don’t forget to tip your waitresses
THE TOWN WHERE I GREW UP WAS DECIDEDLY BLUE-COLLAR, FILLED WITH TEACHERS AND NURSES AND THE OCCASIONAL SALES MANAGER. My friends and I fell asleep to the sound of our parents arguing about car payments and tuition. It was our soundtrack, this din of worry. If you were old enough, you were expected to have a part-time job.
When I was sixteen, I got one. I was a junior secretary in a podiatrist’s office near my house in Burlington. I had to wear a short white skirt, a tight blouse, and high-heeled shoes. This outfit made me look like a teenage nurse, which sounds hot but I promise you was not. I was a teenager during a period of truly awful style. It made sense that my friends and I all had part-time jobs, because we dressed like Melanie Griffith in Working Girl during a long subway commute. Hair spray was king, and the eighties silhouette in Burlington was big hair, giant shoulder pads, chunky earrings, thick belts, and form-fitting stretch pants. My silhouette was an upside-down triangle. Add in my round potato face and hearty eyebrows and you’ve got yourself a grade-A boner killer, so remember that before you try to jerk it to my teenage-nurse story.
Anyway, this other nurse and I used to jump around in our underwear and kiss each other for fun.
Oh wait, what I meant to say was that I answered phones and filed things. The best part of my job was leaning into the waiting room and whispering, “The doctor will see you now.” It always felt like such a WASPy phrase. Right up there with “It truly is my pleasure” and “We just got back from the country.” Every once in a while we would get an exciting sprained ankle or a flat-feet emergency, but usually the patients were just old people who couldn’t cut their own toenails anymore.
I was a really good waitress. Waitressing takes a certain gusto. You need a good memory and an ability to connect with people fast. You have to learn how to treat the kitchen as well as you treat the customers. You have to figure out which crazy people to listen to and which crazy people to ignore. I loved waiting tables because when you cashed out at the end of the night your job was truly over. You wiped down your section and paid out your busboy and you knew your work was done. I didn’t take my job home with me, except for the occasional nightmare where I would wake up in a cold sweat and remember I never brought table 14 their Diet Coke.
My first waitressing job was in the summer of 1989, a few months before I left for college. I was seventeen and sticky. I earned the extra money I needed for textbooks scooping ice cream at Chadwick’s, a local parlor that specialized in sundaes and giant steak fries. Chadwick’s was in Lexington, Massachusetts, the rich town next door (the Eagleton to our Pawnee). Lexington was the famous home of the “Shot Heard ’Round the World.” Burlington was the home of the mall. Lexington, as it turns out, is also Rachel Dratch’s hometown, and much later I would learn that she also worked at the same sticky emporium a few years before I did. Imagine if our paths had crossed! Imagine how hilarious we would have been while we shoved toothpicks in the club sandwiches! Think of all the jokes about “marrying the ketchups.” Such a waste. Lexington High still plays Burlington High on Thanksgiving Day, and Dratch and I trash-text each other. She calls me Burlington garbage and I tell her to go drive her Mercedes into a lake. In my town, the best way to insult someone was to call them rich and smart, which, looking back, was maybe a little shortsighted of us.
You know what? Who cares. Burlington rules! GO RED DEVILS!!
Summer jobs are often romantic; the time frame creates a perfect parentheses. Chadwick’s was not. Hard and physical, the job consisted of stacking and wiping and scooping and lifting. At the end of my shift, every removable piece of the restaurant would be carted off and washed. Vinyl booths were searched and scrubbed. This routine seemed Sisyphean at first, but I soon learned the satisfaction of working at a place that truly closed. I took great joy in watching people stroll in after hours, thinking they could grab a late-night sundae. I would point to the dimmed lights and stacked chairs as proof that we were shut. It was deliciously obvious and final.
Chadwick’s was one of those fake old-timey restaurants. The menus were written in swoopy cursive. The staff wore Styrofoam boaters and ruffled white shirts with bow ties. Jangly music blared from a player piano as children climbed on counters. If the style of the restaurant was old-fashioned, the parenting that went on there was distinctly modern. Moms and dads would patiently recite every item on the menu to their squirming five-year-olds, as if the many flavors of ice cream represented all the unique ways they were loved.
