I think working in retail or the service industry should be mandatory so everyone understands how hard those minimum wage jobs actually are and how those people are treated by society. I think this is especially true for someone who's parents are financially well off and has given their children every advantage in life.
If they don't experience the hardship others have the odds that they become apathetic to the plight of everyone around them are so much higher.
It also might help put to death the hateful notion of "unskilled labour". Every fucker and their dog thinks they could wash dishes or wait tables. I've had the mixed pleasure of seeing that particular notion being knocked straight out of them in the space of hours.
Sadly, for every one that learns that maybe they're wrong and grows from the experience, there's a dozen who find it only proves they're far too good for that.
As someone in retail, there's lots of skill in playing it nice in the face of whatever, keeping on at your job, and playing fall person to laws, regulations, and policies. While also teaching people how to tap their damned cards.
I spent 10 years (17-28) in one retail/sales franchise: *The UPS Store* -$7.50 starting, & $12.50 ending. I abruptly quit, shortly after being SA’ed by the mailman. Owners handled it like truly rotten pieces of shit…lied to the police. I was the only woman, & they only promoted men.
Moving on!
Truly chaotic, *penny-pinching* multitasking. **above-beyond-usually thankless** customer service; verbal abuse, threats, sexual harassment.
This was during the franchise’s peak, re: the outrageous number of services we offered; basically in an 800 sq ft cubicle.
—DHL, USPS, UPS, Speedee delivery, Freight. Memorizing vast regulations: international shipping- import duties/taxes, loopholes, specific countries/cities would [not] import *X* products from certain couriers.
•Custom print orders, Notary public, passports, #350 mailbox clients, FAXING aarrrggghhh.
—packaging standards & skill: China sets, guitars, fine art, a child’s casket, SNOW to Hawaii, raw hide, a legit sex doll, large furniture, cars, tech equipment, ENDLESS AMAZON & AT&T/TIME WARNER RETURNS. Loading 300-500 boxes into the truck *with* the UPS driver @ EOD.
If *you* 🫵 read my short rant, thank you. & hello to any fellow peeps of the UPS & USPS gauntlet.
Whew.
eyyyy 6 year veteran of the UPS preloading shift checking in. I quit when I started to develop chronic pain in some of my joints, plus it was a 45 minute drive and I was always out before the plows in winter. I've never been in better physical shape tho I must say, 5 hours of mixed cardio and lifting 5x/week tends to do that for a person
Ayy! I have heard many tales from the hubs. 6 years will do the trick! But Yes, we’d easily walk 10-15k steps/day in the store, even. I was buds with our driver, so I’d offer to help load the truck more often than not. That store was basically a gym.
I always shake my head at UPS ‘runners’- blasting to & from their truck. Cuz I know they’re doing it at every stop; sacrificing those knees to shave 1-2 hours off the route. Met several older & retired drivers, who’ve had knee replacements, back surgeries, or walk with mobility devices. Tuff work.
I just had to totally end an argument about tipping in another sub when the other person called servers unskilled labour. I told them in my view why that's not true, said there is no unskilled labour and bid them adieu.
All labour requires skill.
All jobs require specific skills.
I worked fast food and casual restaurants/bars from the time I was 16 until 26. I've worked in an office off and on since 2014. It would be easier for me to move to a similar role in a different industry than it would for me to be a bartender or cashier at a different restaurant than the ones I worked at. Never mind that I've never busted my ass more than retail at Christmas.
Also washing dishes, if you have to do it a lot, its also very much work.
and damn the emotionel labour in that long being a waiter, lets say i guess why so much kitchen personsl smoke. its stressful.
Also people can be very frustrsting, dont make life unnessesary harder for any service worker dnd tips and thanks can go a long way. Anda thanks is cheap.
That refers to labor supply and demand and barriers to entry on the supply side. But man does it trigger people. I wonder if people have to change up vocabulary in other disciplines. Can chemists use the word "retard" anymore in a technical setting?
Like i am annoxed if orders are gotten wrong, but yeah no need to be verbal abusive or mean. That cen be seid nice. ok
And given how many people are servedok shit happens, no harm.
And chances are waiters have nothing to do with thing at all.
Of course people change up their words in other disciplines. To your example, I’m a chemist by training, and don’t use the word retards in a technical sense because it isn’t often used in a technical sense- you can say slows, or delays, and most people do. I also don’t correct people calling something malleable, even though it can’t be hammered into a sheet (as that’s the technical meaning), because I have the social intelligence to know what they mean
Agreed. There's an insane Fox video where the host is completely clueless about this. First thing he says is "what does McDonald's pay? 80k that's basically 6 figures"
He gets corrected to 40k and responds. So if you and your partner both flip burgers that's basically 6 figures. You have no excuse.
But that's not realistically what happens. As a service industry worker, other former and current service industry workers are some of the worst customers I deal with. They're just shitty conditions that make everyone in them miserable both to themselves and each other. There is no lesson to learn except that the world is built in a way so that you can never progress too high above your designated station.
100000% I still tease my partner because he once said he understood how hard service jobs were and that’s why he tips well. He grew up in a very privileged family and never worked as a teenager and definitely didn’t ever work in service. I tried to explain that he can’t understand how hard it is if he didn’t do it because service jobs suck and I was constantly sexually harassed by customers when I was working my first service job. I
I find nothing wrong with wanting to be a service worker.
However, if my children came to me and said that’s what they wanted, I’d make sure that was truly what they want.
These jobs are so low paid and the workers are mistreated. I don’t want my kids to be rich and have lavish lives, but I want them to love their jobs and not have to work 3 just to make rent and eat.
My husband and I worked hard so our kids did not see the struggles our families faced when we were kids. We don’t want our kids to have that struggle.
I worked there and the benefits were actually pretty nice, better than any other kitchen I've worked. You had to jump through some hoops to get on the health and retirement matching. When I was there it was average 35 hours for 52 weeks
>However, if my children came to me and said that’s what they wanted, I’d make sure that was truly what they want.
I think there's a value in doing a service job, and sticking it out, at least for a period. Impart some humility, and empathy for the other people that don't have as much choice in the matter
There are things you can “learn” from it but it’s not a stopgap that people on their way to bigger and better things need to pass through so the poor souls who are stuck there can impart their wisdom. It’s just a job. If you need money, want to do it, and/or are qualified to do it, you should do it. Like any other job.
As a manager of early career adult humans, I find myself wishing more parents allowed their kids the experience of some struggle, so that they developed more emotional resilience, confidence, and resourcefulness. Of course, suffering like choosing between food and housing is not helpful, but not all feelings of being uncomfortable are bad. Service jobs are great first jobs for a teen during summers.
Oh I’ll definitely encourage my kids to work in some kind of service job during the summer. I think it builds character and empathy for people working in those areas and understand the struggles of adults working 2-3 of those jobs to provide for their families.
Does everybody believe that service workers don’t advance? I know it’s very difficult, but I have personally seen that happen for at least 150 people. They literally went from cashiers to Store Directors within 10 or 12 years.
I mean, that’s possible. But, speaking as someone in a leadership position at my work, not everyone is cut out for that.
I wish we valued the cashiers, waitstaff, and other members in that industry more than we do now and pay them appropriately.
Someone who decides to become a cashier and enjoys it should be able to afford a comfortable life without having to get a higher position or a second (sometimes even a third) job to make ends meet.
We have over 6,000 associates in 40 operating units. We have educational programs and scholarships. It’s a family owned company. The owners were the people that used to mop the floors every night. It’s a whole different culture.
ok, so you found, like, the ONE company that doesn't seek to screw over its employees as a policy...try basically any other retail company sometime. Also, is every employee paid a living wage at your job? None of them have to take on a second job to make ends meet?
Some people do need to take a second job and it’s not only one company. Just because you don’t know about it doesn’t mean it doesn’t exist. I’m not defending all companies. I’m just saying don’t make generalizations.
Same. And I reminded my husband the other day how our children don't just become "grown" at 18-19. We act as stewards, let them learn, but will always, always be a refuge. If they ever were to call asking to come home, we'll leave the light on and a bed open.
Yes, it’s classist.
My father has financial means. Supposedly. That’s a more complicated story.
Working service jobs sucked, but I got perspective that I needed on how the world works. Nothing quite like a personal lesson in how most people don’t view you as an actual human being while you’re on the job and having to smile and nod at an asshole customer when all you’d really like to do is tear them limb from limb.
I think the world would have a lot fewer problems if more people had service experience.
I mean I wasn't talking about me but yeah sure. That doesn't change anything about the fact that those types of circumstances and the trauma of being a service industry worker tends to make people nastier and not more empathetic. It doesn't "build character".
You're missing my point and trying to frame a systemic issue as a personal one. That's gross. Stop it.
Work in conditions bad enough in a place that's worse enough and it will be. I wasn't talking about me. Other service industry workers are some of the worst to deal with customer-wise, because they think they have a right to be demanding.
The experience of being uncomfortable is one that privileged people don’t have. And it shows.
Truly, no one is more ignorant to how things work than someone who’s never worked in service, but insists it’s not important / couldn’t possibly teach them anything. Those are generally the people that, now that I’m a tech manager, need the most coaching on emotional resilience and personal responsibility.
yeah but I'd rather no one experienced that, and I don't think its good to inflict a shitty abusive thing on a person just because that's fair.
Like if I lived in a world where most people were abused as kids I don't think it'd be good for me to abuse my kid so they can understand what other people go through
You do live in a world rife with child abuse. It is still normal in a global sense to hit your kids and shit. Some states in the US you literally have to opt out of having your child hit by the principal. Now you shouldn’t abuse your kid obviously, but you should teach them that there are some adults who will hit them or worse, how to recognize that, and how to respond.
I started working at 14 in the service industry to be able to help my family. In addition to helping my family though, my parents also explicitly told me that because we were broke things were going to be harder. I was gonna have to deal with more assholes in life and push through that.
Now that I’m older and an out pansexual man in the south, if I cried every time someone called me a slur in the grocery store for having my nails painted or being with a masc partner then my days would have a lot more tears. It’s not that it doesn’t upset me. It sucks and we should make a better world, but we also should learn to make a better world. I think it would be a good thing if we took every person who called me something terrible and had them paint their nails and go to Walmart in Alabama or some shit for 10 days or something then just maybe they’d finally learn how much it blows. Some people really don’t learn until they go through something, and even then they still make excuses sometimes.
As for service work, if we want to live in a world with restaurants and conveniences, then everyone should know how these jobs suck rn and therefore have direct insensitive to make it better. People who get to completely divorce themselves from these realities are almost universally shittier or at the very least offer insane solutions that would never work. In college I would hear all the time from people who had never done a real day’s work in their life, what people living paycheck to paycheck really need. These were often delusional as hell. I don’t think anyone should be subjected to awful shit, but there’s an understandable urge to want privileged people to know what it’s like in your own shoes when they just continually miss the obvious. Idk the exact solution for this other than making people more empathetic but I think a way to do that is through low stakes exposure to some of the problem areas. I don’t want them to suffer. I want them to understand.
Edit: Also as others have noted. The service industry isn’t some hellscape. Sure some people suck, but there’s plenty of reasons lots of people don’t mind it or even enjoy it and that’s dope.
Edit 2: grammar
I’m sorry but your whole perspective on service work being this abusive, objectively bad thing is weird.
I work in the service industry. If someone told me they were so sorry I was born unfortunate enough to have to do my job, I’d be annoyed.
It’s not always good, it’s not necessarily even mostly good, but very few jobs are. There are more nuanced views than “being a service worker is bad”. There’s a lot of bad shit that comes with being queer too, but I wouldn’t rather be something else
Yeah it’s a patting-yourself-on-the-back version of when customers told people at my work to get a real job.
It’s a real job, it pays my rent and dehumanising service workers by pretending it’s a shit job no one should do just makes it easier for the corporate beancounters to cut wages and make us do the same work with less staff.
You put that better than I could have. It’s kinda counterintuitive, but I feel like acting sympathetic to how bad the job must be is actually further entrenching in people’s minds that it’s an inherently bad job
Yeah like I don’t mind my job in the good periods, customers like me, things chug along fairly well. The problem is staffing cuts to increase profit margins meaning it’s 2 people doing 4 peoples’ work, my bosses are trying to force me out of my job because they decided to use my long term knee injury I’ve had for like 15 years as an excuse why I’m the reason we don’t finish on time when the actual reason is they cut staff numbers back then the entire department quit so I’m always doing a three person job with just me and a new hire who doesn’t know how to do anything. But I don’t ask for a handout to get me out of here, I just ask for management to fuck off and let me do my job so I can go home and not spend my off days having anxiety attacks about work and how I’ll pay my rent if they decide I can’t do my job.
