The Expert Waitress: A Manual for the Pantry, Kitchen, and Dining-Room

by Anne Frances Springsteed

Useful Suggestions

In order to do any work in the best manner it is necessary that one should be strong and well. To become strong and to keep well some simple rules must be understood and carefully followed. One may be blessed with good health, but no constitution can stand the strain made upon it when the ways and means for preventing fatigue and disease are disregarded.

To keep good health it will be necessary to form carefully and to continue steadily nice habits of personal cleanliness.

Personal cleanliness includes more than keeping the skin and the hair, the nails and the teeth, clean. It includes keeping one’s sleeping-room sweet and fresh, and airing the bed thoroughly every morning. To spread

up a bed a few minutes after one is out of it may give to the room an air of neatness, but it folds into the bedding the close air of the night instead of letting it all go out of the window, to be replaced by the freshness of the morning.

And cleanliness means more than a clean gown and clean collar and cuffs. One of the first things for a waitress to consider is her supply of underclothing. She will see the necessity of fresh print dresses for morning work, and a neat dark costume for afternoons; but she may be thoughtless at first about underclothing. Yet to keep clean, and by keeping clean to promote good health, nothing is more important than to be able to change underclothing whenever she feels the need of doing so. And in clothing, stockings are an important item. It is restful to change shoes, but more restful to change both shoes and stockings. The warm, tired foot is very grateful for the clean, smooth stocking before it begins its rounds about the evening dining-table.

Slippers or low shoes for house wear must be thoroughly comfortable, and shoes for out-of-doors must give a firm support to the feet, and at the same time protect them from the wet and the cold. To buy cheap shoes is not real economy. A shoe to be worth buying should be well made and fit comfortably. Such a shoe will outwear two or three pairs of the cheap ones which are showy but poorly made.

To preserve health it is very important to have a sufficient amount of sleep. Girls sometimes say that they need only a little sleep, and are never tired except just before they get up in the morning. But one ought not to feel tired in the morning just before getting up. Sleep should be long enough to refresh both mind and body, and care should be taken to insure the necessary amount.

It may seem at first as if regulation of hours is beyond the control of one who is serving other persons; but in this, as in many other things, much depends upon the worker

and the manner in which she performs her work. If hours of waiting are ended early she must go to bed early, for she will be required to be up betimes in the morning. If she has to wait late at night it is not likely that she will be required to be up too early in the morning, provided, her work is carefully done after she is up. If she loses health and strength because of too little sleep it will sometimes be on account of sitting up late, as many say they do, to read exciting novels; or, when she has evenings out, crowding as much exercise and excitement into one evening as ought to go to the enjoyment of a dozen.

It is said, too, that the matter of meals is beyond control; but this is often not so. Many a lady has taken the greatest pains to arrange proper meals for the maids in her employ, and has had them served at an earlier hour than those of the family. In this case a waitress does not have to stand with an empty stomach, passing food which makes her feel faint and ill, she scarcely knows why.

The idea that a hasty meal taken at intervals from the remains of a late dinner is better than a plainer one nicely served and eaten at leisure is one of the greatest mistakes that can be made; yet it is constantly made by many of those to whom the choice is given of having meals before or after waiting upon the table.

Many employers are more than ready to arrange for the comfort of maids in this and in other matters. When they are not, it must be remembered that they have been too long and too sorely tried by ignorant and unappreciative help to hope at first that the new order of intelligent and thoroughly trained waitresses is going to be any better than those who have preceded them in the household.

With good health it is easier to break up bad habits and form better ones than when one has to give valuable time and attention to bodily ailments.

A habit too easily formed, and one which should be at once broken up, is that of listening

to what is said at table, instead of concentrating attention upon the waiting. Not that there is any harm in listening to good conversation, but if while listening one misses the softly spoken “Bread, please,” or “Will you fill my glass?” and has to be recalled by a repetition of the request by the mistress of the house, some marks have certainly been lost from a perfect record.

Elderly persons should not be neglected, but should be especially considered at meals. Often some little thing from the side-board, not cared for by the rest of the family, may be desired by them. A little forethought will provide the vinegar or celery salt or whatever it may be, and no unnecessary interruption to the meal need be made.

At breakfast and luncheon a, waitress may add much to every one’s comfort by keeping a watchful eye on the plates of the children. A hungry child is sometimes apparently unreasonable without wishing to be naughty. One child may be forbidden maple syrup on

his cereal and allowed sugar. If the sugar be not provided, and he sees the others eating the syrup which he loves but may not have, it is almost too much to expect that he will wait patiently until his needs are remembered.

Waiting is a department of woman’s work which is capable of being greatly improved and raised to a higher standard. The women who will improve this department are those who appreciate the necessity of good health, and who will use every means in their power to secure health and to keep it. They are women who will learn thoroughly the duties they have elected to perform. They will train hand and foot to do their instant bidding. They will train the eye so that nothing in the daily routine will be left undone, and so that nothing outside of it which may add to the general comfort will escape their notice.