There was a performance element to the job that I found appealing. Every time a customer was celebrating a birthday, an employee had to bang a drum that hung from the ceiling, and play the kazoo, and encourage the entire restaurant to join him or her in a sing-along. Other employees would ring cowbells and blow noisemakers. I would stand on a chair and loudly announce, “Ladies and gentlemen, we are so happy to have you at Chadwick’s today, but we are especially happy to have Kevin! Because it’s Kevin’s birthday today! So, at the sound of the drum, please join me in singing Kevin a very happy birthday!”
The appeal didn’t last long. I’m not sure when the worm turned. Maybe it was during one of the many times we announced the BellyBuster. The BellyBuster consisted of mounds of ice cream in a giant silver bowl carried in on a stretcher. The busboys would have to pretend to struggle under the weight of this giant sundae as they lifted it onto the table and handed a giant spoon to the maniac who had ordered it. I would ease my pain by exchanging looks with one busboy who was always slightly drunk and the ex-junkie cook, who was always slightly grouchy. The cook spoke in bumper stickers when describing his disposition: “Of course I’m mean. It’s hard to be happy when you are standing this close to the fire.”
But the teenagers were the worst. Teenage boys, especially. They would file in, Adam’s apples bouncing, and announce it was their birthdays. Since Chadwick’s operated on an honor system, I would have to look into their sweaty, lying faces and smile like a flight attendant. Some of them would order their sundaes while asking me to hold their nuts. I was relieved when I had to leave and head to college. It was time. Besides, I had started forgetting to charge for whipped cream. I was failing to use the ice scoop. A customer told me I was banging the drum “too hard.” She was right. I was angry; I wanted to be gone. It’s important to know when it’s time to turn in your kazoo. The nights would end with the waitstaff in the parking lot, sitting on a car and drinking beer as we counted our tips. The boys would undo their bow ties and suddenly look weary and handsome. I would change into soft jeans and throw pennies at the Dumpster. I was aching for what came next. I felt my whole life stretched out before me like an invisible buffet.
I learned many things banging that drum at Chadwick’s. I learned that a good tip is what a decent person leaves. I learned that how a person treats their waitress is a great indication of their character. I learned that chocolate chip ice cream is a bitch to scoop. I learned almost all the people in a working kitchen are having sex with each other. Except for the Bangladeshi busboys, who are supporting three kids back home and trying not to strangle the awful white teenagers complaining about their summer job.
My next restaurant job was in Boston during college at a place called Papa Razzi. I was immediately drawn to it because it was a step up from ice cream, and also because I LOVE the paparazzi!! I don’t care what anyone says. I think the paparazzi are awesome and they are all great people and I should be allowed to see pictures of anyone I want anytime. Papa Razzi introduced me to the world of bread sticks and olive oil. We wore all white like professionals and talked about “cavatappi pasta.” I had an affair with the bartender and attended wine tastings. I had great abs and listened to The The as we cleaned up. I knew the bartender was fucking someone else at the same time and I DIDN’T CARE. I felt very adult. At Papa Razzi I learned that I was actually a great waitress and it was easy money and everyone was doing cocaine and that maybe I actually did care about the bartender fucking someone else.
Carlucci was a joint in Chicago and my first foray into the big leagues. My uniform was a smart burgundy vest and floral tie. I looked like a serious waitress who was also capable of performing some light magic. Fine Italian dining was hitting its peak, and Carlucci was a way for upper-middle-class people to spend their Wall Street money. This place was no ice-cream joint; it catered to businessmen with fat ties and fatter wallets. We had banquet halls and mise en place. We had a mean Italian chef who gave seminars on homemade grappa. I opened my first bottle of two-hundred-dollar wine. I catered an off-site party for D’arcy from the Smashing Pumpkins and smoked with James Iha. Billy Corgan sang in D’arcy’s living room and I listened from a closet. Once I heard a familiar voice in the restaurant and I turned to see Oprah at a table with what looked like a gaggle of producers. If my memory serves me correctly, she was giving them presents. I feel like it was diamond earrings. I want that to be true. I feel like Oprah pays all of her employees in diamonds and cashmere pajamas. While I was at Carlucci I learned how to dust a tiramisu and pair cordials. I learned having a pocket filled with cash is a dangerous thing. I learned that I was getting way too good at a job that was not my life’s passion. I learned that I was the only one not doing cocaine.