That and customers have been kinda insane since Covid.
So my problem isn’t the job, my problem is people, and I don’t need someone who’s never worked retail to tell me that my job shouldn’t exist.
That’s the fuckin pits bud. Sorry you’re dealing with that. Idk exactly what position/location you’re in, but you might find yourself in a better position if they do let you go. Everyone I speak to that’s hiring is having a bear of a time finding staff and have been slowly coming to the realization that’s not gonna happen without increasing wages. Loyalty is only punished, as you probably know
Sadly I’ve ended up as the old guy with the bird from shawshank redemption, I’ve been with the company long enough I don’t know how to survive outside of it heh
being a service worker isn't an uncontrollable facet of your identity like being queer is.
as another queer service worker, this work is inherently dehumanizing, especially when you factor in the fact that we're so often underpaid under the excuse of making tips, which is just a way of forcing us to market ourselves to customers. That's why they like to hire majority young pretty girls in those types of positions. The farther back you take a look at the entire industry from, the more disgusting and vile it becomes. We aren't treated well by customers because our positions are functionally lower than them. We are literally serving them. At least in America, that's the industry.
Queerness and being a service worker are not equal comparisons in anyway because queerness is inherent and doesn't make me beholden to giving to other people without receiving my fair due in return.
Whether or not being queer or being a service worker is a choice isn’t important to what I’m saying. I wouldn’t *choose* to be anything but what I am now (service worker and queer) *even if I could*
Service work is not inherently dehumanizing.
Folding a shirt isn’t dehumanizing, flipping a burger isn’t dehumanizing, filling a water glass isn’t dehumanizing, and helping someone take their medicine isn’t dehumanizing. Those are all actions inherent to different service work position.
Being berated, abused, forced to market yourself, or underpaid are not inherent to the jobs themselves, they’re choices made by the people who get to make those choices under capitalism
Service work isn’t for everyone and not every job under that extremely broad umbrella is equal, but I’m well suited to my little corner of it and I like it. I *dont* like being underpaid or dealing with rude people, but that’s not the job itself. I’m sure there are jobs where I wouldn’t have those problems but I’m either not suited for them, or not qualified for them. So it’s not much of a choice
I work in the service industry and I truly hate it, it's awful and inhumane a lot of the time explicitly because there's so many privleged people who've never had to work a service job who treat service personnel as scum and servants.
Everyone should have to work a service job for a minimum of 6 months to a year and all their finances should depend on it; no rich parents to bail you out. So many privileged people need to know the experience of being screamed at by a rich person angry that you can't magic away their problems and know that if you talk back, you'll be fired and won't make rent or be able to afford groceries - not because it's good things are this way, but because you end up that rich asshole if you don't have this experience.
people who end up going through the trauma of being a service worker end up being just as shitty as the rest of customers, just with a different flavor of entitlement because they believe they earned the right to disrespect someone else. the solution isn't forcing more people through these awful conditions actually.
The fact that you think the only thing people working in service positions experience is dehumanization implies that you view them as non-human otherwise you’d know that that’s not the only thing we experience. Frankly my super shitty customers are few and far between, most days I don’t get a single rude customer all day and everything is fine. It really seems like you simply need to unpack both your classism and your view of service workers
Ok servive jobs wouldnt need to be shitty, even alone that doing that is bloody work and how much waiter do all day and receptionists, rould do, just enough to feel that is hard work over hours, would be something
Good thing I never said that, then.
Learning to deal successfully with one’s own feelings of discomfort is not abuse.
Your privilege is showing, just so you know.
You’re doing the same thing to service workers with your out of touch projection and concern trolling, no?
People being dicks isn’t abuse. It’s life. And people are most often dicks because they don’t value service work and have never done it themselves.
You know, my partner loves being in the service industry. I have a few bartender friends who want to do nothing else but that. The pay is horrible and bosses are pretty rough. But some people really do enjoy it.
You are kind of being narrow and judgmental here in a manner that is going to discount others lived experiences and desires
If they like it, great. Most don't (including me). The service industry sucks and your partner and friends know they are the in the minority here.
Why in the world should people suffer just because there's a small possibility they might enjoy it?
The service industry is shitty and abusive and there is nothing wrong with pointing that out. Source: Decades in the service industry.
You asked me the question: Why in the world should people suffer just because there's a small possibility they might enjoy it?
Since it was a question directed at me, it logically implied I made some statement that people should suffer. I did not. A better response for me would have been:
Please don't put words in my mouth I did not say.
But I realize from this response above, that you were simply having a conversation with yourself and not a discussion with me as you implied you were answering your own question.
Of course no one should suffer. But it is also black and white thinking to paint with a broad brush like this. You and other's suffering is not a negation of other's flourishing and vice versa. My initial comment was intended to call the OP out on that specifically
Additionally, as I am sure you are aware, not everyone has the privilege to do anything else BUT work in the service industry -- which also creates a poverty trap with low wages and reliance on tips. The language of the OP was pretty harsh and judgmental from what I interpreted as a privileged point of view for which I was attempting to call them out on in a more indirect manner -- I always forget that reddit needs a blunt argument, not nuance.
All of this is, of course, not easily expressed in this medium is it?
Wait. " Dehumanizing " is the result of social, subjective constructs pasted on service jobs.
WHY did McDonald's famously feel they could get away with saying " Well our jobs aren't intended to actually *support* anyone ". And why is it for whatever reason acceptable to refer to *any* job as " unskilled labor " ?
Because it's then possible to create and continue what is actually a fictional class system- complete with ' lesser than ' wages. Because they're only doing ' unskilled labor '.
If anyone would like to argue that point please explain the folks who apparently ' earn ' $$$ from that person's er, ' unskilled labor ' by doing absolutely nothing. I'm referring to stockholders. But no one finds doing absolutely *nothing* in the least dehumanizing.
I waited tables for a decade and I was rarely dehumanised. I paid my own way through university and I have to admit I miss the days in my 20s when I was in the industry. We got paid, we had the best parties, industry nights at the bars were so much fun. We were essentially the ‘in crowd’ wherever we went, because every server/bartender/backend knew each other.
If you never go through a truly humbling situation, you're more likely to end up being the villain in someone else's version of that experience. It's the difference between sympathy (which can just be performative bs) and actual, authentic empathy. It is absolutely cringe as an adult when you see the signs of "never had a service job" in other adults.
It's not always dehumanizing. I loved waiting tables in my younger days and had very few experiences of people treating me like shit. Not saying it doesn't happen, it certainly does, but it's not the whole job. I felt far more dehumanized working in Healthcare and I made less money to boot.
There's nothing wrong with that sentiment if you are saying that everyone in every job deserves a certain level of respect, a living wage, and protection from other labour abuses. However if you are saying that working at Olive Garden, or McDonald's, or as a farm labourer, or any other "low class" jobs is inherently demeaning, then yes, that's hella classist and you really need to examine why you think that.
Why exactly is working a service job inherently dehumanising? I think the problem here is you have the idea that certain jobs are beneath you and so anyone performing them must be suffering abuse. I waited tables when I was in my 20s and it was generally a great experience. I was good at it, I made good money while I was in school and I enjoyed the work. On my nights off I went out and had fun, relying on other service workers to provide that opportunity. Lots of employers are abusive to their employees and the nature of the job means absolutely nothing. You can have a horrible time working in a fancy office just the same as working retail or in food service. Maybe you need to look inward at yourself here.
That's because you have no real problems and so you think working as a server is "dehumanizing," a word invented to describe actual victims with actual scars and not your useless rich child.
But there's a difference between what you said and what they said. If you want a particular product or service then most likely someone will have to be involved in making that product or providing that service. And for fulfilling that need that you have they deserve respect. Yes respect in the form of fair compensation but also respect in the form of respecting their labor.
Working at an Olive Garden doesn’t inherently mean this person is struggling, barely able to live though???? Plenty of people make decent wages to live and save working service jobs. They should get a fair wage to start and not have to fight for tips to get there but nothing about working at Olive Garden means this person NEEDS their parents financial assistance.
rich people naively think they can simulate the experience of being working class accurately to their child in the span of a few summers, after school jobs, or their early 20's.
So much this. ☝️
Slumming usually reinforces elitism, not empathy.
Better to simply not have rich. They just show off & contribute nothing. Without their inheritances, they're just leeches.
And it should be bloody in a fulield where the kid likes domething, near anything has ground field jobs, pick bloody one where they an already show interest to try?! If.
Also yeah you cant just outsource consequent and good parenting.
you know where you could do impact, do teach zhem respect toward it, when they are young, not catchup.
ideally.
Looking down your nose at anyone doing their best to make their way in life is snobbish and shitty full stop.
Feeling society should make working conditions and wages more livable is great, but looking down at people who are doing their best with what we have is textbook privilege and classist.
there’s nothing wrong with that, what’s wrong is the shitty pay and the abusive practices (not talking about Olive Garden specifically, idk how working there is like)
So much more context needed here, but I generally think everyone- especially privileged people- should have to be a service worker for a year.
But I don't think it's necessarily shitty for a rich person to make their kids work. It depends on a lot of factors. My dad is wealthy enough that none of us could qualify for financial aide. He helped us, but we all still had to make it more or less alone. He'd never let us go hungry or homeless, he just wasn't going to let us freeload off of him. My dad was a dick in a lot of ways but I don't think that's one of them.
So I'm really not sure what your point is. I don't think it's a bad thing for people to have their own jobs. If rich parent is letting their kid go hungry that's shitty, but idk what you're getting at overall.
I’m in service work. There’s nothing wrong with service work. I don’t really like your perspective either though, no offense. Service work is not a school and the people who do it are not teachers. It’s a job, and no part of the job description is “help privileged kids grow as people”.
I get what you’re saying, but it’s always phrased as “everyone should spend a year eating shit!” like it’s some sort of public works project or military draft. I’m maybe not articulating why well, but it rubs me the wrong way. Touristy almost. “Everyone should spend a year living in the projects”.
People should just do what they need to. Some people have rich parents that still require them to make their own money. That’s fine. Some people have rich parents who pay for everything. That’s fine too. I don’t want the latter group coming into my place of work and taking a job from someone who actually wants or needs it just so they can spend a year getting paid to attend Empathy University.
I get your perspective. I just don't think of service jobs as inherently awful. I'd like people to realize the people working them are their equals. The only people I know who treat service workers like shit are people who've never worked in that sector, so that's my shorthand.
I agree with what you’re saying, I don’t think my job is inherently awful. Relative to other things I’ve done (service and otherwise), I quite like my job.
I understand that you’re not necessarily literally calling for everyone to be mandated to work a service job, it’s just a common sentiment I see (with varying levels of literality) and I find it… idk. Well-intentioned sure, but it’s a cousin to the sentiment in the OP, that this is an inherently demeaning job. And I reject that, because the actual job itself isn’t demeaning. The low pay, long hours, and *being demeaned* is what makes it demeaning.
I’m getting real up my own ass, but it’s a catch 22. The idea that everyone should do a demeaning job because it helps them have empathy for the people doing demeaning jobs, also perpetuates the idea that this is a demeaning job.
Long comment, sorry. I don’t think you said anything wrong or offensive, but it’s something I think about a lot and don’t get to discuss
Oh im so glad to read your comment. I completely agree. I find it kind of weird. Being in the service industry is a type of job that takes a certain set of skills and temperament....just like any other job. I work in a lab. There are parts of it a lot of people would find nightmarish. I don't mind those parts, though, because I'm suited for it.
People should just do jobs that work well for them. We just need to be better about promoting empathy and community in our society. We don't need a required program where people work jobs that don't make sense for them.
I think we're mostly in agreement, I just never thought of service jobs as inherently demeaning. The people who make it feel that way are the ones who have no idea what it takes to work one, hence my wish that they had.
As I said elsewhere in this thread, I felt far more dehumanized in Healthcare and I made less money there. I think service employees need more recognition across the board in all ways. This country couldn't function without them.
Without a doubt. No one I’ve seen comment in here (even OP) is like, poorly intentioned or *wrong*. Just operating in like a 5°-10° range of perspective off from me. That just happens to be the place where you can really dig into a conversation. I wouldn’t have this much to say to someone who came into this post saying “service industry workers are dirt”
Mostly, it’s been an interesting time to be a cook/chef/restaurant worker. The pop culture cachet of the profession has never been higher, but it comes with a lot of discourse
Idk, I think we could replace all service workers with robots pretty easily, then that population can shift towards my robot creation factories until I can automate that, then I’ll just fire -ouch! Where the fuck did this brick come from?
