Can I just be a waitress?

Just last Sunday, I decided to help my Boss out because he was heavily understaffed. I ended up having to waitress on both weekends last week. but surprisingly, I was actually looking forward to work on both days!

So far, my job has been quite physically tormenting. I always get very tired legs at the end of the day. Depending on my job scope for the day, if I did food serving, my back would also ache because I had to lean over the table to portion the food for the guests. However, if i did drink serving, my index finger on my right hand would ache from pouring drinks repeatedly from metallic flask and my left upper arm would hurt from holding the round tray full of drinks during the cocktail session. But nowadays, since I know how to serve both food and drinks, I ended up multi-tasking even though I was only assigned to be either drink or food server for the day.

Even though my body doesn't seem to like the job, I feel a great sense of satisfaction from putting smiles on my guests' faces. A simple gesture of saying "thank you" after I served them makes me feel so appreciated. It is not the kind of "thank you" where you say for the sake of saying it or say for the sake of being polite or whatever. There are many guest who simply say thank you in that fashion. But more importantly, some of my guests actually looked into my eyes and say "thank you" after I offered my service!!! Some would even call me by my name (which is on my nametag) to thank me. Some would even remember my face and when they walked pass me, they would smile and nod their heads.

These seem to be very small, insignificant things that people do. But I think in a banquet session that lasts only about 4 hours and in that 4 hours, if some guests bother to acknowledge my service and even acknowledge me, I would feel a great sense of achievement. =O) Especially when I put my heart into becoming a good waitress for example, sometimes I would try to pre-empt what my guests need before they even ask for the service etc... and when they show appreciation, I feel that my hardwork is paid off! 钱算什么嘛？！ That little money I get from waitressing is in fact less rewarding than the job nature itself.

When I think of what I heard from accountants about an auditor's job nature, it can get quite depressing. Auditors are not appreciated for their efforts, instead, their clients hardly wish to cooperate with the auditors when auditors request for some information from clients. Besides, auditors don't even get a proper workspace at the clients' place, sometimes, even need to help clients save money because of low budget (meaning, may not be able to take cab all the time to and fro clients' place). An auditor's job requires extensive traveling, immense amount of concentration, energy and will-power, plus an auditor needs to protect herself from evil clients who like to bully auditors, needs to please clients in order to please her company, needs to network with both clients and colleagues, has very little sleeping time etc..... don't the job sound more tiring than waitressing? In addition, auditors might get into trouble if they do something that falls outside the codes of conduct..e.g conflict of interest, receiving gifts more than $200 in a year or something...! sigh

Might as well be a waitress right? The only bad thing about waitressing is the pay rate. It's too low for me to use that income to pay for my study loan. argh...