RULE #20: Never bring a book to work. It makes the customers think you’re better than them. It doesn’t matter what you’re reading. It doesn’t matter if you’ve finished cleaning all the glasses and it’s a quiet Monday afternoon — leave the book at home. You’ll know this when your father comes behind the bar looking pissed and tells you to come into his office.
When you go into his office, not sure what your offense is yet but ready for a shit storm, remember not to talk back. When he points accusingly at the book under your arm and asks if you think that because you were educated up North, you’re better than Smitty and Captain John, who are sitting at the bar waiting for some decent service, show no reaction. Don’t even shrug. Because if you point out that you probably wouldn’t be working in this bar had you actually attended college, that vein in his neck will start quivering, and he’ll call you a “self-righteous bitch — just like your mother.” Don’t think about how he left you and your mother when you were only one, and don’t bother crying either, because you both know that he doesn’t fall for that little-girl crap. Just go back out there and finish your shift.