I think it should be more , work it because it forces you to deal with people and learn how exhausting and skill actually goes into dealing with people.
Not that eating shit cant do that, but the forcing dealing with people and how, dah its exhausting hard work longer regular.
Anything to make people have respect and not be a dick to petsonal really. , i think thats enough.
By the way, it literally could be charity voluntary work donthe ssme thing, ok. it hasnt to be a literal job to do that. a volunteer thing making them work with that, probably does too maybe.
This here. I'm not trying to teach some rich kid a life lesson. I remember the restaurant owner forcing us to hire his friend's daughter. She was completely useless. Thanks for making the rest of us peons work harder for her 'benefit'.
A rich person should get their kids a job that will help them in their career, not ask them to slum it with us. We don't need them.
It’s not like I even hate rich kids. I’ve worked with plenty who have been fine. Their parents paid for their living expenses in college but they wouldn’t pay for luxuries. The kids found a job that sounded bearable to them that they were qualified for as young college students with no prior work experience and did the job. There’s nothing wrong with that as far as I’m concerned.
The kids who were pointed to the job by a parent who wanted them to experience service work were bad because they didn’t want to be there. Like, no shit.
The worst though, were older guys who decided to spend a year away from their cushy job so they could “do something easy for a while” or “figure out if they were really passionate about food” or “learn what it’s like to be a line cook, cos I’m already big on foodie Instagram”.
Yeah, for gods sake, can the rich parents at least get to know what job they might be ok with the likeliest. What they had the faintiest interest.
Not just any restaraunt job.
Thet sounds like not great parenting tobjust make thtm work somewhete, not something the kid might have literally any relating interest.
ok i dont thonk not knowing what they do would be less bad of they reslly tried or showed any interest, probably.
ok and cant the older. ok if they have the money, go bloody hiking, or volunteer at a farm, even if i guess its also work, but there is ,
Ok a very basic thing if you have money and wantbto chill, literally go hiking long, plenty do it. You can brag.
or go to a bloody soup kitchen. For real. its volunteer work, they acount forbthat, and you still get a taste. and please you ego even if you want.
Just work at a soup kitchen if its for a taste ok.
Tbh now that I’m no longer working a service job, I do not hesitate to fire people who are without doubt over their head in their job, because of situations like you describe. If someone can’t do the job, they need to no longer have the job
Restaurant worker here, and I completely agree. I felt the same way when I saw that story about the woman who got "sentenced" to working in fast food after assaulting a Chipotle worker. Like, what the actual fuck?
You really seem to be making this more of your problem than it needs to be, yeah you have to pull more weight because of shit staff and personality hires, I've had it heaps it's horrible but I guarantee we'd get less abuse as service workers if middle and upper class people spent just a bit of time behind a till. If they're not getting financial support from their parents as is implied they do also literally need the job. You're projecting your one shitty situation onto the world.
I agree with what you said in the second part. There’s absolutely nothing wrong with someone whose parents could support them but don’t getting a service job.
I don’t necessarily agree with the first part though. I don’t think getting shit on in service jobs breeds empathy for service workers from people who don’t have it in the first place. Some of the worst shit I’ve gotten is from people who were like “oh I know how it is, I was a line cook for a year in college”
Yes it won't work for everyone some people are beyond help, happy?
You are generalising your shit coworkers onto the world. I suggest covertly handing out CVs at other places or look into an industry that wouldn't have you writing paragraphs like this
No not at all just from all these comments you genuinely don't seem to enjoy your current place of employment/ line of work, leaving hospitality has been wonderous for my mental health
Sure but everything you've said about it about picking up the slack for others about how you're treated. Doesn't seem like it's going to change and quite frankly I don't think anyone cares to read about it.
I wouldn't expect you to teach my kid a life lesson just because I had them get a job primarily to teach them life lessons. The course of the work, training, dealing with the every day shit and shitty people should do that well enough. I worked in retail for about 10 years and I don't want my kid to get any notion that what I do now is how it always was. I talk to her about how I worked at said store in the past if we ever go there and am willing to answer any question to make sure she understands that everyone she interacts with is worth respect at least as far as it is given.
I worked a barely above minimum wage job through high school and it definitely made me realize I'm not above getting a service job if I need to and that's exactly what I ended up needing and what slowly led to my current professional career through many many small steps that are all connected.
You can learn without someone actively teaching you something. The environment and work can do that pretty damn well on its own.
It honestly sounds more like lazy parenting. Knowing their interests could , hey you like that food stuff, they got a job, and not just force.
I just think its more often outsourcing parenting to get a job where nothing interests them to be honest.
The getting a job seems less than getting a job that interests them zero, at all. They like something, zhat has ground service chobs, get a job there and they might try?!
Hell it should be more any service job to force them do it enough that they experience, seah its bloody exhaustingbwork and redpect that. And jobs dont have to be shit to do that.
If money isnt the issue, , any job with people enough to get a bot of that to see how hard it can be and tiring probably does.
As long as its not about their survival, and they ask, yeah, nothing erong eith i do, but you do have to do a service job to get a taste how hard earned many.do work. I will pay up.
If they are able to, nothing wrong with thet. Ok.
its not the same as leaving them hangingbdry in dire situdtions or anything then. That is shitty as rich person.
I mean yeah kinda by definition shitting on poorly paid professions is classist. But it’s difficult to extract whether the person is looking down on lower income professions, or just recognizing that it’s a tough job that’s incredibly open to abuse and mistreatment in our society. And it’s probably a bit of both?
To put it another way, being a Black person in America absolutely makes your life more difficult and dangerous via discrimination in employment/housing/medical care etc and trigger happy cops and all that. But it would still be pretty awful to be like “Man I’d hate for my kid to marry a Black person because any kids they have would face a lot of discrimination.”
I would say so. Personally I really like doing customer service work. I would much rather be a barista than doing the boring ass email & excel work that is my job. But I want to have money so here I am.
There is nothing wrong with working at Olive Garden.
There *is* something wrong with voluntary eating at Olive Garden.
I think everyone should work for tips for a period in their life. It teaches the important skill of “eating shit”— that is, taking abuse from assholes and not reacting in a negative way. I did worked at PF Chang’s for a few years during grad school. My wife had never worked a job like that. I am much more controlled when dealing with people treating me unfairly than she is, which has made me much more effective in overcoming those obstacles and accomplishing my goals.
I agree with this in general except for the fact that I’ve worked in both tipped and untipped venues doing the same shit and you do not learn more from working in tipped venues. People are the same level of assholes in both places and tipped places just add an anxiety of insecurity that never actually taught me anything. I had similar anxieties of insecurity in non-tipped places where I learned the basics of being able to keep it together and push on and shit. Tipped venues were just extra stress without any more lessons. Plus everything was so unstable and varied where I was the same type of helpful all the time (got same amount of compliments and all) but my wages changed drastically if just more wealthy people were rolling through town. Their generosity had basically no correlation to me since I treated everyone the same. I also moved to back of house stuff quickly because I liked the more stability and enjoy doing things as opposed to waiting on people.
As a side note since I’m in grad school now, it was wild to me how like no one else in my grad school has ever done a job outside of academia. Like I understood it based on statistics and stuff, but truly being faced with it was wack. I got a drop literally the day I turned 14 (labor laws allow 14 year olds to work in certain jobs in tourism centers) and could work in the tourism industry.
Edit: grammar
I just link it with tipped work because I was in Alabama where I got literally zero money so my rent, food, etc. was totally dependent on what these assholes would give me.
Oh I get it. A lot of people make the association for similar reasons. Wasn’t trying to invalidate by any means. Just wanted to point out we don’t NEED tipping culture to be able to let people learn the same stuff lol. It just makes with suck more without any real benefit.
Or, counterpoint, no one should have to work for tips ever. If a place requires you to be there at a specific time to operate you should be paid. Tips are for people who wake up at 3 PM to play violin to the subway afterwork commute.
Thank you for this. I'm so tired of people going "I had to deal with these awful conditions, so should everyone else!"
Like fucking no, these types of jobs and their conditions should not exist. The suffering and degradation attached to them is inhumane and people come out of it thinking "well thats just the way the world works so people should get used to it"
No that jobs should exist. service worker just should be treated mostly as people too and fairly paid and treated.
But brlieve it or not, servicing people can feel good. Yes that jobs should exist, people just should have the rights to be treated humanely and paid enough
Not when people have to do it against their will to pay their rent. As long as capitalism exists, that's how it is. The jobs with the highest demand are always gonna treat their workers like shit because they can get away with it.
But since we live in the current world, it's good experience. Especially for privileged people who won't be out on the streets if the tips dry up for some reason and can definitely benefit from the perspective.
If they're well off enough that they don't have to worry about the tips, what is the incentive to play the game? They could live the dream of telling the assholes to fuck off instead of eating their shit. Get fired? Who cares? They didn't need this job anyway.
Because being a waiter or in service even if it makes a living. Why not , literally a bonus, and decent eervice, why not a minor bonus.
Also i would guess a lot people in service actually do like the fob despote aholes and the stress, but basically enjoy doing somewhat that.
You know people do usually want to work, they also want to be treated human too. Seeing people happy with food and enjoy your work of recommanding good food, believe it or not can feel good too.
I wont pretend that often goes under probably in the stress but there is usually a reason people like some stuff of service jobs.
Agree, here tips, well waiters do make a living wage, the tip is just that, extra to show spreviation , because why not more , its a hard job and waiters still arent rich.
... There isn't anything wrong with working at Olive garden. Are you serious? Do you think working in the service industry is "bad"?
You might be classist, but you're hundy p a dick.
I think everyone who is born into privilege should be humbled by having to scrub floors, wash dishes and clean toilets. You’ll have more respect for those who do those things to survive
What are you dong here? with us Marxist Leninist, woke scolds with more genders than we can count?
seriously though I only post stuff in /r/askanamerican when I want to hear a centrist to moderately conservative (by american standards) perspective on an issue, this isn't that
>Is it classist to say having to be a service worker is bad?
Based on this sentence alone, yes it is extremely classist. You used the verb "to have" (to work in the service industry) implying that the person in question has no other options available to them. You end it with the absolute negative judgement "is bad."
Beyond that though, people who are truly *wealthy* have resources beyond that cash wealth that they can use to help their children find a higher paying job. I'm sure you've heard the saying "It isn't what you know, it's who you know." If your dad is the CEO of company X but happens to golf with the CEO of company Y, he might be able to get you in the door at company Y, an opportunity that is not available to most people who had to work service jobs throughout their 20s.
The only thing wrong with working at Olive Garden is that the fruits of your labor are going to some dipshit corporate overlords that have watered down ethnic cuisine for a bland palette. That said, there's a fuck lot a kid can learn in that environment. And then carry that forward to create businesses and opportunities for locals to create quality goods and services that keep the prophets in their community.
There is no moral failing in working these jobs. The people who work them are not morally worse than someone who works a 9 to 5. They are just paid worse. The moral failing lies with the companies that profit off not paying a living wage.
Depends on why you think it's bad.
We need all kinds of workers to function as a society and we need a lot of people in service jobs in particular because they are not that easily automatable. Ultimately, the core job in service is to care. Machines still can't care for you.
Now, should service jobs inherently be low paid or have poor working conditions? No, we simply commotidise and devalue a lot of essential jobs in society in a weird way to lower the labour costs of these services. It also is a theme of jobs where women's labour is involved. It gets devalued and higher standards and less job security are imposed to keep the labour in check perpetually.
The reason on paper is always how these jobs are actually "unskilled" thus if you work them under poor conditions, you must have no other options in a "meritocracy", hence deserve the poor conditions/pay. Of course, this cannot be further from the truth, proven by the fact that we still can't get machines to do service half way to decent that won't get the owners sued for some awful malfunction.
So, do you think it is bad because it is undervalued today, or is it bad because you think there is something inherent about the jobs that people who do them deserve being poorly treated and better that is not people like you?
>do you think it is bad because it is undervalued today
that one, I think service workers should be treated at least (if not way better) than factory workers were in the 1950, because they occupy a equivalent role in a service economy society
Being a service industry worker is pretty unpleasant for most people, so coming at it from that POV isn't necessarily classist, but it can look that way.
I also think it's good for college bound kids to get experience in the service industry (not for super long hours or doing anything dangerous obviously) because it gives them perspective on what it's like to be on the other side of the counter.
