Dear shitty customer…

Thank you for complaining, giving me dirty looks and treating me like your slave. I know you think you’re having the worst day and that life is so hard for you but what you don’t realise is, working a 12 hour shift on minimum wage isn’t great either.
You don’t have to cut seven jugs worth of lemon and lime and in the process slice off the top layer of skin from three of your fingers.
You don’t have to polish cutlery until your fingers go wrinkly, like you’ve been in the bath for the last hour and a half.
You don’t have to deal with customers complaining about the prices of drinks. I don’t make these prices. Why are you so angry at me? Why are you shouting at me?
You don’t have to clean broken glass every day.
You don’t have to scrape cold food and touch the knives and forks people have put in their mouth.
You don’t walk miles a day, waiting after people just to be told you’re doing a shit job.
You don’t have to make endless amounts of tea and coffee a day and then deal with people complaining that they aren’t ‘barista standard’… What do you expect? You’re buying a coffee from a pub!
You don’t have to clean the ashtrays at the end of the night — which by the way is the worst job, ash crawls under your fingernails and it makes your hands smell like old cigarettes and smoke for hours.
You don’t have to stick your whole head in the glass washer to clean the scum that has built up over the day from the dirty glasses.
You don’t have to put moisturiser on your hands after every shift because the brial dries them out.
You don’t smell like beer and sweat at the end of every shift.
So when you’re in bed at 11pm, thinking about how tough your day was, just imagine me. Still at work. Tired and frustrated with customers like you who have ruined my day.
Yours truly,
Someone who works in hospitality
