The bottomless pit of the service industry.
Category: Food and Restaurants
I tend to have a rather low opinion of myself. I don't know if that has something to do with things that happened in my childhood or things that have continually happened throughout my life. But I can say with absolute certainty that the one thing in my life that I am good at is the service industry. Put me in any restaurant anywhere in the US and I can do it with little to no training.
It's almost automatic. I revert to my restaurant skills even at home or when I'm out to dinner. I'm constantly scanning the place for things being done wrong or things that should be attended to. Why? Why do I care if the slackers at Ruby Tuesday aren't paying attention to the guy across the aisle from me who has been out of tea for at least 15 minutes? Why do I care that there are 8 dirty tables and 12 servers standing up at the host stand goofing off?
I shouldn't care, it isn't affecting my tip or my restaurants reputation. But something has gotten inside of me and made me uncomfortable to be around mediocrity in the restaurant business. Frankly I'm sick of it. I just want to get out of this industry all together and have a normal job. A job where I get lunch breaks and health insurance. A job where I don't make $2.43 and hour and have to depend on tightwads to figure up how many of their pennies they are going to part with at the end of their meal. I want a job where I can take days off because I have a fever and still get paid for it. I want normal hours where I can actually be home when my boyfriend goes to bed and get up in the morning and make breakfast. I want a normal life.
And as a side note for those of you who aren't in the know...
Minimum wage for tipped employees was $2.13 and hour for as long as I can remember. Then, as luck would have a little less than a year ago the mimimum wage went up to $3.10 an hour. Oh what a glorius few months of paychecks that are almost large enough for a tank of gas. However, last week minimum wage for tipped employees went down again to $2.43. So all of you waitstaff and bartenders that got used to an actual paycheck, get ready for it to be cut again. Sorry guys, I guess tipped employees are again, two thirds of a person.
2 comments:
We live in a time of hyper-capitalism, where the rich get richer and it takes money, rather than work, to make money.
But,
like everything else, this too will collapse of its own bloated weight.
Until then I will continue to tip well because
1. I was a waiter way back when you could make enough to pay for a year of college being a waiter.
2. My daughter was a waitress while I paid for her college.
3. I know that it takes a while to pour a nice pint of Guiness.
I think people who work in the service industry learn to be more patient with people. They also learn the important social skills that go along with growing up.
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