I’m a cafe worker. There’s one question customers ask that shows a lack of respect

While blundering his way towards a crushing defeat in the UK’s general election this month, Rishi Sunak made many mistakes as prime minister. Perhaps the most disastrous was the Conservative leader’s bizarre promise to reintroduce national service for 18-year-olds.

While Sunak sparked a debate that even reached Australia about the benefits of military service, his plan was generally viewed with the cynicism it deserved. That is, as a shallow attempt to tap into the resentment of his party’s core demographic, Boomers, by forcing Britain’s supposedly entitled youth to pull up their bootstraps and drop their smashed avo toast.

If you think military service is a way to bring young people into line, try working in a cafe or bar. Credit: iStock

But if Boomers are really so hell-bent on punishing Gen Z, Sunak had it all wrong. Instead of serving in the army, the best method would be to force every young person to work a stint in hospitality.

For a start, working in a restaurant closely resembles a boot camp. You wake up early and wear a uniform, you’re on your feet all day, do the same exercises over and over again, sleep a few hours and rinse-repeat the next day.

Much in the way a marine can learn to assemble an M1 Carbine rifle with their eyes closed, a 21-year-old undergrad can sleepwalk their way through Sunday breakfast service without spilling a cappuccino.

I say this as someone who has served their time, in and out of bar jobs and cafe gigs for nearly eight years. It taught me a lot about people, and the lack of respect some believe you deserve when wearing an apron.

The worst part is that people don’t even realise they’re doing it. The lack of thank-yous, the mumbling into the tablecloth when ordering, their sharp impatience when you try to ensure everything was written down correctly.

I suspect restaurant and cafe customers have little idea of the profound, quiet stigma directed towards service workers. There is an assumption in this country that wait staff above a certain age are where they are because they lack the skills or gumption to “get a proper job”.

It’s an unwinnable contradiction: wait staff occupy the unskilled peripherals of the workforce, yet there is hell to pay if we fail to magic up 12 espresso martinis the moment they’re asked for.

The bloke behind the bar and the girl clearing your plates aren’t as dense as you think they are.

They’re usually juggling four tasks when you call out for more mayonnaise. They’re halfway through taking drink orders for a new table of six and refilling the water carafes for the private function in the back room when you decide, sorry yes, you would like some more side plates.

They’re memorising the seat numbers of every table, making sure the right drink ends up in the correct hand and that the gluten-free toddler gets the correct serving of sliced bread.

And yet no matter what skills hospitality workers demonstrate, customers’ prejudice remains.

Of all the jobs I’ve had – creative agencies in London, content creator for a produce supplier in San Francisco, a digital marketer in Melbourne – nobody has ever breathed a word of interest in where I went to university.

Except when I worked in hospitality.

The bloke behind the bar and the girl clearing your plates aren’t as dense as you think they are.

Customers in restaurants have a fanatical interest in the level of education achieved by the people serving them. In the odd instances where I would have time to talk to a diner about something other than the day’s specials, I would always be asked what I did at school. What did I study? Did I complete a master’s degree? Good grades?

The prevailing assumption about service workers is that we’re wiping tables because we are poorly educated. I could never tell if diners were surprised or disappointed when I disclosed I had a first-class honours degree.

It felt like a reading of my character: beneath their polite smiles, the lingering question: “If he’s so smart, why is he working here?”

Long-term service workers are often those who can’t afford to study at uni full-time or undertake the unpaid internship with the investment bank. Yet, the people with those privileges are, from my experience, usually the ones showing the most disrespect towards hospitality staff.

If, as Sunak wanted, we really desire more structure and discipline in our society, there’s plenty to be found in the service industry.

Those who like to complain about the delays in getting their decaf skinny lattes during the Saturday morning rush might appreciate their arrival a lot more if they had some experience in making them for other people.

Liam Heitmann-Ryce-LeMercier is a freelance writer and editor based in
Melbourne. More of his writing can be found here.

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