"Work"
Your hands are steadily shaking and your knees are weak, sweat rolls off your perfectly
combed hair and down your forehead as the blood flows to your face turning it red. You're
standing at the entrance of the doors to responsibility, work. You enter the doors for the
first time five minutes early; as you take one last deep breath you realize how scared you
are of this new responsibility. You don't know any of your fellow employee's, and you
can't seem to do anything right because you are to shy to ask questions. When you arrive
home after what seemed to be the longest and most horrible day of your life, you tell your
parents that you already want to quit your job. And after a long talk with your parents
about responsibility and growing up, they convince you that the first days are the hardest
days, so you decide to stick with it because you believe it will get better with time. For
a lot of people this is how their first day of work went, and as time went on it got
easier. In the poem "Patty's Charcoal Drive-In", written by Barbara Crooker, the
main character is a girl who is going threw the experiences of her first job, which is
that of a drive-in restaurant waitress. Her job started out difficult, but after the first
few days it became much easier, and I believe that this is because she realized how much
she enjoys serving the community. The way that she associates with her community is in a
few simple ways; she puts food in people's empty stomachs', cleans up their trash, and is
a friend to many.
One way in which the main character in this poem helps her community is by putting food
in peoples' unfilled stomachs. What I mean when I say this is that she serves food to the
community "I present each overflowing tray as if it were a banquet" (Crooker 4).
"I take out the silver trays and hook them to the windows, inhale the mingled smells
of seared meat patties, salty
ketchup, and rich sweet malteds" (10-12). Many people might not think of this as
being a service to the community because it is her job to serve food, but if she didn't
have this job who would serve them food? What many people overlook is the fact that not
everybody knows how to cook, and not everybody has someone like a mom or wife at home to
put food on the table. For many people it is their own responsibility to feed themselves
everyday, and many of us don't eat the recommended three meals a day. Since not everyone
can afford to eat at fancy restaurants, we eat at places like McDonalds, Burger King, and
Patty's Charcoal Drive-In. And if it wasn't for places like this and the people that work
there, some of us might not eat at all.
The second way in which this waitress is associated with her community is that she
helps keep it clean, by picking up the trash left behind from her costumer's. "After
the traffic dwindles down each night "We police the lot, pick up wrappers" (26).
If she didn't pick up this garbage that is left behind by her costumer's, the wind would
blow it throughout the community and after time it would stack up and become an eyesore to
everyone. "This job's temporary as the summer sun, but right now, it's the boundaries
of my life" (6,7). This example and the one of her picking up trash every night after
work shows that she is dedicated and cares about her community, and goes out of her way to
serve it, even though it's a temporary job she gives it one hundred percent effort. Very
seldom will you see an employee of a fast food restaurant picking up the trash outside
their restaurant, you might see them taking the garbage out of their restaurant to the
dumpster, but never tending to the garbage in the parking lot.
The last way in which she associates with her community is by being a friend to the scores
of people she serves each night. Many people don't realize it, but there are people who
look foreword to seeing and visiting you at work; and like she says in the poem
"…each night repeats itself, faithful as a steady date" (23,24)
"Everyone knows what they want. And I wait on them" (19,20). Everybody needs a
friend and someone to talk to. And for some people that person is her; the drive-in
waitress, who with a friendly smiling face and "bouncing pony tail" (3) comes
over to your car window and asks for "Your order please"(38). She isn't a
microphone that you talk into and can't hear anything out of except "Would you like
fries with that, and that will be $6.75 at the window." She is a real person and has
a friendly face to talk to, and people enjoy that in an employee. I know that when I go to
a restaurant to get something to eat I like the person to be friendly, energetic, and to
at least act like they are happy to be there. When I leave a tip it's based upon the
persons performance; so if she has a "purse fat with tips"(35), her customers
must appreciate her friendly service.
Most people take their first job because they believe that money is power, and that it
is essential to have a lot of it in order to survive; but as time passes we get wiser and
realize that no matter how much your getting paid it's not worth it if you don't enjoy it.
Money isn't everything, but happiness is. Having a job that you will enjoy and feel
passionate about the rest of your life can bring you happiness, were money can only buy
you material things not happiness. In this poem the waitress does a lot of things
associated with her community like serving food to people, cleaning up trash, and being
friendly to people. The only thing that she really disassociates with her community is how
much it depends on her to do her job. This is known because she plans on quitting, which
would leave the people who depend on her the most to have to find someone else to do the
things she did.
Works Cited
Crooker, Barbara. "Patty's Charcoal Drive-In". Schwiebert, John E. Reading
and Writing from Literature. 2nd edition. Boston, MA: Houghton Mifflin 2001. 24
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