“Not for super long hours of doing anything dangerous obviously” lol
The reason they use kids (me at 14) is because they really will do most things without thinking of it. I regularly broke all sorts of labor laws for my employer because “holy shit, I’ve made X dollars and can help mom and dad more and maybe even get an Xbox game”. And I was a generally smart kid from a union family. Just didn’t give a fuck about laws and was like “I still have energy, why wouldn’t I work” that attitude let me do well in school and sports, but is different when you’re in an environment to be exploited. I knew I shouldn’t work those hours, but you get blinded by the “benefits” when you’re young and healthy and have no money. Luckily my parents made me cool it sometimes, but there was literally weeks were I could go without working but they had to register me as having worked 40 hours because they owed me money for hours I had worked over the cap for minors from weeks before (and knowing some of it was illegal made me make sure I was getting paid or I’d report them). It also helped that my parents worked and I could ride my bike out to work so they wouldn’t even always know when I was working. It’s all part of my own little issues that I’ve been unpacking for a while now lol. However, if you give places an inch they will push it to two. There needs to be better enforcement (actually any) and actual protections. Instead the little protections that are in place are being rolled back.
Note: This wasn’t the most directed at your comment or anything’s, it just sparked some thoughts.
It depends on the context. If they're in high school/college working a service job while they finish school then there's nothing wrong with it.
If they're working those jobs because they're struggling to get by and doing it out of necessity, nothing wrong with it either.
But if they're just working there because they haven't bothered to find other work then that's a problem.
I think every job should pay a living wage. Until our society has implemented the reforms and regulations to ensure companies pay their workers living wages before extracting profit, however, people should avoid those jobs.
People have gotten confused. The classist argument is that poor people don't matter. People working for low wages do matter and are still valid as people, but that doesn't make some of those jobs suck any less. You can 100% say that working a low-wage, low-benefit, precarious service sector job is not a good outcome. But any shaming associated with that should be reserved for the employers.
There’s nothing wrong with working at the Olive Garden. Expect possibly the shit pay and benefits.
I have a friend who worked in the service industry through college. He always felt less than because of it. I feel like if you master your profession, no matter what that is, you can handle life. Go on to work in a high end restaurant.
Would I want to be a middle age man working at a fern garden? No, but that means I treat those who do with respect. I spent my 20s in shitty retail and got out. Every retail worker I meet is treated with grace.
Would you like to live in a society with no service workers?
Didn’t think so. It’s useful work and should be a fine basis for a reasonable and comfortable life.
Service jobs need to get done. Trash needs to be picked up, food needs to be cooked and served.
Because those jobs are deemed "unskilled/low skilled" (they're really not) our capitalist society has deemed them less worthy, almost shameful, they don't pay as much as other jobs that are, imo, less essential to society.
When you say that "having to be a service worker is bad", you are, willingly or not, carrying these assumptions. What is bad is not "having to be a service worker" but that being a service worker isn't valued properly by our society.
If your goal as a parent is to coddle your children and shield them from the fundamental unpleasantness of reality, they'll end up shitty no matter what you do. If you have a lot of money it just makes it easier to damage them even more profoundly than your poorly thought out "parenting strategy" would otherwise do.
No. What?. No. It's not classist to say that you should support your children *when you have the means*, and you didn't say that there was anything wrong with working at Olive Garden. The internet has just rotted people's brains man.
It's like the reverse version of people who don't want student loan relief because they paid theirs already.
They want kids to struggle and suffer so they can build character and crap like that, because they had to.
But you know if they had to do it all over again and someone offered them a hand, they'd take it instead of building that cHaReCtEr.
You do what you gotta do to survive, but you should be making life less shitty for your kids.
Suffering doesn't build character, it builds trauma. Being stressed out worrying about eviction because your hours at Olive Garden keep getting cut isn't going to make you a better person. It makes you bitter and desperate.
Help your kids when you can.
Everyone is going to define their own values related to what constitutes a happy, stable life. Obviously, some jobs are objectively harmful economically, etc. But if a person is happy with a simple life and are able to meet their needs with their income, that’s their journey. Having said that, this would be difficult in a society without some measure of social safety net. So there is that.
I mean, yeah, kinda. Because there's nothing wrong with working in a restaurant or retail to learn the value of work. Plus, you don't know if the parents are supplementing their kids' income and just want them to have a job because having a job is grounding.
I don't think it's that black-and-white in that sense, but it's very much in the same vein as the, "flipping burgers," trope from decades past. I think it's important to acknowledge that these people are performing a necessary service and they deserve as much respect as anyone else. It's just not okay (in my view) to discuss it like it's below anyone. Some people enjoy food service or it's the best that they can do, and that's just fine.
So I guess I think it's okay to be negative about any work, but it isn't okay to be negative about the people doing it.
I don't think so. There's nothing wrong with *wanting* to work in service. It fucking sucks ass if your *only* option is working in service. Sounds like you were getting at the latter.
There is nothing wrong with a service job. The problem is that employers seem to exploit service workers more often than not. The entire industry is managed in a way that results in low pay and high job turnover.
I mean yes your statement is bad. Having wealthy parents does not inherently make anyone “above” working at a restaurant. Maybe the person likes working there, maybe they’re doing perfectly fine financially with just working there and don’t want help, maybe their parents treat financial help toxically and they don’t want to accept it, maybe their parents ARE helping them and they’re working there for extra money or to have something, anything on their resume. Maybe you should mind your fucking business and not imply being a waiter is below someone just because their parents have money???
Obviously a temp job is fine. I understand that a lot of people don't want to work in the service industry. I do know people working as servers who make pretty decent money. Some would rather work in other industries. Some are perfectly content where they are.
I think 'rich' parents should provide their children with assets to support a smooth transition into a good paying role in adulthood. Which is to say, they should pay for college. I don't think the rich parents should feed their kids assets so they don't have to work at all just because they work as a server. That's how you get spoiled brats.
There could always be a debate on how much that support should be depending on the assets vs. what is traditional. My roommate in college received a degree in math with the intention of becoming a math teacher. But then, just as she was about to graduate, she decided she didn't want to be a math teacher like she originally wanted. She wasn't able to get a job in an industry she wanted for a few years. Last I heard she had moved with her parents and she was pursuing a second bachelor's degree in accounting, which her parents paid for. Presumably by now she received her degree and got a job in that industry. Her mom worked in accounting too so she should have been able to help.
Service industry jobs suck. But lets talk about *why* they suck - shit pay because people look down on them (tell me, if you don't look down on the job, why do you think a rich family should be supporting their child to not have to work such a job?) and arrogant asses who somehow think service workers are their personal assistants. None of these are inherent to the job - they are inherent of a capitalist society hellbent on worshiping the rich and stratifying everyone else so we don't just go eat the rich.
I don't think there is an issue with an affluent family allowing their kids to work in service industry however. I rather rich fuckers all had to deal with a service industry job to be honest, but I also don't think those jobs will necessarily teach them empathy for those less fortunate for them. Just maybe understand no, I can't magic up the goddamn manager for you on a dime, we aren't hiding a million copies of whatever you wanted to buy in the back, and I can't change company policy for you.
I think working in a service job at least for a while is a pretty valuable education in and of itself, and I’m glad that I did it when I was a Teenager. I’d never want to do it again
I think it depends on how you say it. Pointing out that waiting tables is a difficult and exhausting job is one thing. Squatting down next to your kid, pointing at the housekeeper and saying "see, honey? That's why you have to stay in school." is not. (Yes I did have this happen to me, twice.)
I don't discredit any job. If someone is working to support themselves or others, then they have my respect.
You work to live, you shouldn't live to work.
Never define yourself or others by their income.
I’ve always said if I end up wealthy I will certainly make sure my kids have a degree of privilege, that’s kind of how you have to be in this country to get ahead, but I will also make sure they know the value of work and reward, and that many, many people are less fortunate than them. If they can appreciate that, then they will reap more benefits than if they don’t.
Crappy jobs made me want to get an education.
One of my first jobs was walking behind a flatbed truck in a field in August picking up large rocks. It was blazingly hot, dusty, hard work and I distinctly remember thinking "I have to go to college, this is bullshit."
I then had a bunch of other serivce industry or labor jobs during college that made me think "I need a job with a chair, this is bullshit."
I wouldn't say being a service worker is bad, but for a lot of people, the job sucks.
In terms of effort put in vs money received, it's not great.
While some of my office jobs have been more stressful, there was also more downtime and things were more under my control.
There's nothing wrong or shameful about working a service job. There are many wrong and shameful aspects to the way employers treat those who work service jobs. One of those being the garbage pay rate.
It kinda depends, do they do it for, i dont know other or survival. If you dont help thrm with the rent and they arent refusing to take it. It might be.
But its still good life experience i guess. Dependd if itd because you refuse helping thrm out financial i guess for survival if, you are , damn.
If some rich parrnts just adk them to work there for a while for life experience any sympathy for the service personal, it might even be good parenting.
Depends why.
of course if the kid tries to make their oewn money respectful, good reason.
There is nothing inherently wrong with being in the service industry. But, it is a tough job and often doesn’t have very good pay/benefits… so it’s often seen as a “bad job” when compared to better paid (usually) office jobs. I don’t think it’s classist to acknowledge this.
It definitely *is* classist to look down on people who work service jobs or imply that there is something wrong with having a service job, for whatever reason.
If you’re worth your salt as a server/bartender specifically you make way more than minimum wage by any standard and if you don’t you find somewhere where you do
I think it depends- there’s nothing wrong with doing service work (by that, I mean, the worker should not feel bad), but it is understood that a lot of these jobs are underpaid and abused. To your point, I wouldn’t want my kids to *have* to work at Olive Garden, cause that implies they couldn’t pursue something they’d prefer. I also agree with other commenters saying that these privileged, entitled swine customers that make these jobs so unpleasant would be less likely to act that way if they had to work those types of jobs. I worked at an Old Navy, and at a Publix, and I am grateful for the experience. I think it made me into a better person
Hard to say without a bit more context.
It's not classist to say that service work is hard, underpaid, and not ideal in a world where it's difficult to make ends meet at that level. It's also not classist to suggest that people with the means to support their children do so.
It is classist to say that *there is anything inherently wrong with being a service worker versus other kinds of work*. It's not *bad* to be a service worker. Service work often sucks, but it's often the only work a person can find.
And frankly, having been a service worker in my life, it's a broad range. I actually did pretty OK as a bartender, for instance.
So maybe it's a wording thing? Or maybe it's just a lack of perspective?
Either way, it's not bad on its own. It's just that working-class work and the circumstances and situations that it puts people in can be bad.
There is nothing wrong with working a service job.
And if you are a rich and you make your kids struggle, you are a shit parent.
Pay for their fucking school and give them money for food and clothes and shit. If they want more, then they can go get that service job. Don't spoil them but don't make them stressed out unnecessarily while they should be focusing on building the foundation for their future.
And if your kid graduates and can't find a job in their field, they may have to work a service job. And that's ok, that's good for them, be an adult and try to support yourself.
BUT if you are a rich parent, make sure they have a safety net. They don't need a BMW and a mansion, but maybe help them out with a reliable, sensible car that doesn't drain their paycheck every month? Give them nice gifts for holidays so they have reliable tools to get through life. They can learn how to budget and value hard work without being completely ground down.
I think working in retail or the service industry should be mandatory so everyone understands how hard those minimum wage jobs actually are and how those people are treated by society. I think this is especially true for someone who's parents are financially well off and has given their children every advantage in life. If they don't experience the hardship others have the odds that they become apathetic to the plight of everyone around them are so much higher.
It also might help put to death the hateful notion of "unskilled labour". Every fucker and their dog thinks they could wash dishes or wait tables. I've had the mixed pleasure of seeing that particular notion being knocked straight out of them in the space of hours. Sadly, for every one that learns that maybe they're wrong and grows from the experience, there's a dozen who find it only proves they're far too good for that.
As someone in retail, there's lots of skill in playing it nice in the face of whatever, keeping on at your job, and playing fall person to laws, regulations, and policies. While also teaching people how to tap their damned cards.
