I might be a bad feminist.

Just try to stop me from drinking rosé in bed and blogging after a 15-hour hospitality shift.  I dare you.

I've decided that in order to make myself feel less shit about working terrible jobs only to toe the poverty line whilst indulging in my vague artistic pursuits, I should probably try to turn my experiences into witty anecdotes.  I almost just wrote 'antidotes' by accident, but I think that would also capture the sentiment.

Did I mention 15-hour shift?  And rosé?  Delirium is forgivable -- and expected -- at this point.

One of the funny jobs I do here in London is to prepare and serve tea and coffee to businesspeople (Is that really one word? Spell check is not questioning my decision.) in their fancy office buildings.  I don't know if this job exists in America.  In England, though, they employ people (like me) to hang out in a kitchen, brew a million pots of coffee, fill tea boxes and sugar bowls, and set up cups, saucers and teaspoons in meeting rooms for ever-thirsty corporate types who casually throw around offers of £10 million, because who doesn't have that kind of pocket change?

So that's one of the things I do.  Sometimes I also wear high heels and serve champagne on the second level of a double-decker bus, but that's a story for another day.

In the midst of maybe hour 6 or 9 today -- it's hard to pinpoint -- I suddenly had this funny realisation about my status as a corporate hospitality assistant and a lady in an office of mostly unmarried (or divorced), financially successful, middle-aged men.  I walk a status tightrope strung between sex and class.  Example:

When I arrive at a door with a trolley full of tea and coffee paraphernalia, and a businessman approaches the door from the other side, there's always this awkward moment of deciding who should hold the door for whom.  As the lowly employee, I should probably do the brunt of any labour (including door-holding), but these gents see me -- a lady -- and say 'After you,' or 'Ladies first.'

And do you know what?  I go for it.  Because I have a shit job, and I probably make as much in a day as they do in seven minutes, so if they want to hold doors or elevators or dirty cups for me, I'll take it.  So there you have it, in the small battles of the greater class war, being a lady wins.  I win.  I can get away with saying 'Hiya' instead of 'Good evening, Sir,' because I smile.  My thin veneer cheerfulness is invincible because it's endearing.  If I were a dude, they'd probably all see right through me and complain about my attitude, but I'm not, so I get away with it.

That is enough delirious musing for one night.  I hope never to work from 8:30 a.m. to 11:30 p.m. again.  Even if I did wink and flirt my way through it.