Shame Isn’t An Incentive Program
Food service is harder than you think. Stop shaming people who aren’t jumping at the chance to go back.
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When I was working as a barista in college, we had a staff training on the new and improved methods for making our deli sandwiches.
Efficiency was key. We watched our manager demonstrate the quickest way to assemble each sandwich, how to heat bread to the perfect soft-not-chewy texture. Slice, microwave for 20 seconds, cut, add toppings, then the panini grill. Or some variation, depending on the sandwich.
Our time could be broken into seconds and each one mattered.
A small cafe in its first few years of opening, the managers were desperate to start turning a profit, and this retraining was one in a series of measures to try to increase sales and reduce cost.
After the sandwich assembly, they started a lecture. Concerned that we were slacking, our side conversations leading to a lack of focus, they sought to instill the fundamental frame that when we were on the clock, our labor was bought and sold until we clocked out.
“The minute you punch your time cards,” the owner explained, “you’re on our time.” Since they were paying us, any minute not spent working — cleaning, prepping, smiling at customers — was a loss to them. We had to always be moving. Nickels and dimes add up.
They said squandering time was akin to stealing, like we were developing sticky fingers for moments of imperfection: having to remake hummus or a cafe drink, or moments of rest — taking a second to lean against the counter and settle your thoughts.
We had to stay vigilant of our inner-thief. Those moments, the small breaks or dragging pace on harder days, were taken straight from the till.
Working hard vs. looking like it
When I graduated with my bachelor’s degree, I transitioned into office work as soon as I could. I needed health insurance and enough income to afford my rent and impending student loan payments.
Office work was leisurely compared to my jobs in restaurants, food production, and event catering.
It was also unbearably slow. Largely inconsequential decisions would take 15 business days and 56 emails to resolve. Unspoken norms took precedence over efficiency at every turn. And it was quiet. Hushed “good mornings” through the hallway. A couple emails, our desktops chiming occasionally over the whirring hum of air conditioning — which my coworkers complained about endlessly, wearing gloves and scarves at their desks, shivering into their neat packages of cottage cheese.
Contrast is an understatement. Working in food service is all about hustle and efficiency. Being kind when customers greet your smile with a scowl. Dealing with the occasional overflowed toilet or spilled garbage juice. It’s taking a smoke break and feeling soreness radiate from the soles of your feet the moment you sit down. It’s sexual harassment so common as to be mundane. It’s trying to reduce your already tight budget when you have to call in sick because your next paycheck will be 10 hours less than normal.
I’ve thought a lot about what we trade, of ourselves, for money. I’ve had 16 jobs or internships in as many years, split between office work and food service. As a waitress, my bosses traded around $2.13/hour (still the minimum tipped-worker wage in Wisconsin) for my strong arms, fast pace, and cognitive ability to remember most things, most of the time. I sold a smile and a laugh for a better tip. Just as with the cafe, my labor included all relevant parts of me.
As in: my whole person was their whole person while I was clocked in. The work takes all of you and then gives you back at the end of the day covered in ketchup, splashes of beer, and sweat.
In the office, appearances felt more important than reality. One day, my manager sat me down and said she needed me to start coming in before 7:30. I had regularly been getting into the office at 7:50 when my bus dropped me off. Most people got there at 6:30. Of course, I was the only one using public transportation. To get there any earlier, I’d have to leave before five a.m. and catch three buses instead of two.
“I know you’re getting everything done, and you’re doing great work. But it’s about what others see,” she said, her expression one of kind patience. “We don’t want to give the impression that our department isn’t working hard.”
Unlike food service, they didn’t need me to show up perfectly every day. They didn’t tell me how long it should take to type up an email or write a press release or make a presentation. Water cooler conversations were fine. As long as I looked like I was busy—as busy as everyone else also appeared to be—my time was self-directed.
The problem of re-entry
We’re currently undergoing a shortage of food service workers in the U.S. Other industries too; long-term care facilities, construction companies, and other employers are struggling to find workers. After receiving unemployment due to the pandemic, some say, workers simply don’t WANT to go back.
