Surviving in the Food Service Industry

For many of us, the trip through the Help Wanted ads in the newspaper is a predictable one. After plowing through dozens of promising jobs only to discard them all because we lack the experience/ degree/ accreditation required, we finally land in the section that's always welcoming to newcomers: Restaurants. Waiter, waitress, dishwasher, prep cook, line cook, sandwich artist, cashier, burger-flipper, fry cook...we can fill nearly any of these positions (or move up into them once we've got a foot in the door) without any previous experience. Oftentimes, we do - telling ourselves that it's only for a little while, until we "get on our feet" and then find something better.

Unfortunately, the food service industry is a pretty closed system. We soon find that putting "sandwich maker" or "busser" on an application or resume usually only leads to another job that's nearly indistinguishable from the first. Meanwhile, that apron and hair net is eroding our self-esteem. Some of the customers are decent, but others are so exasperating that by the end of the day we feel as mentally numb as if we'd received a shot of novocaine straight into the brain. Then, after taking a mere handful of hours to unwind (assuming we're not working a split shift - another glorious innovation of the industry), we have to catch a few hours' sleep and then start it all over again.

Those customers can be easier to deal with if we keep in mind that they aren't interacting with us as human beings in the first place. This can be difficult to do; but really, it's silly to take anything that they say or do personally because they aren't seeing a person but rather a fixture of the restaurant or store. Jarrid promised them a miracle sandwich that would be served up fast and help them shed some pounds, and they walked through that door expecting an experience that would mirror, to the last detail, that commercial they saw.

America is so sped-up these days that there's little time left over for common courtesy or more "human" discourse. Restaurant managers and franchisees understand this: it's the principle that the fast food industry, in particular, is built upon. Dine-in and fine restaurants are actually just as harried, though. Just because guests spend an average of one hour at their tables for lunch and dinner doesn't mean that the managers and owners aren't still keen on turning those tables as fast as possible. Everything is geared towards processing people quickly. The techniques were borrowed from the assembly line.

Which is where one of the most loathsome aspects of food service jobs comes in: the script. What self-respecting person doesn't shudder at the thought of spending their days reciting, by rote, sales pitches that were put together by guys sitting in offices hundreds of miles away who'd probably never served customers first-hand in their lives? It's a direct assault on one's integrity, to be sure. Not as degrading as being made to put on a Santa hat during the Christmas season, but close. About the best thing one can do is memorize those scripts until the boss is satisfied and then work up some more personal variations when it's time to put them into practice.

Surprisingly, though, scripts can sometimes work to our advantage. They're a good way to deflect the occasional obnoxious customer. Instead of engaging in fruitless efforts to prove a point or defend our dignity, we can simply deliver the schpiel that we've been taught and, if that doesn't work, go get the manager. That's what we've been told to do, right? Ironically, the same procedures that feel so constricting the majority of the time can actually help us to get out of sticky situations. Then we can save the more personal approaches to customer service for people who are more amenable to it.

It can be like fighting in the trenches, my friends. The stress can take its toll on the mind and body. But we don't need to take it personally. The same system that creates such a hectic pace in the first place also insures that difficult customers will soon be gone - and whatever issues they brought in with them hadn't really had anything to do with us in the first place. We're just fixtures of the food service establishment; and that is, at once, both a blessing and a curse.