Before you Rip Your Waiter a New One…
Seeing the human in the service industries
“Nearly all men can withstand adversity, but if you want to test a man’s character, see how he treats the waiter…” — A slight paraphrase of Abraham Lincoln’s quote on power
The lawn guy. The waitress. The plumber and electrician. And the nursing aide.
More and more people are entering the trades (and why not, it’s a bit of a gold rush). You don’t need a four year degree to make a good living anymore. Plumbers can make six figures in their first year now.
As more people enter this space, one of my biggest pet peeves is how people treat these hardworking folks with disrespect.
Boomers especially…I don’t know where their generation learned that if you’re not served immediately, it’s a personal insult . It’s so common it’s an internet trope — “Karen” with her short cut hair, berating the waiter.
Our world is changing. Office jobs are not what they once were. And even AI could supposedly could cut white collar jobs in half. The trades are now far more lucrative than they were just a decade ago. And a college education just isn’t as valuable.
Part of this is demographic: as less people are replacing aging generations, the choke points where you can only have a person to physically do the work (think nurses, plumbers, construction, etc) are far more important.
The reason your homeowners insurance is going up is largely because of a lack of workers. Something like 2/3 of your insurance premiums are actually because there aren’t enough dudes to get on your roof. And then we compound it by trying to deport them too (maybe Green Day had a point).
These people work hard, demanding jobs. They pay with their bodies. Imagine their grueling days and THEN for them to be yelled at because the food is taking longer…this isn’t cool…
Before You Rip Them a New One…
Before you launch into a tirade and rip that waitress/plumber/med tech a new one…can I pause you, just for a sec…
Look at them. Just stop and look at them.
Do you see the blood and shit stains on the med tech’s clothes? Do you see the bags under the eye of your waiter?
Ever seen a plumber’s knees…Ditto with construction dudes…
Do you think they have kids at home? How hard must it be to work this kinda job with little ones…could you imagine?
Before you rage that your meal wasn’t quite right, that it took too long, or the nurse forgot one thing…
Stop and see the human before you.
There’s something very special about humans, including this one.
They don’t have to do this job. But they chose to.
They’re here, trying to serve you, and even then they sometimes have a bad day. I’m sure you’ve had a bad day…but ever had one at a blue collar job? For them, it can end in missing fingers, someone dying, or plates crashing.
You wanna swap your bad day for theirs? I wouldn’t.
They’re human. So are you.
There’s just never a reason to be rude. Sure, let them know if something is wrong, but we’re talking personal here…and your lawn guy mowing the wrong direction isn’t life or death.
Don’t let consumerism cloud the image in front of you. You’re not looking at an Amazon 2-hour delivery commitment…you’re looking at a single mother of three. She’s just trying to get through the day. Only you can give her the compassion she so desperately needs in this moment, so don’t withhold. You have no idea just how far your kindness can go after a 12 hour shift.
It’s one thing to mistreat them, but you impoverish yourself by looking down on them. Don’t rob yourself of their humanity. They are special…just as you are.
They didn’t have to work there this day. This didn’t have to be in this field. But they did. Don’t just pay them in your tip, pay them with your gratitude. They’ll forget your 20%, but they will remember how you made them feel…
So be unforgettable…
We Complete Each Other — No Person Is An Island
Something is special about a human, and something is special about their work. When something is done by hand, it means someone’s hands touched it. Human hands.
There are things that still require a physical person to work, to perform. You can’t get around that. A person installs your plumbing. A human constructed your house. Someone assembled your phone.
The transhumanist folks view everything in life as varying degrees of robot work, and would look at all this as a trivial thing, just basic industrial stuff before the machines can do it.
But they still can’t do it. It still requires human hands. A person’s eye to drop it in the right spot. And a human’s mind to know when to alter course.
What you cannot do, another human can. Where you are weak, they fill in. We cannot wholly fix all our own problems, because we aren’t made to. We need one another. You need the service worker, and they needs you.
You are not independent of this person. Nor they you.
We do not exist for ourselves alone, but to complete each other.
We are one human race, one body, and we fulfill each other. We are not separate autonomous beings that need nothing beyond ourselves…we’re humans.
We need the plumber, the waitress, the nurse. And we need you too.
See your own humanity, and then see it in your service worker.
It always pays to be kind…because the human matters…