My last big gig was at a real classy joint called Aquagrill in New York City. It was 1996 and I had just moved to New York. I needed a job so I walked around SoHo looking for “Help Wanted” signs in the windows. I was called a “server” by then and I knew how to navigate the fancier places. I walked into Aquagrill and began my experience of trying to help a new restaurant get off the ground. The owners were talented and lovely, but I felt like an imposter in all of our pre-opening meetings. I wanted to earn a living as an actor, and I wanted to pay off my student loans and maybe get some health insurance. It would be a long time before those things happened, but they felt close enough to see. Aquagrill is a beautiful little place with yellow walls and fresh seafood. I finally learned how to save a little money. I learned how to tell the difference between East Coast and West Coast oysters. I waited on people like Ellen Barkin and David Byrne and Lou Reed. I was getting closer to Lou Reed, one step at a time. I waited on restaurant critic Ruth Reichl. She would come in wearing wigs and using a pseudonym. The restaurant got a great review and she said this:
“In New York City, home of the fabulous, the chic, the loud and the exotic, a nice restaurant is a rare thing. So rare that when I encountered the pleasant staff at Aquagrill I was acutely uncomfortable. Don’t those people ever stop smiling?”
She was uncomfortable with my smiling! I didn’t care. I had made the New York Times! The restaurant opened and I left soon after, praying that my bimonthly Conan appearances and piecemeal Comedy Central gigs would sustain me. I was out of the restaurant business but I still had my appetite.
I turned toward my future, mouth watering.
treat your career like a bad boyfriend
ONCE I WAS SLEEPING ON AN AMTRAK TRAIN TO NEW YORK AND WAS STARTLED BY A THUD. Someone had dumped a script in my lap as they prepared to get off the train. I woke to a kind-faced businessman smiling at me apologetically. He looked at me like we were friends. I was immediately enraged.
The script was for a movie called I Don’t Know Because I Threw It Away. I was angry for a few reasons. I don’t like it when people wake me up. Being a bad sleeper, I have a hard time opening my eyes. I am amazed at people who wake up and talk like normal humans. These are the same people who don’t thrash around when they sleep and have never been told that they snore “like a dragon.” I was also angry because I don’t like to be solicited. My years of living in New York City make me very sensitive to the random encounter. When I walk down the street and someone asks me, “Excuse me, can I ask you a question?” I immediately put my hand up and firmly say, “No!” No one needs to ask me a question. There is no reason to talk to strangers. I do not want you to hand me your homemade CD or talk to me on an airplane or try to upsell me on drink specials. As I get older I get a real pleasure from maintaining boundaries with strangers. I have come to enjoy telling the cheese guy at the farmers’ market that he does not value my time. I like letting my massage therapist know that she is putting her needs before my own. It may be difficult to tell my family I feel pressure to entertain them, but it’s easy to tell the UPS guy that he needs to respect my personal space.
When someone randomly hands me a script it means I have already disappointed them. I don’t like disappointing people. Some would say this is “codependent behavior,” which I have discovered is a term that explains how most everyone acts all of the time unless one is a sociopath or a Russian computer that plays chess. PLUS, when someone hands me a script it only reminds me of how I should write more scripts and get my shit together and stop sleeping on trains. I don’t care that you add an attached note that says, “My wife and I are lawyers by day but screenwriters by night and we think you could act in/produce/direct/rewrite this with us.” I am not impressed when you assure me the story has “lots of twists and turns.” I doubt it does and how dare you.
See? I am not as nice as you think I am.
