I mean, you would think that a supposedly or presumably well educated woman like her would at the very least, work as an accountant or clerk for a small company. Instead she settled on being a waitress, a check out girl and a few other minimum wage jobs.

I addressed this in another thread, but it's more appropriate here:

Sometimes people have to take these jobs to put food on the table.

In the late '80's, I was a teen in high school & did work part-time in a bar/restaurant; this was roughly around the time the Diane episodes were winding down on Cheers. And, what's interesting about Diane is that her educational level (though not her personality) reminded me quite a bit of some of the waitresses that worked in the IRL restaurant where I also worked. Though you would have thought that someone with an advanced degree wouldn't be working that type of job, the reality was that there was a recession at the time - and many of these people couldn't get jobs in their desired field of work. So, I felt that the Diane character somewhat reflected the reality that I myself was seeing at the time.

Also, it takes more than a good education to get a job. Diane's personality was off-putting to a lot of people (obviously), so she may have gone on job interviews & turned off the interviewer re: her pretentiousness & entitlement - and/or just put her foot in her mouth when responding to questions. I've known plenty of "academics" who don't have any social skills & have their heads up their a$$es most of the time.

I.e., I find that Diane working as a waitress @ Cheers to be extremely believable.

You guys are severely over thinking this. She only took and kept the job because she fell for Sam. Duh. :cool:

It was literally the premise of the show for cryin' out loud.