Stumbled upon this beautifully written article about working in the hospitality industry! I am pretty sure we have all been here at some point or another, and if you haven't, well this is a really different and captivating perspective on the industry and a good read...
8 reasons why you need to work in hospitality.
The hours suck. You’re in and organising before the first customer arrives and you’re still cleaning after the last ones leave. Sixteen hours later. Friday night is like Monday morning for normal people and Saturday feels like Wednesday. If you’re lucky enough to get Sunday night off you’re too buggered to want to go out but you do anyway because everyone else is also out venting. It so happens Sundays are the best nights to go out, hospitality people know how to party, that’s kinda why they’re in the game.
The pay is miserable. Any 9-5 human working on a Saturday (let alone Sunday) would demand bonuses, insist on having extra leave and equity share in the business. Being payed by the hour means when there’s work to be done there’s work to be paid for, when things quieten down receiving a text telling you to ‘have it off’ means exactly that. There’s no sympathy pay there either. But your regular customers will always look after you when you look after them. Having a couple hundred tax free notes in the sky rocket makes spending them that much more enjoyable.
It’s never clean enough. Time to lean, time to clean. When you’re being paid to work there’s work to be done; those shelves behind the bar with the entire glassware inventory stacked upon them, yep, they need cleaning; and the glasses, to. Anyone who’s ever lived with someone who knows how to polish will know that their cutlery, crockery and glasses will always be spot and streak free. Always.
The people you work with are fictional. Neil, the 50-year-old waiter who was once an aspiring actor gave up on that and turned to carrying plates... and the bottle; from ten in the morning until he stumbles out and through the quite possibly closed front door. He relives his days on stage in the dining room; he has this aura that surrounds him, each table a new scene, each menu a new script. He lives week to week from pub to pub. And he’s a legend. Javi, the Afghani chef who grew up in Sweden and still has a bullet inside him and shouldn’t be alive (legally or otherwise) will tell you stories with scars to prove that make your life feel like a four-framed comic. He makes the best pizzas you’ll ever taste that not even his mother knows the recipes too. These people will do your head in and tear your soul out but you’ll get to know them better than you know your family and when you meet again, long after you’ve parted ways; you’ll silently thank them for what they taught you.
You cannot hold down a relationship. Because your life revolves around your work, there’s little time for anyone else (of substance). And if you payed attention to the hours (they suck) there’s little time to lead a normally-hour’d life; therefore you have to date the people you work with which is like shitting where you eat. Not even pigs do that. In the busy seasons though, when new staff come and go, you’ll find a summer romance that will definitely be different, you’ll promise each other the world and then review those promises while looking at an atlas of what should have been but never was. Your heart will be broken, your friends will be proud and you’ll move on and be stronger.
Your perception on society will change. The conversations you overhear and are involved in; the topics, the stories and their outcomes – are much the same. You’ll realise that ninety per cent of people are mundane and the ten per cent that are interesting and actually have something worthwhile to offer are more than likely standing next to you. You’ll realise that when you’re in the game, you’re different and if (and when you ever get out) you will not let yourself be like the ninety per cent. You might even find yourself doing what it is you want to do and not what society said.
It’s addictive. Your senses are heightened when moving through a restaurant or behind a bar and if they’re not you’re working too slowly. There’s noise and music, people and pressure, temperature and busyness. Amidst the organised chaos you’ll reach a mental place where you’re aware of everything that’s going on in the room; the 5/4 timed song that’s playing, the Italian chef who is yelling, the four plates that are burning your hands, the forest floor aroma of the vintage Pino Noir that’s just been decanted; and even though you cannot be everywhere at once, you’ll try to be. You’ll take multitasking to another level.
It’s revealing. Every human needs to know how to serve others. And when you’re serving, you’re vulnerable. And you’re vulnerable because it’s personal. It’s between you and them; you’re at their beck and call, yes sir no sir how would you like that cooked, sir. That arse-hole customer who makes it seem like you have done everything wrong, when you couldn’t have done anything more for them. But when you learn to serve with a genuine smile, you realise it’s not personal at all. That’s what service is about, being humble. And the next time you go out and your friend is being the ass that all the staff will talk about, you’ll smile to yourself because he hasn’t carried a plate in his life for anybody else. He hasn’t revealed himself.
-Anonymous
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