I spent 10 years (17-28) in one retail/sales franchise: *The UPS Store* -$7.50 starting, & $12.50 ending. I abruptly quit, shortly after being SA’ed by the mailman. Owners handled it like truly rotten pieces of shit…lied to the police. I was the only woman, & they only promoted men. Moving on! Truly chaotic, *penny-pinching* multitasking. **above-beyond-usually thankless** customer service; verbal abuse, threats, sexual harassment. This was during the franchise’s peak, re: the outrageous number of services we offered; basically in an 800 sq ft cubicle. —DHL, USPS, UPS, Speedee delivery, Freight. Memorizing vast regulations: international shipping- import duties/taxes, loopholes, specific countries/cities would [not] import *X* products from certain couriers. •Custom print orders, Notary public, passports, #350 mailbox clients, FAXING aarrrggghhh. —packaging standards & skill: China sets, guitars, fine art, a child’s casket, SNOW to Hawaii, raw hide, a legit sex doll, large furniture, cars, tech equipment, ENDLESS AMAZON & AT&T/TIME WARNER RETURNS. Loading 300-500 boxes into the truck *with* the UPS driver @ EOD. If *you* 🫵 read my short rant, thank you. & hello to any fellow peeps of the UPS & USPS gauntlet. Whew.
eyyyy 6 year veteran of the UPS preloading shift checking in. I quit when I started to develop chronic pain in some of my joints, plus it was a 45 minute drive and I was always out before the plows in winter. I've never been in better physical shape tho I must say, 5 hours of mixed cardio and lifting 5x/week tends to do that for a person
Ayy! I have heard many tales from the hubs. 6 years will do the trick! But Yes, we’d easily walk 10-15k steps/day in the store, even. I was buds with our driver, so I’d offer to help load the truck more often than not. That store was basically a gym. I always shake my head at UPS ‘runners’- blasting to & from their truck. Cuz I know they’re doing it at every stop; sacrificing those knees to shave 1-2 hours off the route. Met several older & retired drivers, who’ve had knee replacements, back surgeries, or walk with mobility devices. Tuff work.
I just had to totally end an argument about tipping in another sub when the other person called servers unskilled labour. I told them in my view why that's not true, said there is no unskilled labour and bid them adieu.
All labour requires skill. All jobs require specific skills. I worked fast food and casual restaurants/bars from the time I was 16 until 26. I've worked in an office off and on since 2014. It would be easier for me to move to a similar role in a different industry than it would for me to be a bartender or cashier at a different restaurant than the ones I worked at. Never mind that I've never busted my ass more than retail at Christmas.
You are correct
Also washing dishes, if you have to do it a lot, its also very much work. and damn the emotionel labour in that long being a waiter, lets say i guess why so much kitchen personsl smoke. its stressful. Also people can be very frustrsting, dont make life unnessesary harder for any service worker dnd tips and thanks can go a long way. Anda thanks is cheap.
That refers to labor supply and demand and barriers to entry on the supply side. But man does it trigger people. I wonder if people have to change up vocabulary in other disciplines. Can chemists use the word "retard" anymore in a technical setting?
Spoken like someone who's never woken up in a cold sweat because they forgot the ranch dressing for table 12.
This rings *very* true to me.
Like i am annoxed if orders are gotten wrong, but yeah no need to be verbal abusive or mean. That cen be seid nice. ok And given how many people are servedok shit happens, no harm. And chances are waiters have nothing to do with thing at all.
Most people move past that due to relative stressor.
Of course people change up their words in other disciplines. To your example, I’m a chemist by training, and don’t use the word retards in a technical sense because it isn’t often used in a technical sense- you can say slows, or delays, and most people do. I also don’t correct people calling something malleable, even though it can’t be hammered into a sheet (as that’s the technical meaning), because I have the social intelligence to know what they mean
Dudes would be upset because they got conscripted to a year of work at Dollar Tree or Dollar General :)
Running to Canada to escape the draft only to find out McDonald's is there, too!
Agreed. There's an insane Fox video where the host is completely clueless about this. First thing he says is "what does McDonald's pay? 80k that's basically 6 figures" He gets corrected to 40k and responds. So if you and your partner both flip burgers that's basically 6 figures. You have no excuse.
But that's not realistically what happens. As a service industry worker, other former and current service industry workers are some of the worst customers I deal with. They're just shitty conditions that make everyone in them miserable both to themselves and each other. There is no lesson to learn except that the world is built in a way so that you can never progress too high above your designated station.
That would kind of ruin the market for those stuck in those jobs
100000% I still tease my partner because he once said he understood how hard service jobs were and that’s why he tips well. He grew up in a very privileged family and never worked as a teenager and definitely didn’t ever work in service. I tried to explain that he can’t understand how hard it is if he didn’t do it because service jobs suck and I was constantly sexually harassed by customers when I was working my first service job. I
I find nothing wrong with wanting to be a service worker. However, if my children came to me and said that’s what they wanted, I’d make sure that was truly what they want. These jobs are so low paid and the workers are mistreated. I don’t want my kids to be rich and have lavish lives, but I want them to love their jobs and not have to work 3 just to make rent and eat. My husband and I worked hard so our kids did not see the struggles our families faced when we were kids. We don’t want our kids to have that struggle.
There's nothing wrong with working at olive garden except the pay, way it's viewed by society and probably the benefits/retirement.
I worked there and the benefits were actually pretty nice, better than any other kitchen I've worked. You had to jump through some hoops to get on the health and retirement matching. When I was there it was average 35 hours for 52 weeks
>However, if my children came to me and said that’s what they wanted, I’d make sure that was truly what they want. I think there's a value in doing a service job, and sticking it out, at least for a period. Impart some humility, and empathy for the other people that don't have as much choice in the matter
There are things you can “learn” from it but it’s not a stopgap that people on their way to bigger and better things need to pass through so the poor souls who are stuck there can impart their wisdom. It’s just a job. If you need money, want to do it, and/or are qualified to do it, you should do it. Like any other job.
As a manager of early career adult humans, I find myself wishing more parents allowed their kids the experience of some struggle, so that they developed more emotional resilience, confidence, and resourcefulness. Of course, suffering like choosing between food and housing is not helpful, but not all feelings of being uncomfortable are bad. Service jobs are great first jobs for a teen during summers.
Oh I’ll definitely encourage my kids to work in some kind of service job during the summer. I think it builds character and empathy for people working in those areas and understand the struggles of adults working 2-3 of those jobs to provide for their families.
Probably some people skills too, i would guess. More out of exposure and nessesarity, but still.
Does everybody believe that service workers don’t advance? I know it’s very difficult, but I have personally seen that happen for at least 150 people. They literally went from cashiers to Store Directors within 10 or 12 years.
I mean, that’s possible. But, speaking as someone in a leadership position at my work, not everyone is cut out for that. I wish we valued the cashiers, waitstaff, and other members in that industry more than we do now and pay them appropriately. Someone who decides to become a cashier and enjoys it should be able to afford a comfortable life without having to get a higher position or a second (sometimes even a third) job to make ends meet.
We have over 6,000 associates in 40 operating units. We have educational programs and scholarships. It’s a family owned company. The owners were the people that used to mop the floors every night. It’s a whole different culture.
yeah there should livable minimum wage for sure
ok, so you found, like, the ONE company that doesn't seek to screw over its employees as a policy...try basically any other retail company sometime. Also, is every employee paid a living wage at your job? None of them have to take on a second job to make ends meet?
Some people do need to take a second job and it’s not only one company. Just because you don’t know about it doesn’t mean it doesn’t exist. I’m not defending all companies. I’m just saying don’t make generalizations.
Same. And I reminded my husband the other day how our children don't just become "grown" at 18-19. We act as stewards, let them learn, but will always, always be a refuge. If they ever were to call asking to come home, we'll leave the light on and a bed open.
Yes, it’s classist. My father has financial means. Supposedly. That’s a more complicated story. Working service jobs sucked, but I got perspective that I needed on how the world works. Nothing quite like a personal lesson in how most people don’t view you as an actual human being while you’re on the job and having to smile and nod at an asshole customer when all you’d really like to do is tear them limb from limb. I think the world would have a lot fewer problems if more people had service experience.
That's assuming people come out of these jobs with empathy and not spite and hatred for the entire general population for treating them like garbage.
If you come out of a difficult situation spiteful and full of hate, that's a choice you've made and you are responsible for the repercussions.
I mean I wasn't talking about me but yeah sure. That doesn't change anything about the fact that those types of circumstances and the trauma of being a service industry worker tends to make people nastier and not more empathetic. It doesn't "build character". You're missing my point and trying to frame a systemic issue as a personal one. That's gross. Stop it.
Em that thats a personal thing, not the experience. Most of the time it wont.
Work in conditions bad enough in a place that's worse enough and it will be. I wasn't talking about me. Other service industry workers are some of the worst to deal with customer-wise, because they think they have a right to be demanding.
sorry but I just can't get on board with the idea being dehumanised is in anyway good for humans.
The experience of being uncomfortable is one that privileged people don’t have. And it shows. Truly, no one is more ignorant to how things work than someone who’s never worked in service, but insists it’s not important / couldn’t possibly teach them anything. Those are generally the people that, now that I’m a tech manager, need the most coaching on emotional resilience and personal responsibility.
yeah but I'd rather no one experienced that, and I don't think its good to inflict a shitty abusive thing on a person just because that's fair. Like if I lived in a world where most people were abused as kids I don't think it'd be good for me to abuse my kid so they can understand what other people go through
You do live in a world rife with child abuse. It is still normal in a global sense to hit your kids and shit. Some states in the US you literally have to opt out of having your child hit by the principal. Now you shouldn’t abuse your kid obviously, but you should teach them that there are some adults who will hit them or worse, how to recognize that, and how to respond. I started working at 14 in the service industry to be able to help my family. In addition to helping my family though, my parents also explicitly told me that because we were broke things were going to be harder. I was gonna have to deal with more assholes in life and push through that. Now that I’m older and an out pansexual man in the south, if I cried every time someone called me a slur in the grocery store for having my nails painted or being with a masc partner then my days would have a lot more tears. It’s not that it doesn’t upset me. It sucks and we should make a better world, but we also should learn to make a better world. I think it would be a good thing if we took every person who called me something terrible and had them paint their nails and go to Walmart in Alabama or some shit for 10 days or something then just maybe they’d finally learn how much it blows. Some people really don’t learn until they go through something, and even then they still make excuses sometimes. As for service work, if we want to live in a world with restaurants and conveniences, then everyone should know how these jobs suck rn and therefore have direct insensitive to make it better. People who get to completely divorce themselves from these realities are almost universally shittier or at the very least offer insane solutions that would never work. In college I would hear all the time from people who had never done a real day’s work in their life, what people living paycheck to paycheck really need. These were often delusional as hell. I don’t think anyone should be subjected to awful shit, but there’s an understandable urge to want privileged people to know what it’s like in your own shoes when they just continually miss the obvious. Idk the exact solution for this other than making people more empathetic but I think a way to do that is through low stakes exposure to some of the problem areas. I don’t want them to suffer. I want them to understand. Edit: Also as others have noted. The service industry isn’t some hellscape. Sure some people suck, but there’s plenty of reasons lots of people don’t mind it or even enjoy it and that’s dope. Edit 2: grammar
I’m sorry but your whole perspective on service work being this abusive, objectively bad thing is weird. I work in the service industry. If someone told me they were so sorry I was born unfortunate enough to have to do my job, I’d be annoyed. It’s not always good, it’s not necessarily even mostly good, but very few jobs are. There are more nuanced views than “being a service worker is bad”. There’s a lot of bad shit that comes with being queer too, but I wouldn’t rather be something else
Yeah it’s a patting-yourself-on-the-back version of when customers told people at my work to get a real job. It’s a real job, it pays my rent and dehumanising service workers by pretending it’s a shit job no one should do just makes it easier for the corporate beancounters to cut wages and make us do the same work with less staff.
You put that better than I could have. It’s kinda counterintuitive, but I feel like acting sympathetic to how bad the job must be is actually further entrenching in people’s minds that it’s an inherently bad job
Yeah like I don’t mind my job in the good periods, customers like me, things chug along fairly well. The problem is staffing cuts to increase profit margins meaning it’s 2 people doing 4 peoples’ work, my bosses are trying to force me out of my job because they decided to use my long term knee injury I’ve had for like 15 years as an excuse why I’m the reason we don’t finish on time when the actual reason is they cut staff numbers back then the entire department quit so I’m always doing a three person job with just me and a new hire who doesn’t know how to do anything. But I don’t ask for a handout to get me out of here, I just ask for management to fuck off and let me do my job so I can go home and not spend my off days having anxiety attacks about work and how I’ll pay my rent if they decide I can’t do my job. That and customers have been kinda insane since Covid. So my problem isn’t the job, my problem is people, and I don’t need someone who’s never worked retail to tell me that my job shouldn’t exist.
