This is a message to anyone that thinks they are good to the hospitality workers in their lives.
Don’t ask us what we’re eventually going to do for a “real job”, or a “normal job”. Don’t assume that we’re “stuck doing this”.
It’s true that some people that work in restaurants, bars, fast food joints, and cafes are doing this as a summer job. It’s also true that the vast majority of us have seen what “normal” jobs do to “normal” people.
It makes them boring. It makes them resent their job, and their education. It makes them live for the weekend. It closes their minds to the possibility of anything else.
It makes them ordinary.
The war cry of the “normal” person: I hate my job, but the money is great.
I refuse to believe that I’m the only one that sees a problem with this.
Working shifts may not be everyone’s cup of tea, but it allows us crazies to do the things we want to do. Writing a book, one sentence at a time, in-between customer’s incessant needs for more water or coffee, is far preferable to putting time in at an office you hate for 5/7ths (or 71.43%) of your week. At the end of the month, one of us will have a book. The other will have more work to do to make rich people richer, until they retire or the rich people die.
Some of us - not all, but some - actually love our jobs. Weird concept. We are always learning at these jobs, be it new techniques, customer service, conflict resolution, or just how to take a verbal punch from a total stranger who ASKED YOU FOR OVER-EASY AND YOU FUCKING MORONS DON’T SEEM TO KNOW WHAT THAT IS.
Some of us recognize that this isn’t a job for us forever, but it’s good now, so why not rake it in while it’s still good?
So don’t ask us when we’re going to “grow up” as so many people have done to me over the last 15 years. You may have our best interests at heart, but it just makes you sound condescending. And honestly, if you’ve never worked hospitality in your life, you don’t have a say in the matter because you don’t have a clue what you’re talking about.