NEW WAITERS.

Sun (Christchurch), Volume VI, Issue 1578, 5 March 1919, Page 8

NEW WAITERS.

EXIT FRITZ FROM LONDON'S HOTELS.

Although one hears of bank managers who on joining the Army were put to scrub Hoors or to do some other unsuitable work, there are many men who, while engaged on military service, have picked up a trade which may prove useful to them when they finally forsake khaki. "Hundreds of men in the lower categories have been trained as cooks and waiters," a garrison messing officer writes in a recent exchange. "Every officers' mess had its mess orderlies—or did have until the W.A.A.C's came into the business —and many of the men attained a high state of efficiency. The period of training was often an anxious time. I remember being with a regiment recruited mainly from a seaport town, where nearly all the mess waiters were ex-si ewards on big passenger liners.

"The mess was rightly noted for the excellence of its service, but a time came when men were urgently needed at the front, and as these mess orderlies were stout and lusty fellows, they were combed out and sent on draft. The regiment had to fill their places as best it could, and the initial effort was not encouraging. Lack of experience bred nervousness, and the first bit of trouble that cniue along was when a new orderly emptied a poached egg in the 'c.o's' lap instead of putting it on the table. But we trained the men in time, and they became first-class waiters. Many of them will probably carry on with that kind of work when they get back to 'eivies' again." . It is quite likely that ex-service men with "messing" experience will look out for jobs as hotel or restaurant waiters when they are demobilised. "Fritz" and his friends who used to hold sway in this kind of work went home to tho Fatherland when the war broke out, or have been well taken care of since. Hotel proprietors are not at all anxious to have them back, and it is doubtful if the British public would tolerate them if they came.