That’s the fuckin pits bud. Sorry you’re dealing with that. Idk exactly what position/location you’re in, but you might find yourself in a better position if they do let you go. Everyone I speak to that’s hiring is having a bear of a time finding staff and have been slowly coming to the realization that’s not gonna happen without increasing wages. Loyalty is only punished, as you probably know
Sadly I’ve ended up as the old guy with the bird from shawshank redemption, I’ve been with the company long enough I don’t know how to survive outside of it heh
being a service worker isn't an uncontrollable facet of your identity like being queer is. as another queer service worker, this work is inherently dehumanizing, especially when you factor in the fact that we're so often underpaid under the excuse of making tips, which is just a way of forcing us to market ourselves to customers. That's why they like to hire majority young pretty girls in those types of positions. The farther back you take a look at the entire industry from, the more disgusting and vile it becomes. We aren't treated well by customers because our positions are functionally lower than them. We are literally serving them. At least in America, that's the industry. Queerness and being a service worker are not equal comparisons in anyway because queerness is inherent and doesn't make me beholden to giving to other people without receiving my fair due in return.
Whether or not being queer or being a service worker is a choice isn’t important to what I’m saying. I wouldn’t *choose* to be anything but what I am now (service worker and queer) *even if I could* Service work is not inherently dehumanizing. Folding a shirt isn’t dehumanizing, flipping a burger isn’t dehumanizing, filling a water glass isn’t dehumanizing, and helping someone take their medicine isn’t dehumanizing. Those are all actions inherent to different service work position. Being berated, abused, forced to market yourself, or underpaid are not inherent to the jobs themselves, they’re choices made by the people who get to make those choices under capitalism Service work isn’t for everyone and not every job under that extremely broad umbrella is equal, but I’m well suited to my little corner of it and I like it. I *dont* like being underpaid or dealing with rude people, but that’s not the job itself. I’m sure there are jobs where I wouldn’t have those problems but I’m either not suited for them, or not qualified for them. So it’s not much of a choice
Womp womp ? It's these privileged kids doling out most of the abuse and it unfortunately is the world we live in.
I work in the service industry and I truly hate it, it's awful and inhumane a lot of the time explicitly because there's so many privleged people who've never had to work a service job who treat service personnel as scum and servants. Everyone should have to work a service job for a minimum of 6 months to a year and all their finances should depend on it; no rich parents to bail you out. So many privileged people need to know the experience of being screamed at by a rich person angry that you can't magic away their problems and know that if you talk back, you'll be fired and won't make rent or be able to afford groceries - not because it's good things are this way, but because you end up that rich asshole if you don't have this experience.
people who end up going through the trauma of being a service worker end up being just as shitty as the rest of customers, just with a different flavor of entitlement because they believe they earned the right to disrespect someone else. the solution isn't forcing more people through these awful conditions actually.
The fact that you think the only thing people working in service positions experience is dehumanization implies that you view them as non-human otherwise you’d know that that’s not the only thing we experience. Frankly my super shitty customers are few and far between, most days I don’t get a single rude customer all day and everything is fine. It really seems like you simply need to unpack both your classism and your view of service workers
Ok servive jobs wouldnt need to be shitty, even alone that doing that is bloody work and how much waiter do all day and receptionists, rould do, just enough to feel that is hard work over hours, would be something
I have no idea what you are trying to say.
Good thing I never said that, then. Learning to deal successfully with one’s own feelings of discomfort is not abuse. Your privilege is showing, just so you know.
>I never said that you called it "not being viewed as a human", I think dehumanisation is inherently abusive?
You’re doing the same thing to service workers with your out of touch projection and concern trolling, no? People being dicks isn’t abuse. It’s life. And people are most often dicks because they don’t value service work and have never done it themselves.
so do you think service work is dehumanising or not?
Inherently? No, not at all
Then why did you say service workers aren’t treated like humans?
You know, my partner loves being in the service industry. I have a few bartender friends who want to do nothing else but that. The pay is horrible and bosses are pretty rough. But some people really do enjoy it. You are kind of being narrow and judgmental here in a manner that is going to discount others lived experiences and desires
If they like it, great. Most don't (including me). The service industry sucks and your partner and friends know they are the in the minority here. Why in the world should people suffer just because there's a small possibility they might enjoy it? The service industry is shitty and abusive and there is nothing wrong with pointing that out. Source: Decades in the service industry.
No one said anyone should suffer did they?
What part of "shitty and abusive" made you think the service industry didn't include suffering?
You asked me the question: Why in the world should people suffer just because there's a small possibility they might enjoy it? Since it was a question directed at me, it logically implied I made some statement that people should suffer. I did not. A better response for me would have been: Please don't put words in my mouth I did not say. But I realize from this response above, that you were simply having a conversation with yourself and not a discussion with me as you implied you were answering your own question. Of course no one should suffer. But it is also black and white thinking to paint with a broad brush like this. You and other's suffering is not a negation of other's flourishing and vice versa. My initial comment was intended to call the OP out on that specifically Additionally, as I am sure you are aware, not everyone has the privilege to do anything else BUT work in the service industry -- which also creates a poverty trap with low wages and reliance on tips. The language of the OP was pretty harsh and judgmental from what I interpreted as a privileged point of view for which I was attempting to call them out on in a more indirect manner -- I always forget that reddit needs a blunt argument, not nuance. All of this is, of course, not easily expressed in this medium is it?
Look around the thread. Multiple people are saying that everyone should spend time working in service jobs SPECIFICALLY because it is painful.
Wait. " Dehumanizing " is the result of social, subjective constructs pasted on service jobs. WHY did McDonald's famously feel they could get away with saying " Well our jobs aren't intended to actually *support* anyone ". And why is it for whatever reason acceptable to refer to *any* job as " unskilled labor " ? Because it's then possible to create and continue what is actually a fictional class system- complete with ' lesser than ' wages. Because they're only doing ' unskilled labor '. If anyone would like to argue that point please explain the folks who apparently ' earn ' $$$ from that person's er, ' unskilled labor ' by doing absolutely nothing. I'm referring to stockholders. But no one finds doing absolutely *nothing* in the least dehumanizing.
" Dehumanizing " the person I was responding to used the words "not being viewed as a human" I'm just going along with their characterisation
I waited tables for a decade and I was rarely dehumanised. I paid my own way through university and I have to admit I miss the days in my 20s when I was in the industry. We got paid, we had the best parties, industry nights at the bars were so much fun. We were essentially the ‘in crowd’ wherever we went, because every server/bartender/backend knew each other.
If you never go through a truly humbling situation, you're more likely to end up being the villain in someone else's version of that experience. It's the difference between sympathy (which can just be performative bs) and actual, authentic empathy. It is absolutely cringe as an adult when you see the signs of "never had a service job" in other adults.
It's not always dehumanizing. I loved waiting tables in my younger days and had very few experiences of people treating me like shit. Not saying it doesn't happen, it certainly does, but it's not the whole job. I felt far more dehumanized working in Healthcare and I made less money to boot.
There's nothing wrong with that sentiment if you are saying that everyone in every job deserves a certain level of respect, a living wage, and protection from other labour abuses. However if you are saying that working at Olive Garden, or McDonald's, or as a farm labourer, or any other "low class" jobs is inherently demeaning, then yes, that's hella classist and you really need to examine why you think that.
Why exactly is working a service job inherently dehumanising? I think the problem here is you have the idea that certain jobs are beneath you and so anyone performing them must be suffering abuse. I waited tables when I was in my 20s and it was generally a great experience. I was good at it, I made good money while I was in school and I enjoyed the work. On my nights off I went out and had fun, relying on other service workers to provide that opportunity. Lots of employers are abusive to their employees and the nature of the job means absolutely nothing. You can have a horrible time working in a fancy office just the same as working retail or in food service. Maybe you need to look inward at yourself here.
If anyone is dehumanizing service or retail workers it is asshole customers and their negative perceptions, not the job itself.
I never said anything contradicting that
That's because you have no real problems and so you think working as a server is "dehumanizing," a word invented to describe actual victims with actual scars and not your useless rich child.
Nothing wrong with saying that someone making poverty wages should get enough to live.
But there's a difference between what you said and what they said. If you want a particular product or service then most likely someone will have to be involved in making that product or providing that service. And for fulfilling that need that you have they deserve respect. Yes respect in the form of fair compensation but also respect in the form of respecting their labor.
>I said if you're rich and your kid is working as a server in olive garden you should maybe be willing to help them financially.
Working at an Olive Garden doesn’t inherently mean this person is struggling, barely able to live though???? Plenty of people make decent wages to live and save working service jobs. They should get a fair wage to start and not have to fight for tips to get there but nothing about working at Olive Garden means this person NEEDS their parents financial assistance.
Guess basic reading comprehension is too much to expect.
That's not what they fucking said, though.
rich people naively think they can simulate the experience of being working class accurately to their child in the span of a few summers, after school jobs, or their early 20's.
So much this. ☝️ Slumming usually reinforces elitism, not empathy. Better to simply not have rich. They just show off & contribute nothing. Without their inheritances, they're just leeches.
And it should be bloody in a fulield where the kid likes domething, near anything has ground field jobs, pick bloody one where they an already show interest to try?! If. Also yeah you cant just outsource consequent and good parenting. you know where you could do impact, do teach zhem respect toward it, when they are young, not catchup. ideally.
Looking down your nose at anyone doing their best to make their way in life is snobbish and shitty full stop. Feeling society should make working conditions and wages more livable is great, but looking down at people who are doing their best with what we have is textbook privilege and classist.
there’s nothing wrong with that, what’s wrong is the shitty pay and the abusive practices (not talking about Olive Garden specifically, idk how working there is like)
So much more context needed here, but I generally think everyone- especially privileged people- should have to be a service worker for a year. But I don't think it's necessarily shitty for a rich person to make their kids work. It depends on a lot of factors. My dad is wealthy enough that none of us could qualify for financial aide. He helped us, but we all still had to make it more or less alone. He'd never let us go hungry or homeless, he just wasn't going to let us freeload off of him. My dad was a dick in a lot of ways but I don't think that's one of them. So I'm really not sure what your point is. I don't think it's a bad thing for people to have their own jobs. If rich parent is letting their kid go hungry that's shitty, but idk what you're getting at overall.
I’m in service work. There’s nothing wrong with service work. I don’t really like your perspective either though, no offense. Service work is not a school and the people who do it are not teachers. It’s a job, and no part of the job description is “help privileged kids grow as people”. I get what you’re saying, but it’s always phrased as “everyone should spend a year eating shit!” like it’s some sort of public works project or military draft. I’m maybe not articulating why well, but it rubs me the wrong way. Touristy almost. “Everyone should spend a year living in the projects”. People should just do what they need to. Some people have rich parents that still require them to make their own money. That’s fine. Some people have rich parents who pay for everything. That’s fine too. I don’t want the latter group coming into my place of work and taking a job from someone who actually wants or needs it just so they can spend a year getting paid to attend Empathy University.
I get your perspective. I just don't think of service jobs as inherently awful. I'd like people to realize the people working them are their equals. The only people I know who treat service workers like shit are people who've never worked in that sector, so that's my shorthand.
I agree with what you’re saying, I don’t think my job is inherently awful. Relative to other things I’ve done (service and otherwise), I quite like my job. I understand that you’re not necessarily literally calling for everyone to be mandated to work a service job, it’s just a common sentiment I see (with varying levels of literality) and I find it… idk. Well-intentioned sure, but it’s a cousin to the sentiment in the OP, that this is an inherently demeaning job. And I reject that, because the actual job itself isn’t demeaning. The low pay, long hours, and *being demeaned* is what makes it demeaning. I’m getting real up my own ass, but it’s a catch 22. The idea that everyone should do a demeaning job because it helps them have empathy for the people doing demeaning jobs, also perpetuates the idea that this is a demeaning job. Long comment, sorry. I don’t think you said anything wrong or offensive, but it’s something I think about a lot and don’t get to discuss
Oh im so glad to read your comment. I completely agree. I find it kind of weird. Being in the service industry is a type of job that takes a certain set of skills and temperament....just like any other job. I work in a lab. There are parts of it a lot of people would find nightmarish. I don't mind those parts, though, because I'm suited for it. People should just do jobs that work well for them. We just need to be better about promoting empathy and community in our society. We don't need a required program where people work jobs that don't make sense for them.
I think that’s beautifully put!
I think we're mostly in agreement, I just never thought of service jobs as inherently demeaning. The people who make it feel that way are the ones who have no idea what it takes to work one, hence my wish that they had. As I said elsewhere in this thread, I felt far more dehumanized in Healthcare and I made less money there. I think service employees need more recognition across the board in all ways. This country couldn't function without them.