There’s always an undertone (or blunt overtone) of judgment in these statements, mock-whining and a huffiness meant to say: Work isn’t an option — grab your apron and get back to it.
I don’t blame a single person in hospitality, food service, or any similarly taxing and underpaid work for staying on unemployment for as long as they can. Especially after the year we’ve had, with many low-wage workers remaining in their jobs the majority of the time, putting themselves at risk of getting sick non-stop and working all day, every day with a mask on—while many office workers’ conditions became even more comfortable, working from their couch or home office.
Even prior to the pandemic and how it’s shaken up our world, worker dissatisfaction has been palpable for years.
Work is a different challenge when you know you’ll be financially struggling. You don’t get to think about the house you’re paying off or the dog you’re going to adopt or the new non-lumpy bed you’re going to buy. Really, what’s the point if you can’t actually work towards anything? If a good life is still not in reach?
The privilege of security
My bachelor’s degree was my ticket out of financial instability. I’ve been writing this essay since cashing in that ticket, piece by piece, trying to wrap my head around how the equally talented and hardworking people I worked with in restaurants are often unable to live with anything close to the same sense of security (unless supported by someone).
I’ve been writing this essay since my first weeks of office work. Longer, even — since the sandwich training where I first internalized other people’s conception of my labor, and for years after, as I switched back and forth between jobs and industries, trying to find my place.
Those with a four-year degree are given a colossal leg up, sorted into a higher tier of the working class. These conventions protect some of us while letting others — who weren’t able to go to school or pursue an alternative path (like the skilled trades) — live paycheck-to-paycheck. Without insurance or savings, workers are essentially living on the precipice of bankruptcy; all it takes is one accident, one injury, one mistake. And once you fall behind, it can be impossible to get back on your feet.
Facing discrimination and having less access to resources in the first place, many Black Americans and other racial minorities, indigenous populations, those with disabilities, and those in the LGBT community are up against even greater hurdles and are much more likely to be trapped in a cycle of poverty.
We don’t live in a meritocracy. Privilege is still a hard topic for some people, but I think it becomes easier to grasp when you interact closely with others who have a different experience of the world than you. You start to see the opportunities afforded to you and how important luck is.
I’m lucky that my family encouraged me to get a degree, that my dad cashed in his 401k to help me pay rent in school, and told me what loans to take out when I didn’t understand interest rates. I’m lucky that mental or physical health struggles didn’t derail me with fatal timing, preventing me from graduating.
I refuse to let myself look at my improved situation — health insurance, retirement benefits, a livable income — and think it’s because I deserve it more.
Shame is a not an incentive
I don’t remember a lot of work training almost a decade later, but the one about stealing time stuck with me. The crossover between rest and shame felt like something important to think about; something to ruminate on as I learned how I was going to operate in the world.
I mean, I’m absolutely susceptible to shame. I have social anxiety. For most of my life, my worst nightmare has been being a “bad person”. I’ve felt bad for years about things I know I didn’t do.
And yet I couldn’t make myself feel bad for not squeezing out every bit of effort my body had for $8 an hour. For the cost of one of the sandwiches on our lunch menu.
Lots of people like to think of themselves as exceptions — especially if they’re wealthy. But most of those people have probably never experienced the tough aspects of low-wage hospitality work; what it’s like to be underpaid and still always pressured to give more.
Obviously, I’m biased in favor of higher minimum wage and better working conditions given my experiences and community. Lots of people disagree with that, or feel we have bigger issues to focus on. Most people have complex and often sensitive opinions on work and labor and time.
Fine. But we have got to stop gaslighting a huge portion of the workforce. Assuming that people aren’t working because of laziness or entitlement cuts the conversation off before it’s even started. It’s becomes an easy excuse for those unwilling to listen without judgment.
Here’s a good litmus test: if you’re putting yourself on a pedestal of morality above those whose life experiences you can’t relate to—you’re probably in the wrong.