Being a working actor whom people recognize sometimes means you occasionally get the young up-and-comer who thinks that meeting you is their chance to break in. The good version of this meeting is when someone tells you they are inspired by you and are hoping to follow in your footsteps. This makes your heart warm. It also gives you just enough of an inflated sense of self to justify eating an entire bag of Doritos later that evening and eventually falling asleep with your hands down your pants. The bad version of this meeting is when someone hands you something. Or asks you to do something for them. Or announces loudly that you better remember their name because they are going to be famous one day.
Good or bad, the reality is most people become “famous” or get “great jobs” after a very, very long tenure shoveling shit and not because they handed their script to someone on the street. People still think they will be discovered in the malt shop, even though no one can tell you what a malt is anymore. Everyone wants to believe they will be the regular guy from Sioux City who becomes a reluctant movie star despite his best attempts to remain a sensitive tattoo artist. People don’t want to hear about the fifteen years of waiting tables and doing small shows with your friends until one of them gets a little more famous and they convince people to hire you and then you get paid and you work hard and spend time getting better and making more connections and friends. Booooring. It’s much more interesting to believe that every person who makes it in show business just wrote a check to their mother when they were eighteen for a million dollars with an instruction to “cash in a year.”
I was never great in auditions. When I was nervous I would often underprepare and act too cool for school. I would try to reject them before they rejected me, which was confusing since I had decided to audition and acted angry to be there. I remember one particular time I auditioned for the Coen brothers. I realized I was doing a pretty shitty job and I overcompensated by also acting like a dick. The Coen brothers were very nice. I think. I have blocked it all out.
It took me awhile to step out of my comfort zone and put my neck out to audition for something. College was filled with small parts in big musical productions. What’s-her-name in Brigadoon. Who’s-her-face in A Midsummer Night’s Dream. That lady in that other play. All small and usually comical. All satisfying in their low level of risk. I surfed in a very cool and confident zone and my ego was snuggly and warm in a sleeping bag of safe choices. Then I moved to Chicago and the shit hit the fan.
I started going on cold auditions, the kind where your agent sends you in and you have no idea why. The worst auditions were what we called “bite-and-smiles.” This is when you go in for a Wendy’s spot and have to pretend to eat something and smile. No words, just the simple fact of presenting your face to the camera and hoping someone likes it. I had the presence of mind even then to know I would never book one of these. One, my teeth were kind of jacked up, and that never bodes well in close-ups. Two, I don’t have symmetrical good looks and therefore I like to think that my personality is my currency. I remember the Chicago casting director asking me to pretend to bite into something and then smile. I did my best and was about to leave when the casting director asked me to stay and put something on tape. I got excited. Maybe she saw potential in me. Maybe I would finally get to play the blue-collar white-girl arsonist on my favorite show of all time, Law & Order.
Instead, she asked me to sit on a stool and tell her my “most embarrassing moment.” I asked why. She said she just wanted to have some tape of me talking. I asked her if I could talk about something else and she shook her head and said, “Tell me your MOST EMBARRASSING MOMENT.” And I said no. She never called me again.
Quick note here: Everybody wants you to share your MOST EMBARRASSING MOMENT all the time, and I am here to tell you that you don’t have to. You don’t have to tell it or tweet it or Instagram it. You don’t have to put it in a book or share it with anyone who doesn’t feel safe and protective of your heart.
More cold auditions followed and none amounted to much. Almost every job I have ever gotten was due to someone knowing my work or seeing me in something else. I was in UCB and Andy Richter suggested I do stuff for Conan. Being on Conan helped me land a part in Deuce Bigalow. My UCB television show and friends helped me get an audition for SNL; my SNL connections resulted in Parks and Recreation. See, years and years of hard work and little bits of progress isn’t nearly as entertaining as imagining me telling a joke in a Boston food court when suddenly Lorne Michaels walks up and says, “I must have you for a little show I do.”
I once was having dinner with an old friend back when I was on SNL. Baby Mama was coming out and I was in the middle of one of those weird press pushes where your face is on taxis and you are doing talk shows all the time. My friend, who was as funny and talented as me but chose not to be an actor, was talking about how he was seeing my face everywhere. He went on and on about how weird that was. He pointed out that people were really starting to know my name and asked me if I “could believe it.” “Yes,” I said. I had worked for over a decade to get to this moment. I hadn’t just dropped my script into someone’s lap on a train. “Can you?” I asked him.