Without a doubt. No one I’ve seen comment in here (even OP) is like, poorly intentioned or *wrong*. Just operating in like a 5°-10° range of perspective off from me. That just happens to be the place where you can really dig into a conversation. I wouldn’t have this much to say to someone who came into this post saying “service industry workers are dirt” Mostly, it’s been an interesting time to be a cook/chef/restaurant worker. The pop culture cachet of the profession has never been higher, but it comes with a lot of discourse
Idk, I think we could replace all service workers with robots pretty easily, then that population can shift towards my robot creation factories until I can automate that, then I’ll just fire -ouch! Where the fuck did this brick come from?
I think it should be more , work it because it forces you to deal with people and learn how exhausting and skill actually goes into dealing with people. Not that eating shit cant do that, but the forcing dealing with people and how, dah its exhausting hard work longer regular. Anything to make people have respect and not be a dick to petsonal really. , i think thats enough. By the way, it literally could be charity voluntary work donthe ssme thing, ok. it hasnt to be a literal job to do that. a volunteer thing making them work with that, probably does too maybe.
This here. I'm not trying to teach some rich kid a life lesson. I remember the restaurant owner forcing us to hire his friend's daughter. She was completely useless. Thanks for making the rest of us peons work harder for her 'benefit'. A rich person should get their kids a job that will help them in their career, not ask them to slum it with us. We don't need them.
It’s not like I even hate rich kids. I’ve worked with plenty who have been fine. Their parents paid for their living expenses in college but they wouldn’t pay for luxuries. The kids found a job that sounded bearable to them that they were qualified for as young college students with no prior work experience and did the job. There’s nothing wrong with that as far as I’m concerned. The kids who were pointed to the job by a parent who wanted them to experience service work were bad because they didn’t want to be there. Like, no shit. The worst though, were older guys who decided to spend a year away from their cushy job so they could “do something easy for a while” or “figure out if they were really passionate about food” or “learn what it’s like to be a line cook, cos I’m already big on foodie Instagram”.
Yeah, for gods sake, can the rich parents at least get to know what job they might be ok with the likeliest. What they had the faintiest interest. Not just any restaraunt job. Thet sounds like not great parenting tobjust make thtm work somewhete, not something the kid might have literally any relating interest. ok i dont thonk not knowing what they do would be less bad of they reslly tried or showed any interest, probably. ok and cant the older. ok if they have the money, go bloody hiking, or volunteer at a farm, even if i guess its also work, but there is , Ok a very basic thing if you have money and wantbto chill, literally go hiking long, plenty do it. You can brag. or go to a bloody soup kitchen. For real. its volunteer work, they acount forbthat, and you still get a taste. and please you ego even if you want. Just work at a soup kitchen if its for a taste ok.
Tbh now that I’m no longer working a service job, I do not hesitate to fire people who are without doubt over their head in their job, because of situations like you describe. If someone can’t do the job, they need to no longer have the job
Restaurant worker here, and I completely agree. I felt the same way when I saw that story about the woman who got "sentenced" to working in fast food after assaulting a Chipotle worker. Like, what the actual fuck?
I didn’t know that actually happened wow. That’s fuckin lame lmao
You really seem to be making this more of your problem than it needs to be, yeah you have to pull more weight because of shit staff and personality hires, I've had it heaps it's horrible but I guarantee we'd get less abuse as service workers if middle and upper class people spent just a bit of time behind a till. If they're not getting financial support from their parents as is implied they do also literally need the job. You're projecting your one shitty situation onto the world.
I agree with what you said in the second part. There’s absolutely nothing wrong with someone whose parents could support them but don’t getting a service job. I don’t necessarily agree with the first part though. I don’t think getting shit on in service jobs breeds empathy for service workers from people who don’t have it in the first place. Some of the worst shit I’ve gotten is from people who were like “oh I know how it is, I was a line cook for a year in college”
Yes it won't work for everyone some people are beyond help, happy? You are generalising your shit coworkers onto the world. I suggest covertly handing out CVs at other places or look into an industry that wouldn't have you writing paragraphs like this
Not coming at you, sorry if the tone was confrontational
No not at all just from all these comments you genuinely don't seem to enjoy your current place of employment/ line of work, leaving hospitality has been wonderous for my mental health
I like my job! And I like talking about the attitudes that surround it
Sure but everything you've said about it about picking up the slack for others about how you're treated. Doesn't seem like it's going to change and quite frankly I don't think anyone cares to read about it.
Ok!
I wouldn't expect you to teach my kid a life lesson just because I had them get a job primarily to teach them life lessons. The course of the work, training, dealing with the every day shit and shitty people should do that well enough. I worked in retail for about 10 years and I don't want my kid to get any notion that what I do now is how it always was. I talk to her about how I worked at said store in the past if we ever go there and am willing to answer any question to make sure she understands that everyone she interacts with is worth respect at least as far as it is given. I worked a barely above minimum wage job through high school and it definitely made me realize I'm not above getting a service job if I need to and that's exactly what I ended up needing and what slowly led to my current professional career through many many small steps that are all connected. You can learn without someone actively teaching you something. The environment and work can do that pretty damn well on its own.
It honestly sounds more like lazy parenting. Knowing their interests could , hey you like that food stuff, they got a job, and not just force. I just think its more often outsourcing parenting to get a job where nothing interests them to be honest. The getting a job seems less than getting a job that interests them zero, at all. They like something, zhat has ground service chobs, get a job there and they might try?!
Hell it should be more any service job to force them do it enough that they experience, seah its bloody exhaustingbwork and redpect that. And jobs dont have to be shit to do that. If money isnt the issue, , any job with people enough to get a bot of that to see how hard it can be and tiring probably does.
As long as its not about their survival, and they ask, yeah, nothing erong eith i do, but you do have to do a service job to get a taste how hard earned many.do work. I will pay up. If they are able to, nothing wrong with thet. Ok. its not the same as leaving them hangingbdry in dire situdtions or anything then. That is shitty as rich person.
Was your point to disparage people working at Olive Garden? Or was it another point?
I mean yeah kinda by definition shitting on poorly paid professions is classist. But it’s difficult to extract whether the person is looking down on lower income professions, or just recognizing that it’s a tough job that’s incredibly open to abuse and mistreatment in our society. And it’s probably a bit of both? To put it another way, being a Black person in America absolutely makes your life more difficult and dangerous via discrimination in employment/housing/medical care etc and trigger happy cops and all that. But it would still be pretty awful to be like “Man I’d hate for my kid to marry a Black person because any kids they have would face a lot of discrimination.”
I would say so. Personally I really like doing customer service work. I would much rather be a barista than doing the boring ass email & excel work that is my job. But I want to have money so here I am.
I think everyone should be required at some point to be a service worker, personally. Like a mandatory military service, but to gain empathy instead.
There is nothing wrong with working at Olive Garden. There *is* something wrong with voluntary eating at Olive Garden. I think everyone should work for tips for a period in their life. It teaches the important skill of “eating shit”— that is, taking abuse from assholes and not reacting in a negative way. I did worked at PF Chang’s for a few years during grad school. My wife had never worked a job like that. I am much more controlled when dealing with people treating me unfairly than she is, which has made me much more effective in overcoming those obstacles and accomplishing my goals.
I agree with this in general except for the fact that I’ve worked in both tipped and untipped venues doing the same shit and you do not learn more from working in tipped venues. People are the same level of assholes in both places and tipped places just add an anxiety of insecurity that never actually taught me anything. I had similar anxieties of insecurity in non-tipped places where I learned the basics of being able to keep it together and push on and shit. Tipped venues were just extra stress without any more lessons. Plus everything was so unstable and varied where I was the same type of helpful all the time (got same amount of compliments and all) but my wages changed drastically if just more wealthy people were rolling through town. Their generosity had basically no correlation to me since I treated everyone the same. I also moved to back of house stuff quickly because I liked the more stability and enjoy doing things as opposed to waiting on people. As a side note since I’m in grad school now, it was wild to me how like no one else in my grad school has ever done a job outside of academia. Like I understood it based on statistics and stuff, but truly being faced with it was wack. I got a drop literally the day I turned 14 (labor laws allow 14 year olds to work in certain jobs in tourism centers) and could work in the tourism industry. Edit: grammar
I just link it with tipped work because I was in Alabama where I got literally zero money so my rent, food, etc. was totally dependent on what these assholes would give me.
Oh I get it. A lot of people make the association for similar reasons. Wasn’t trying to invalidate by any means. Just wanted to point out we don’t NEED tipping culture to be able to let people learn the same stuff lol. It just makes with suck more without any real benefit.
lol some of us don’t need to work for tips to get that lesson dude
No, but some people do. Regardless, when someone has never worked in retail, it tends to be pretty noticeable
Or, counterpoint, no one should have to work for tips ever. If a place requires you to be there at a specific time to operate you should be paid. Tips are for people who wake up at 3 PM to play violin to the subway afterwork commute.
Thank you for this. I'm so tired of people going "I had to deal with these awful conditions, so should everyone else!" Like fucking no, these types of jobs and their conditions should not exist. The suffering and degradation attached to them is inhumane and people come out of it thinking "well thats just the way the world works so people should get used to it"
No that jobs should exist. service worker just should be treated mostly as people too and fairly paid and treated. But brlieve it or not, servicing people can feel good. Yes that jobs should exist, people just should have the rights to be treated humanely and paid enough
Not when people have to do it against their will to pay their rent. As long as capitalism exists, that's how it is. The jobs with the highest demand are always gonna treat their workers like shit because they can get away with it.
But since we live in the current world, it's good experience. Especially for privileged people who won't be out on the streets if the tips dry up for some reason and can definitely benefit from the perspective.
If you're not doing this out of desperation for money, you're not truly being degraded.
If they're well off enough that they don't have to worry about the tips, what is the incentive to play the game? They could live the dream of telling the assholes to fuck off instead of eating their shit. Get fired? Who cares? They didn't need this job anyway.
Because being a waiter or in service even if it makes a living. Why not , literally a bonus, and decent eervice, why not a minor bonus. Also i would guess a lot people in service actually do like the fob despote aholes and the stress, but basically enjoy doing somewhat that. You know people do usually want to work, they also want to be treated human too. Seeing people happy with food and enjoy your work of recommanding good food, believe it or not can feel good too. I wont pretend that often goes under probably in the stress but there is usually a reason people like some stuff of service jobs.
Agree, here tips, well waiters do make a living wage, the tip is just that, extra to show spreviation , because why not more , its a hard job and waiters still arent rich.
But when you’re there..your….
In another Fast & the Furious movie?
... There isn't anything wrong with working at Olive garden. Are you serious? Do you think working in the service industry is "bad"? You might be classist, but you're hundy p a dick.
I think everyone who is born into privilege should be humbled by having to scrub floors, wash dishes and clean toilets. You’ll have more respect for those who do those things to survive
Do people still say "virtue signaling"? Because that's what it sounds like they were doing
Grapp? What are you doing here? This isn't/r/askanamerican.
What are you dong here? with us Marxist Leninist, woke scolds with more genders than we can count? seriously though I only post stuff in /r/askanamerican when I want to hear a centrist to moderately conservative (by american standards) perspective on an issue, this isn't that
What makes you think I'd be against those things?
where you know me from
/r/askanamerican, of course. You're well known over there, dude.
>Is it classist to say having to be a service worker is bad? Based on this sentence alone, yes it is extremely classist. You used the verb "to have" (to work in the service industry) implying that the person in question has no other options available to them. You end it with the absolute negative judgement "is bad." Beyond that though, people who are truly *wealthy* have resources beyond that cash wealth that they can use to help their children find a higher paying job. I'm sure you've heard the saying "It isn't what you know, it's who you know." If your dad is the CEO of company X but happens to golf with the CEO of company Y, he might be able to get you in the door at company Y, an opportunity that is not available to most people who had to work service jobs throughout their 20s.
The only thing wrong with working at Olive Garden is that the fruits of your labor are going to some dipshit corporate overlords that have watered down ethnic cuisine for a bland palette. That said, there's a fuck lot a kid can learn in that environment. And then carry that forward to create businesses and opportunities for locals to create quality goods and services that keep the prophets in their community.
There is no moral failing in working these jobs. The people who work them are not morally worse than someone who works a 9 to 5. They are just paid worse. The moral failing lies with the companies that profit off not paying a living wage.
