Like most people, I’ve long understood that I will be judged by my occupation, that my profession is a gauge people use to see how smart or talented I am. Recently, however, I was disappointed to see that it also decides how I’m treated as a person.
    Last year I left a professional position as a small-town reporter and took a job waiting tables. As someone paid to serve food to people. I had customers say and do things to me I suspect they’d never say or do to their most casual acquaintances. One night a man talking on his cell phone waved me away, then beckoned (示意) me back with his finger minute later, complaining he was ready to order and asking where I’d been.
    I had waited tables during summers in college and was treated like a peon (勤杂工) plenty of people. But at 19 years old, I believed I deserved inferior treatment from professional adults. Besides, people responded to me differently after I told them I was in college. Customers would joke that one day I’d be sitting at their table, waiting to be served.
    Once I graduated I took a job at a community newspaper. From my first day, I heard a respectful tone from everyone who called me. I assumed this was the way the professional world worked — cordially.
    I soon found out differently. I sat several feet away from an advertising sales representative with a similar name. Our calls would often get mixed up and someone asking for Kristen would be transferred to Christie. The mistake was immediately evident. Perhaps it was because money was involved, but people used a tone with Kristen that they never used with me.
    My job title made people treat me with courtesy. So it was a shock to return to the restaurant industry.
    It’s no secret that there’s a lot to put up with when waiting tables, and fortunately, much of it can be easily forgotten when you pocket the tips. The service industry, by definition, exists to cater to others’ needs. Still, it seemed that many of my customers didn’t get the difference between server and servant.
    I’m now applying to graduated school, which means someday I’ll return to a profession where people need to be nice to me in order to get what they want, I think I’ll take them to dinner first, and see how they treat someone whose only job is to serve them.