But I was lucky. Your career and your passion don’t always match up. Plenty of talented people don’t have the careers they want. Plenty of untalented people make millions and make movies. There is a difference between determination and talent. Hard work doesn’t always matter. You can be the best at making contacts and going after jobs, but then suddenly you want it too much. Suddenly everybody feels how bad you want it and they don’t want to give it to you. Even at six years old Archie is learning to stop paying attention to the toy he wants. He knows that if he lets on how bad he wants it his four-year-old brother will snatch that shizz up in a hot second. Pretending to not want something can work. Really not caring if you get it takes a lifetime of practice.
I guess the Buddhists would call this idea healthy detachment. Too often we are told to visualize what we want and cut out pictures of it and repeat it like a mantra over and over again. Books and magazines tell us to create vision boards. Late-night commercials remind us that “anything is possible.” Positive affirmations are written on our tea bags. I am introducing a new idea. Try to care less. Practice ambivalence. Learn to let go of wanting it. Treat your career like a bad boyfriend.
Here’s the thing. Your career won’t take care of you. It won’t call you back or introduce you to its parents. Your career will openly flirt with other people while you are around. It will forget your birthday and wreck your car. Your career will blow you off if you call it too much. It’s never going to leave its wife. Your career is fucking other people and everyone knows but you.
Your career will never marry you.
Now, before I extend this metaphor, let me make a distinction between career and creativity. Creativity is connected to your passion, that light inside you that drives you. That joy that comes when you do something you love. That small voice that tells you, “I like this. Do this again. You are good at it. Keep going.” That is the juicy stuff that lubricates our lives and helps us feel less alone in the world. Your creativity is not a bad boyfriend. It is a really warm older Hispanic lady who has a beautiful laugh and loves to hug. If you are even a little bit nice to her she will make you feel great and maybe cook you delicious food.
Career is different. Career is the stringing together of opportunities and jobs. Mix in public opinion and past regrets. Add a dash of future panic and a whole lot of financial uncertainty. Career is something that fools you into thinking you are in control and then takes pleasure in reminding you that you aren’t. Career is the thing that will not fill you up and never make you truly whole. Depending on your career is like eating cake for breakfast and wondering why you start crying an hour later.
I was on a panel once with the genius writer David Simon. I think The Wire is the best-written show in recent memory. I have watched each episode of all five seasons twice. For Mother’s Day one year, Aziz Ansari got me a signed and framed picture of Omar Little with the inscription “Amy, You come at the King You Best Not Miss. Omar.”
Next to my children and my blood diamonds this is the only thing I would grab in a fire. A nice young person stood up at the panel and asked David and me how we found the “courage” to do what we do. We both bristled a bit at the idea of our work being “courageous.” We both admitted that we often think about how if everything went away tomorrow we would still have a trade and a skill to depend on. He could go back to reporting, a career he started in, and I could go teach improvisation at the UCB theater or choreograph dance for child pageants. (A path I am interested in pursuing at a later date.) Either way, we both agreed that ambivalence is key to success.
I will say it again. Ambivalence is key.
You have to care about your work but not about the result. You have to care about how good you are and how good you feel, but not about how good people think you are or how good people think you look.
I realize this is extremely difficult. I am not saying I am particularly good at it. I’m like you. Or maybe you’re better at this than I am.
You will never climb Career Mountain and get to the top and shout, “I made it!” You will rarely feel done or complete or even successful. Most people I know struggle with that complicated soup of feeling slighted on one hand and like a total fraud on the other. Our ego is a monster that loves to sit at the head of the table, and I have learned that my ego is just as rude and loud and hungry as everyone else’s. It doesn’t matter how much you get; you are left wanting more. Success is filled with MSG.
Ambivalence can help tame the beast. Remember, your career is a bad boyfriend. It likes it when you don’t depend on it. It will reward you every time you don’t act needy. It will chase you if you act like other things (passion, friendship, family, longevity) are more important to you. If your career is a bad boyfriend, it is healthy to remember you can always leave and go sleep with somebody else.