Due to concerns over length, this is a two part post.

When I was in college, I worked at a few restaurants here and there waiting tables for booze money. At a certain point I decided to try my hand in the kitchen, and that was one of the best decision I've ever made. The other day I was recounting my time working in restaurants, and thereafter realized that more men need to be exposed to the benefits of working in the restaurant industry. The thesis of this post is that if you are a college-aged male, you should do yourself a favor and get a job in a commercial kitchen while your work history is still largely irrelevant. Though I would like to recommend this to all men, if you’re a post-grad I presume you’re not interested in being a line cook.

In Part 1, I will limit the content to addressing the kinds of women who work in the industry and their corresponding behavioral characteristics. In Part 2, I’ll delve into the kinds of restaurants wherein you should seek work, and I’ll bring it home with respect to the fact that it isn't just exposure to great, dateable girls that is important, but how working in the industry serves to builds your foundation as a man.

Part 1: Girls In The Industry

Restaurants tend to attract young, sociable, and generally good-looking women. I know, there are lots of exceptions on the attractiveness bit, but it goes without saying that lots of women capitalize on the innocence of not being a prostitute while still harnessing their looks for money. Thus, if a woman is attractive, she has in incentive to jump into the restaurant industry.

If you've ever dated a girl who waits tables or tends bar, you'll know she generally gets all the validation she needs while she's working, yet simultaneously gets treated like shit by strangers far more often than girls who do not work in restaurants. In other words, throughout their shift, industry girls are constantly being both validated and rejected, and by the time their shift is done, they're emotionally exhausted from putting on a front all night and simply want to hang out; they need no more validation, and do not want any more rejection. The other side of the coin from the validation is getting treated poorly by customers. This is the rejection, and they know what it feels like. Therefore they appreciate rejection on a different level than women without such experience.

Girls who work in restaurants deal with guys in other socioeconomic classes, i.e. immigrants, whom they would otherwise never interact with on a personal level, let alone consider dating. When I see a 5'8", blonde bombshell joking around with a 5'2" Guatemalan dishwasher who can hardly speak English, you know she doesn't think of herself as 'too good' to be associating with these guys. They work around all kinds of men whom they know they'd never date, yet learn not to treat them like throwaways and, instead, befriend them. Indeed, many times we would all hang out outside of work. The point here is that it wasn't a guy taking them off their pedestal, it is that in the face of pedestalization, they willingly choose not to act like they are on one at all. It is true that these girls still would not consider these guys as possible suitors, but it is a marked departure from what would otherwise be summary rejection, which is itself indicative of their own awareness and sense of rejection.

Girls in the restaurant industry tend to be hard workers, and therefore appreciate money. They work hard for their money, and likely aren't at uni on Daddy's dime (at least not entirely). Juxtapose that for a moment with a sorority girl who has never had a job. If she respects her own money, she's likely to respect yours. Oftentimes, I find bartenders and servers I've dated insisting on splitting the check for this very reason.

They know how to deal with drunk people. If you like to party on the weekends, she's not going to judge you (unless you take it to the extent of damaging your own life). After a wild night with your buddies, she'll probably tuck you into bed, set a glass of water for you on the nightstand, and go smoke a bowl while watching Adult Swim; then fuck your brains out the following morning.

Lastly, the very nature of the environment operates in defiance of our society and of Feminism. Oftentimes we hear about how men have built our society. They build the sewage systems, buildings, roads, ad infinitum, and receive little to no recognition for this. In fact, recently I was watching a Joe Rogan podcast in which they were discussing the latest movement to have "Men At Work" road signs be changed to something which is gender neutral. One thing our society fails to realize is that men are also cooking our food in restaurants everywhere. It is here, in the restaurant industry, that a unique circumstance exists. The female servers in these restaurants actually work with these men. Not only do they see these men every day, working for less money to prepare and provide the very food which their tip money depends upon, but they know these men personally, interact with them daily, and depend upon them each and every shift. The women I worked with in restaurants had the utmost respect for us kitchen guys for doing what we did. To this end, a Feminist wouldn't last a hot minute in a restaurant if she came back to the kitchen playing the victim card because her customer complained that their steak came medium instead of medium rare. In a restaurant, the kitchen guys are the arbiters of disputes, and if you fuck with us, we will make your life hell until you leave or change your attitude. Girls in restaurants appreciate men for doing the shit that they can't or do not want to do because these girls observe it every day.

Asides. The downside to all these girls being concentrated in the same social network is that it's difficult to spin plates. Because they all know each other, and are likely on some level friends, you're either going to have lots of spontaneous hookups with various servers (and they're totally fine with this), or find yourself in an LTR. The best of scenarios is that you have a continuous series of hookups or one-at-a-time FWBs, and spin plates on the side, dipping into other social networks, such as those affiliated with school.

To be continued in Part 2: Being A Man In The Industry