Alexandra Motiu

Somehow, I hadn't stopped being a housewife. I got myself a new job in an office where most of the other people doing the same work were men. What happened? No matter what their 'rank' the

women in the office were expected to be the human face of the organisation. They were to be kind, attractive, and cool if the men made sexual advances. If someone was leaving, it was the women

who organised the party. Hours of each day were spent listening to the men's personal problems and encouraging them when the boss or the work got them down. This was exhausting and depressing. If

they wanted a woman at one of their business lunches, I was dragged along. Forget about the shopping. If they felt like easing the day's problems with a drink after work, of course I should go. These were the sorts of things they could demand of their wives and which helped them go on working. Here I was the company's wife. Like their wives, I wasn't being paid for that.

Talk done, off the men went to more support and comforting, to a warm house, cooked food, clean clothes. I was left to catch the corner shop before it closed, spending more on food than a house-wife cares to or a woman's wage can afford. Then home to a cold flat, meal to be cooked, clothes to wash, house to clean. And no comforting. That's what happens to the spare time that single women are said to have. You do the things that are going to make it possible for you to turn up at work the next day and the next day. Washed, fed, looking good, ready. That's where most of the evenings and weekends go. Housework has its use to employers, then, whether it's done as a job and paid for or whether it's done for yourself or someone else at home.

Waitressing is service work - it's seeing after people's needs and not only their eating and drinking needs. To some extent these other needs depend on the kind of place you're waitressing in – like in a Wimpy bar or local cafe where people are eating quickly and not spending a lot of money, the demands on the waitress are fewer. But in the restaurant where I work, which caters for rich tourists and the local middle and ruling classes, a lot more is expected of us as part of the job - serving food and drink is only part of it… people come in for a relaxing meal, which costs them a lot of money, so it's important that they be made to feel good. It helps if the food and drink are reasonable, but it's up to us to make them feel relaxed, so that they can enjoy themselves. For us this means several things: looking nice - if not sexy, at least clean and tidy, preferably with make-up; and being subservient and acquiescent, remember, 'the customer's always right.' It's a situation in which we're very much at people's beck and call and they take full advantage of that. We have to be nice to everyone who comes in, regardless of how they treat us. And it's important to be pleasantly subservient - we have to look as if we enjoy being exploited – and SMILE.