colleagues, will not surrender to the act of simply surviving and continue to inspire and serve up the best the educational kitchen has to offer.

The collective desire to better these kids transcends all other obstacles and those of us who have remained refuse to drop a plate. We look ahead, we smile, and we don’t misstep. After all, our orders are up and their lives are depending on us.