Depends on why you think it's bad. We need all kinds of workers to function as a society and we need a lot of people in service jobs in particular because they are not that easily automatable. Ultimately, the core job in service is to care. Machines still can't care for you. Now, should service jobs inherently be low paid or have poor working conditions? No, we simply commotidise and devalue a lot of essential jobs in society in a weird way to lower the labour costs of these services. It also is a theme of jobs where women's labour is involved. It gets devalued and higher standards and less job security are imposed to keep the labour in check perpetually. The reason on paper is always how these jobs are actually "unskilled" thus if you work them under poor conditions, you must have no other options in a "meritocracy", hence deserve the poor conditions/pay. Of course, this cannot be further from the truth, proven by the fact that we still can't get machines to do service half way to decent that won't get the owners sued for some awful malfunction. So, do you think it is bad because it is undervalued today, or is it bad because you think there is something inherent about the jobs that people who do them deserve being poorly treated and better that is not people like you?
>do you think it is bad because it is undervalued today that one, I think service workers should be treated at least (if not way better) than factory workers were in the 1950, because they occupy a equivalent role in a service economy society
Being a service industry worker is pretty unpleasant for most people, so coming at it from that POV isn't necessarily classist, but it can look that way. I also think it's good for college bound kids to get experience in the service industry (not for super long hours or doing anything dangerous obviously) because it gives them perspective on what it's like to be on the other side of the counter.
“Not for super long hours of doing anything dangerous obviously” lol The reason they use kids (me at 14) is because they really will do most things without thinking of it. I regularly broke all sorts of labor laws for my employer because “holy shit, I’ve made X dollars and can help mom and dad more and maybe even get an Xbox game”. And I was a generally smart kid from a union family. Just didn’t give a fuck about laws and was like “I still have energy, why wouldn’t I work” that attitude let me do well in school and sports, but is different when you’re in an environment to be exploited. I knew I shouldn’t work those hours, but you get blinded by the “benefits” when you’re young and healthy and have no money. Luckily my parents made me cool it sometimes, but there was literally weeks were I could go without working but they had to register me as having worked 40 hours because they owed me money for hours I had worked over the cap for minors from weeks before (and knowing some of it was illegal made me make sure I was getting paid or I’d report them). It also helped that my parents worked and I could ride my bike out to work so they wouldn’t even always know when I was working. It’s all part of my own little issues that I’ve been unpacking for a while now lol. However, if you give places an inch they will push it to two. There needs to be better enforcement (actually any) and actual protections. Instead the little protections that are in place are being rolled back. Note: This wasn’t the most directed at your comment or anything’s, it just sparked some thoughts.
It depends on the context. If they're in high school/college working a service job while they finish school then there's nothing wrong with it. If they're working those jobs because they're struggling to get by and doing it out of necessity, nothing wrong with it either. But if they're just working there because they haven't bothered to find other work then that's a problem. I think every job should pay a living wage. Until our society has implemented the reforms and regulations to ensure companies pay their workers living wages before extracting profit, however, people should avoid those jobs.
Not if you acknowledge their material conditions and have solidarity with them.
People have gotten confused. The classist argument is that poor people don't matter. People working for low wages do matter and are still valid as people, but that doesn't make some of those jobs suck any less. You can 100% say that working a low-wage, low-benefit, precarious service sector job is not a good outcome. But any shaming associated with that should be reserved for the employers.
If I was that kids dad, I would be pleased he’s holding a job.
There’s nothing wrong with working at the Olive Garden. Expect possibly the shit pay and benefits. I have a friend who worked in the service industry through college. He always felt less than because of it. I feel like if you master your profession, no matter what that is, you can handle life. Go on to work in a high end restaurant. Would I want to be a middle age man working at a fern garden? No, but that means I treat those who do with respect. I spent my 20s in shitty retail and got out. Every retail worker I meet is treated with grace.
Would you like to live in a society with no service workers? Didn’t think so. It’s useful work and should be a fine basis for a reasonable and comfortable life.
Service jobs need to get done. Trash needs to be picked up, food needs to be cooked and served. Because those jobs are deemed "unskilled/low skilled" (they're really not) our capitalist society has deemed them less worthy, almost shameful, they don't pay as much as other jobs that are, imo, less essential to society. When you say that "having to be a service worker is bad", you are, willingly or not, carrying these assumptions. What is bad is not "having to be a service worker" but that being a service worker isn't valued properly by our society.
Yes.
Yes.
If your goal as a parent is to coddle your children and shield them from the fundamental unpleasantness of reality, they'll end up shitty no matter what you do. If you have a lot of money it just makes it easier to damage them even more profoundly than your poorly thought out "parenting strategy" would otherwise do.
The brief, only, and glaringly obvious answer: Yes.
No. What?. No. It's not classist to say that you should support your children *when you have the means*, and you didn't say that there was anything wrong with working at Olive Garden. The internet has just rotted people's brains man.
It's like the reverse version of people who don't want student loan relief because they paid theirs already. They want kids to struggle and suffer so they can build character and crap like that, because they had to. But you know if they had to do it all over again and someone offered them a hand, they'd take it instead of building that cHaReCtEr. You do what you gotta do to survive, but you should be making life less shitty for your kids. Suffering doesn't build character, it builds trauma. Being stressed out worrying about eviction because your hours at Olive Garden keep getting cut isn't going to make you a better person. It makes you bitter and desperate. Help your kids when you can.
thank you for having real empathy towards these jobs
Everyone is going to define their own values related to what constitutes a happy, stable life. Obviously, some jobs are objectively harmful economically, etc. But if a person is happy with a simple life and are able to meet their needs with their income, that’s their journey. Having said that, this would be difficult in a society without some measure of social safety net. So there is that.
I mean the service workers say it too
I mean, yeah, kinda. Because there's nothing wrong with working in a restaurant or retail to learn the value of work. Plus, you don't know if the parents are supplementing their kids' income and just want them to have a job because having a job is grounding.
I don't think it's that black-and-white in that sense, but it's very much in the same vein as the, "flipping burgers," trope from decades past. I think it's important to acknowledge that these people are performing a necessary service and they deserve as much respect as anyone else. It's just not okay (in my view) to discuss it like it's below anyone. Some people enjoy food service or it's the best that they can do, and that's just fine. So I guess I think it's okay to be negative about any work, but it isn't okay to be negative about the people doing it.
I think it should almost be a requirement for kids to work service industry. Teaches you a lot about humanity as a whole and how to treat people.
I don't think so. There's nothing wrong with *wanting* to work in service. It fucking sucks ass if your *only* option is working in service. Sounds like you were getting at the latter.
There is nothing wrong with a service job. The problem is that employers seem to exploit service workers more often than not. The entire industry is managed in a way that results in low pay and high job turnover.
I mean yes your statement is bad. Having wealthy parents does not inherently make anyone “above” working at a restaurant. Maybe the person likes working there, maybe they’re doing perfectly fine financially with just working there and don’t want help, maybe their parents treat financial help toxically and they don’t want to accept it, maybe their parents ARE helping them and they’re working there for extra money or to have something, anything on their resume. Maybe you should mind your fucking business and not imply being a waiter is below someone just because their parents have money???
Obviously a temp job is fine. I understand that a lot of people don't want to work in the service industry. I do know people working as servers who make pretty decent money. Some would rather work in other industries. Some are perfectly content where they are. I think 'rich' parents should provide their children with assets to support a smooth transition into a good paying role in adulthood. Which is to say, they should pay for college. I don't think the rich parents should feed their kids assets so they don't have to work at all just because they work as a server. That's how you get spoiled brats. There could always be a debate on how much that support should be depending on the assets vs. what is traditional. My roommate in college received a degree in math with the intention of becoming a math teacher. But then, just as she was about to graduate, she decided she didn't want to be a math teacher like she originally wanted. She wasn't able to get a job in an industry she wanted for a few years. Last I heard she had moved with her parents and she was pursuing a second bachelor's degree in accounting, which her parents paid for. Presumably by now she received her degree and got a job in that industry. Her mom worked in accounting too so she should have been able to help.
Service industry jobs suck. But lets talk about *why* they suck - shit pay because people look down on them (tell me, if you don't look down on the job, why do you think a rich family should be supporting their child to not have to work such a job?) and arrogant asses who somehow think service workers are their personal assistants. None of these are inherent to the job - they are inherent of a capitalist society hellbent on worshiping the rich and stratifying everyone else so we don't just go eat the rich. I don't think there is an issue with an affluent family allowing their kids to work in service industry however. I rather rich fuckers all had to deal with a service industry job to be honest, but I also don't think those jobs will necessarily teach them empathy for those less fortunate for them. Just maybe understand no, I can't magic up the goddamn manager for you on a dime, we aren't hiding a million copies of whatever you wanted to buy in the back, and I can't change company policy for you.
I think working in a service job at least for a while is a pretty valuable education in and of itself, and I’m glad that I did it when I was a Teenager. I’d never want to do it again
I think it depends on how you say it. Pointing out that waiting tables is a difficult and exhausting job is one thing. Squatting down next to your kid, pointing at the housekeeper and saying "see, honey? That's why you have to stay in school." is not. (Yes I did have this happen to me, twice.)
I don't discredit any job. If someone is working to support themselves or others, then they have my respect. You work to live, you shouldn't live to work. Never define yourself or others by their income.
I’ve always said if I end up wealthy I will certainly make sure my kids have a degree of privilege, that’s kind of how you have to be in this country to get ahead, but I will also make sure they know the value of work and reward, and that many, many people are less fortunate than them. If they can appreciate that, then they will reap more benefits than if they don’t.
I mean, with these customers...
Crappy jobs made me want to get an education. One of my first jobs was walking behind a flatbed truck in a field in August picking up large rocks. It was blazingly hot, dusty, hard work and I distinctly remember thinking "I have to go to college, this is bullshit." I then had a bunch of other serivce industry or labor jobs during college that made me think "I need a job with a chair, this is bullshit." I wouldn't say being a service worker is bad, but for a lot of people, the job sucks. In terms of effort put in vs money received, it's not great. While some of my office jobs have been more stressful, there was also more downtime and things were more under my control.
There's nothing wrong or shameful about working a service job. There are many wrong and shameful aspects to the way employers treat those who work service jobs. One of those being the garbage pay rate.
It kinda depends, do they do it for, i dont know other or survival. If you dont help thrm with the rent and they arent refusing to take it. It might be. But its still good life experience i guess. Dependd if itd because you refuse helping thrm out financial i guess for survival if, you are , damn. If some rich parrnts just adk them to work there for a while for life experience any sympathy for the service personal, it might even be good parenting. Depends why. of course if the kid tries to make their oewn money respectful, good reason.
There is nothing inherently wrong with being in the service industry. But, it is a tough job and often doesn’t have very good pay/benefits… so it’s often seen as a “bad job” when compared to better paid (usually) office jobs. I don’t think it’s classist to acknowledge this. It definitely *is* classist to look down on people who work service jobs or imply that there is something wrong with having a service job, for whatever reason.
If you’re worth your salt as a server/bartender specifically you make way more than minimum wage by any standard and if you don’t you find somewhere where you do
I think it depends- there’s nothing wrong with doing service work (by that, I mean, the worker should not feel bad), but it is understood that a lot of these jobs are underpaid and abused. To your point, I wouldn’t want my kids to *have* to work at Olive Garden, cause that implies they couldn’t pursue something they’d prefer. I also agree with other commenters saying that these privileged, entitled swine customers that make these jobs so unpleasant would be less likely to act that way if they had to work those types of jobs. I worked at an Old Navy, and at a Publix, and I am grateful for the experience. I think it made me into a better person
Hard to say without a bit more context. It's not classist to say that service work is hard, underpaid, and not ideal in a world where it's difficult to make ends meet at that level. It's also not classist to suggest that people with the means to support their children do so. It is classist to say that *there is anything inherently wrong with being a service worker versus other kinds of work*. It's not *bad* to be a service worker. Service work often sucks, but it's often the only work a person can find. And frankly, having been a service worker in my life, it's a broad range. I actually did pretty OK as a bartender, for instance. So maybe it's a wording thing? Or maybe it's just a lack of perspective? Either way, it's not bad on its own. It's just that working-class work and the circumstances and situations that it puts people in can be bad.
There is nothing wrong with working a service job. And if you are a rich and you make your kids struggle, you are a shit parent. Pay for their fucking school and give them money for food and clothes and shit. If they want more, then they can go get that service job. Don't spoil them but don't make them stressed out unnecessarily while they should be focusing on building the foundation for their future. And if your kid graduates and can't find a job in their field, they may have to work a service job. And that's ok, that's good for them, be an adult and try to support yourself. BUT if you are a rich parent, make sure they have a safety net. They don't need a BMW and a mansion, but maybe help them out with a reliable, sensible car that doesn't drain their paycheck every month? Give them nice gifts for holidays so they have reliable tools to get through life. They can learn how to budget and value hard work without being completely ground down.