How many of you out there know what it feels like to come home smelling like grease every night? How many of you understand the dread of knowing that you have to face a bunch of rude people all day, and you just have to take it?
If you are in the service industry, at least the retail or food side, you understand better than anyone. If not, take a minute to put yourself in their shoes, and keep this in mind the next time you go to your favorite store, fast food joint, or restaurant.
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When you think about retail jobs, you might think it will be a simple, mindless job. All you have to do is fold and hang clothes right? There might even be a bonus of an employee discount to make the deal sweeter. A retail job sounds like an awesome way to make money!
This is what it really is...
From the time you get to work, you have to put away anything in your personal life that might be bothering you in order to plaster a smile on your face to talk to strangers that don't even want to talk to you. You have to commit to a script that was given to you and get paid off of commission. You have to throw deals and memberships at customers and constantly be shot down. Sometimes, in less than polite ways.
Most of the time, you are stuck in the same section of the store because people keep throwing clothes around or putting them in the wrong places. So, even if you just spent an hour in the men's department of the store, you can literally look behind you and it will look like you hadn't even been there.
If you are working in the dressing rooms, you could tell everyone trying on clothes that they need to bring all the clothes that they tried on back out with them and still end up with a ton of clothes crumpled up in the rooms.
At the cash register, you will get people that get mad at you because you are taking too long with the customer before them. Little do they know about all the things you have to do before they can swipe their card and leave the store. Not to mention all the situations when people try to use expired coupons or tell you to take some of the thing off that you already rung up three shirts ago.
When you think about fast food jobs, you might think that it is the easiest thing you could ever do. All you have to do is take someone's order and give it to them after they pay for it. Or, all you have to do is make the same food over and over again all day. You might even get a free meal during shifts along with an employee discount for when you're not working.
This is what it really is...
The moment you get to work, you have to be to code with your uniform. That usually means the one uniform they give you that is usually too big for you to begin with. On top of that, you have to buy a certain pair of shoes and wear your hair just right. You can't have facial hair and hair nets are required. To top it off, nails have to be short and clean. Depending on what you are doing, you have to wear gloves, and if you touch something that was away from the food, you have to stop what you're doing, take them off, sanitize your hands again, put new gloves on, and get back to the order you were making.
Oh, and don't forget that you are being timed from the moment someone begins an order to the time they have it in their hands. Some companies have a time limit of three minutes per order. That includes the script you have to say, all the special alterations, the people that don't know what they want, the time it takes for the computer to register the card or the person to count their money, last minute changes, and all the food that needs to be made.
And remember, you have to memorize everything on that menu so that you don't mess up the orders and loss money. There are also always new items added to the menu.
With all of that to worry about, you also have to be good at customer service to people that obviously don't respect you whatsoever. Even if they are yelling at you or treating you like dirt, you have to smile and ask if they need anything else.
Beyond all of those jobs, you also have to find time to cook and prep the food, do the tons of dishes that never stop piling up and clean the kitchen and lobby endlessly since there are always new customers sitting down making a mess and filling up the garbage.
Personally, I think that everyone should have to work in the service industry at least once in their lives to see what it is like working for less than minimum wage in a job made degrading by society.
Everyone should have to experience the disrespect and disparagement that these people have to endure every day of their lives. Some people think that it is their own fault that they have to work such a job, but some people don't really have a choice in the matter. Some are doing it as a side job to pay for the insane amounts of tuition fees for college in order to get a better job. Some have no choice because they have a family to provide for and didn't have the opportunities to go to college.
The employees in these jobs are people just like you. They don't deserve the disrespect or the taunts. They don't need someone walking into their work and treating them like they are no better than dirt. They are there to help you, and it will make it so much easier for the both of you if you treated each other like human beings.
So, the next time you feel like going into a clothing store at close with no intention of buying anything and only end up throwing the displays into disarray... Don't. The next time you want to go for some fast food before you have to go to work or class and you decide to bark orders and make fun of the people helping you... Don't.
Put yourself in their shoes and see how you would feel if you were in their place.
