i think that everyone who argues that some labor is “unskilled” & doesn’t deserve $15 an hour (which is STILL not a living wage in parts of this country btw) should have to do the job they insulted for 2 weeks w/o training. anyone can do it, huh? cool. prove it. should be funny.
obviously i understand that like, doing brain surgery and flipping burgers are different tasks requiring different amounts of training/skill. but since flipping burgers is always the example, here’s a non-exhaustive list of what you might have to know or learn to do in that job:
-prepare the food you’re going to cook, not for your family eating hamburgers for dinner of w/e, but for HUNDREDS of people. if you’ve never had to chop enough onions to fill up one of these then i guess maybe you can stfu about who deserves to make enough money to live?
-know how to safely operate, handle, and clean not just a cooktop that inevitably has needed some sort of repair for years, but also a gigantic deep fryer full of boiling hot oil. visigoths would run screaming from the contents of that fryer! don’t burn yourself 🙃
-speaking of burns, better also know how to use a large steam warmer that’ll give you a VICIOUS steam burn if you look at it wrong, and also every other tool in a pro kitchen, bc you WILL be perpetually understaffed & ppl WILL call off and you WILL have to do their jobs, too.
-hahahahaHA you ever cleaned a grease trap? have you? good luck with that one, easily makes the list of top ten most disgusting tasks in the known universe
-speaking of cleaning, better know which chemicals in the cabinet of chemicals are for the floor, which are for the counters, which are for the bathrooms, which are safe to use w/o ventilation, & which can mix dangerously w/ the others, bc at some point u WILL have to close alone
-did i mention food safety? you GOTTA know food safety, otherwise you might give someone, or give a LOT of people, food poisoning (big outbreaks often kill folks, fyi), or watch someone w/ severe allergies fucking asphyxiate due to your lack of knowledge abt cross contamination,
hey, how does the hood vent on your grill work? careful not to smoke the place out. are you in the kind of workplace where they make you deal with the customers? lmao good luck with that. the health inspector is coming - do you know the 5 most common foodborne illnesses?
i could keep going; i haven’t touched on NEARLY everything, let alone the factors complicated by COVID. but the point of this wasn’t to list every duty involved in flipping burgers — it was to demonstrate that all labor, including the much-derided burger flipping, requires skill.
putting this in caps so you don’t miss it: IF YOU DON’T THINK SERVICE WORKERS DESERVE TO MAKE ENOUGH MONEY TO LIVE COMFORTABLY, YOU MAY HAVE A TERRIBLE CASE OF NOT SEEING SERVICE WORKERS AS PEOPLE. and if that is the case, you are woefully misinformed and, also, yikes. you suck.
everybody deserves to live comfortably. everybody deserves to have plenty to eat, a safe place to live, clean water, medical care. EVERYONE deserves enough to live on. that we don’t all, as human beings, demand that this be standard across the board is absurd.
and if you’re out here fighting for anything else, please know: i’ve worked a lot of service jobs, & i’ve worked with a lot of folks who USED to be office workers, administrators, lawyers, etc. fortunes turn. be careful what you wish for on that goddamned monkey’s paw!!
oh and p.s. don’t forget to tip service workers whenever you have to opportunity to do so. otherwise after i die my ghost will personally come dump mustard into your coffee every morning of your life; you can count on it 💁‍♂️ 🍔 💜
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