Stacey Duncan
My first boss, Stacey Duncan, helped shape my life when I was just a teenager, and he will always be a hero to me.
I came from a very dysfunctional family; growing up we lived on food stamps and whatever my parents didn’t drink up from our welfare checks. Both of my sisters got pregnant by the time they were seventeen. I was the first one in my family to graduate from high school, and I have Mr. Duncan to thank for that.
When I started my junior year, I wanted to have decent clothes to wear, like my friends did, so I got a part time job waiting tables in a restaurant. Because I was young and cute, the men who stopped in always flirted with me, and because I loved the attention and the tips, I flirted right back.
I quickly learned that the more I flirted, the bigger the tips got. If they made a suggestive comment, I came right back at them with one of my own, and usually tried to outdo them. Before too long, my stations were always filled with guys, and the laughter and raunchy jokes were always going on.
I had quickly developed a major crush on my new boss, who was handsome, friendly, and seemed rich to a poor girl like me. Mr. Duncan was probably in his early 30s and he owned two restaurants, drove a sports car, and dressed well. He was also married and had a beautiful wife. Still, a girl can dream, can’t she?
One day I was in the kitchen talking to one of the other waitresses, and I said what a hunk Mr. Duncan was and made an off color comment about him, and her eyes got huge and her face turned bright red. I turned around and he was standing right there! He didn’t say anything, just went into his office. I was so embarrassed I just wanted to die.
That evening when we were closing up, Mr. Duncan asked me to step into his office. I was sure I was going to be fired. He told me to sit down, and said that we needed to have a talk.
“Cassie, you are a drop dead gorgeous girl,” he told me, “but you have a lot more going for you than that. You could have a very good future ahead of you, but you have to stop thinking and talking like a girl from the wrong side of the tracks. This isn’t a bar, it’s a restaurant. You need to start being a lady if you ever want to get anywhere in life. There are a lot of guys who’ll show you a good time for a while, but you need to hold out for one who will give you a future.”
“I just joke with them for the tips,” I told him, my eyes never leaving the floor.
“Cassie, if you don’t value yourself, nobody else ever will,” he told me. “You can joke with customers, and still be a lady. But when you crawl down in the gutter for a tip, you might as well stay there. And what’s even worse, when you crawl down in the gutter, you take a piece of my business and my reputation with you, because when you talk to one of my customers, you represent me.”
“So, am I fired?” I asked him.
“No, but I’ll be watching you,” he told me. “Let’s get past this and go on, okay?”
From then on, Mr. Duncan and I became close, but strictly in a business sense, and I worked for him for the next six years. I did clean up my act, and I learned that I could be friendly with my customers and still act like a lady, and the tips still came in.
And I always remembered what he told me about valuing myself. When I would get frustrated and wanted to just quit school, I remembered that if I wanted a future I needed to get an education. When some guy on a date wanted more than I was ready to give, I heard Mr. Duncan’s words in my head and stopped things right there.
Today I am married to a wonderful man and have two little girls, and my life is so far removed from the one I grew up in. I have the life I deserve, because Mr. Duncan convinced me that I did deserve more than a couple of fatherless babies and a welfare check.
Submitted by Cassandra Foyt
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