Overworked and burned out

Testimonial by Jess R., former server

1) As a current/former/future restaurant worker, how has the pandemic changed your perspective on the restaurant industry? How has it impacted your willingness to work in the industry?

As a former restaurant worker, I am grateful the pandemic forced me to leave restaurant work behind. I spent a decade trying to making a career out of doing work that I genuinely enjoyed in restaurants, but often found myself unable to make much progress personally and professionally. Frankly, the emotional and physical intensity of the labor that was required of me in the industry left me with little energy left over to take proper care of myself over the years I worked as a server. The forced closure of restaurants gave me a real opportunity to reexamine how restaurant work affected my quality of life. I decided the ways in which most owners and operators the restaurant industry refuse to support or invest in their labor force is incongruent with my professional goals and standards.

2) What would you like to see change in the restaurant industry? What changes would encourage you to return to work in a restaurant/food service environment?

I would like to see changes that prove restaurants value their employees. Ideally, this would take the form of fair wages and benefits. Tipping– which places demonstrable and inequitable burdens on tip-earners, creates tension between restaurant staff, and engenders a significant power imbalance between restaurant workers and the customers they serve– should be abandoned. Prices on menus should reflect the true cost of the entire experience customers are coming to enjoy. Those experiences would be impossible without the work of highly skilled workers, and owners must be willing to raise prices, cut costs, or otherwise innovate their business models so they can compensate accordingly. The only way I would ever go back to work in the restaurant industry would be for a livable, salaried wage, healthcare, paid vacations, and the benefits that skilled professionals in most other industries enjoy.

3) What issues were you experiencing in the restaurant industry before the pandemic?

Before the pandemic, I was struggling with substance abuse issues and chronic burnout. Drug and alcohol abuse runs rampant in the service industry, but this is not due to any personal failure of service industry employees. Restaurant workers are one of the most diverse workforces in our region and our nation– what we have in common are the industrial conditions to which we are subject. Restaurant work is physically and emotionally challenging, and we are provided very little in terms of the time or resources needed to replenish ourselves. We often have jobs with no healthcare, no paid time off, no set schedules, no guarantee that time we give to our employers will be duly compensated. I used to believe there was something wrong with me that made me unable to cope with the physical and psychological stress of restaurant work. Now that I’ve had time away from the industry, I see the problem is largely systemic.