Working at Hooters

Working at Hooters was the worst job I've ever had. The summer after graduation, my mom moved out west and my dad decided to cut me off. Because I not only had myself but also a horse I needed to support, I walked into Hooters one day and got the job. Being a Hooters Girl is no glamorous job. Aside from having to dress like an 80's gym teacher, a Hooters Girl must deal with rude and drunk customers, incompetent managers, and catty coworkers. Peeling the constantly running, thick pantyhose onto my legs was an aerobics routine. I would occasionally be called in for a mandatory staff meeting, during which I was shown an instructional video on how to respond to negative criticism of my job position. My fellow Hooters Girls would routinely make each other (including myself) cry as a result of some drama or fight. I found it shocking that my general manager would get high every day before work until I discovered that 2 of the girls I worked with would go behind the building and snort blow before their shifts. Frankly, I'm sure there were other drug and prostitution related debaucheries taking place at the Hooters I worked at that I will never know about, nor do I care to. All the other girls would laugh and scoff at the fact I spent most of my time outside of work training horses, except for one girl named Emily. She trained horses herself and was my only friend at work, and frequently the only other girl that would talk to me. We remain friends to this day.

One day, a man in his mid-fifties (about the age of my father) rolled up to Hooters in his imported concept Porsche, came inside and ordered beer and wings. It soon became apparent that this man was a regular and beloved by all the girls. As a new girl, it was obligatory that I introduce myself to him as he apparently had the desire to know every Hooters Girl that worked at this particular Hooters. After introducing myself and striking up a conversation, we talked for a good 20-30 minutes as he guzzled down beer after beer. The conversation began with where I went to college and the horses I trained and soon trailed off to my life ambitions and both of our bucket lists. I learned that this man was an overnight billionaire through the trade business who spent most of his time sailing and traveling to Europe to pick out his newest concept car. He learned that I was a college student struggling to pay for myself and my horse with dreams of one day competing in the Olympics and owning my own stable. At the end of our conversation, instead of asking to be my sugar daddy as I would have expected, he gave me a $50 bill and told me that I was too intelligent and ambitious to be a Hooters Girl. That was the last night I worked at Hooters, I found a waiting job at a Mexican restaurant the next week.