#8

Discussing the service/restaurant industry. 

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I work in the restaurant industry and I think maybe I've mentioned that before. Or service industry, whatever you want to call it. And it's um it started to get to me the things you see when you become aware of what you've actually gotten yourself into. See, our society is very much consumerist. We're a consumerist society. We rely on people to ask for more and more and more to keep a business running. Servers rely on the hospitality and the generosity of the people that come into the restaurant. Although our job is the hospital, although we are in the hospitality industry, it it's mostly the people that come in that show us hospitality. They're giving us their money. Or pay to me or $2.13 an hour. And these large businesses, these corporate businesses, well, they feed on us. They feed on our energy. I am a server, and we are kind of like in between, I guess, the managers and the people that do like marketing and media, and then the back of house. The dishwashers, um, the people that do the prep work. They have the hardest part. Making the food that everyone is drooling over. I think I had mentioned before that I see gluttony almost everywhere now, especially in the restaurant. Well, in the restaurant industry is where I see a lot of gluttony. This has caused the overconsumption of certain meats. It's caused farming to get out of hand. Because there's so many places, there's so many restaurants importing produce, demanding more for the American people. And it's uh sad to watch even myself sometimes participate in this. Where I end up asking for more than what I actually need. I don't need to go out to eat every week. But I do. And sometimes I do multiple times a week. And yeah, maybe I do end up feeling bad about it. Um I do better in some ways to not have such a large carbon footprint. But I think the restaurant industry is one of the biggest things. That and well the fashion industry. One of the biggest things that shows how consumerist the United States is. I try my best not to consume and consume. But I do either way. And to counter that I try to create. I create from my heart and from my mind and from my soul and the little free time that I have. Because this job demands my blood, sweat, and tears, quite literally. I have cried more in the last month than I ever have in the service industry. Well, obviously, I think we're all trying to find a way out of it. It's not just me. It's not just me. I think me and my um what do you call it? My co-workers. We all kind of bond through our suffering in a way. We see how much the other has gone through to try and sustain themselves in a world that keeps demanding more of our time and more of our energy and more of our life worth. And it's sad to watch. There's creative potential everywhere in a restaurant, and it gets wasted in seconds. We're throwing away so much food. Well, people everywhere are starving. Food security is not even secure in the United States. People have to depend on the government. Or on you know, the little structures we have in place to get food. A grocery store, a restaurant, a food bank. Obviously giving people the tools to grow their own food is what is going to free us. Giving people back the land instead of selling it to make some fucking apartment complex would free us. But damn, those people that have money really know how to persuade others. While the earth suffers, so do we. So why would they stop? They don't. Obviously, my plan is to one day have a co-op and to live with people that I love dearly. People that have that same vision in mind of living freely and putting in the work themselves to create their own food food security within a community. Working with the seasons, working with nature, working with the cycles that are natural to us, that are true to us. Not based off a calendar, not based off the time that was created by a man. Not the Gregorian calendar, not the 24-hour cycle, not the 365 days, but the cycle that moves with the tides and the moon. That is imperfectly perfect to grant us everything we need. The joy of food is one of the greatest things we have. We need it. We do. And when we start to depend on something outside of ourselves to give us what we need, well, we feel incomplete. We're like, whoa, well, I think I do need to go eat at this really nice restaurant. I think I really need to go try this new packaged frozen meal that is so easy for me to make. That's what a lot of people are looking for nowadays. What is the easiest thing to do? What is the easiest thing to make? What is the easiest thing to acquire? Obviously, fast food industry and the delivery industry add to this. As everything becomes so accessible, we stop doing everything ourselves. We stop cooking, we stop coming together. We start getting things delivered instead. We go out to eat a lot more. We take for granted the food that nourishes us and that gives us life. And that to me is such a great sin. To take for granted the food that gives us life. I was talking with a few of my friends on different occasions about how we take for granted the food that we eat, especially working in the service industry. We barely have any time to eat our food. We don't really get to enjoy it. We just have to scarf it down and get back to work. And it's not really food that nourishes us, it's food that tastes good. Yeah, it tastes good, but does it really nourish us? Does it give us energy? I end up having a stomach ache most of the time now when I eat food from work. I mean, obviously I'm not gonna tell them that. Because I am grateful for the food that they make us because um the back of line works very hard. They work in worse conditions than we do. They're in the heat above a plancha or above the fryer, near the ovens. Um, but anyways, back to the point. I tell them that I enjoy so much more cooking a meal with friends and enjoying everything that we've made together. Having a conversation over a meal instead of just eating it quickly to get back to work. Although I do think that my creativity and some of my other spiritual practices can get me out of this industry, I'm still in it. And I'm trying to find better ways of coping with the way that I feel every time I go into work now, because it's been beating down on me the past few weeks. How unhappy I am when I go to work. What does make me happy is seeing the people that I do love, the friends that I have made at work, and interacting with people that treat me like a person. When I get to serve people that are actually worth serving. But some people come in and they go there to interact. And so we do, and it's a beautiful time. There's a little synchronicity that happened yesterday. Someone came in, a man and his wife. It was his birthday, and his daughter's birthday was the day before, September 13th. And believe it or not, my birthday is also September 13th. It was very heartwarming because they were such an amazing couple. They asked me how I was doing. He said, you know, the real question is, how are you doing? And I answered in full honesty, and I said, I'm doing alright. And well he asked, like, you know, you're doing just alright. And I was like, yeah, well, you know, work's been a little hard. What can I say? I should not be working 40 hour weeks. I worked a 50-hour week not too long ago. I should be working at most 30 hours a week, and I should still be able to have a living wage for everything that I need. And obviously, on top of that, I should have some access to food security. I don't I shouldn't have to buy every single food staple that is in my house. But, you know, since we live in this consumer society, everything has become a product. Everything. Having a garden, having a forest nearby that actually produces food is a luxury. And that's the way that things actually started out. So you're telling me my god fucking giving right when I was born has been taken away from me, and now I have to pay to have access to it. People know it's crazy. But I'm getting fed up with it. I'm getting fed up with the people that continue in this cycle, and they don't realize that they're in this cycle, and they're just giving and giving back to this industry that is killing us. And they're just going about their days, and they some of them do realize that they're in this cycle, but they don't want to do anything about it. They just want to stay in it because it's the safest thing they got to work for the big man, to make money, to adhere by the rules, whatever, and to just suffer slowly every single day until it eats away at their soul completely, and they're just working mindlessly in the service industry. And all of that I believe in energy transfer. I believe all of that energy transfers into the food that we eat at a restaurant. People unhappy to make this food and people that are gluttonous and just frothing at the mouth to eat this food quickly, to enjoy a quick bite. And then go about their days like nothing even happened. One conscious decision that I am going to be making with a few of my friends is to start cooking meals every week and enjoying a meal that we've made together. Sitting down, relaxing, decompressing from all the social interactions we've had the week before with customers who were shitty, with managers who actually don't give a shit about us. Or maybe pretend that they do, or maybe do, but don't know what else to do. And the feelings of disparity that come from working in the service industry. Obviously, I am graduating very, very soon, and I am able to pick a career, pick a passion in my field. But this is not something that I want for the rest of the world. This is not something that I want for people. I see people so young working in the service industry, and their lives are being pulled from under them. Because they believe that they have to make money. They need to make money. They believe that they need the money. What they need is a fucking competent government to actually provide a secure food source. Good food brings us together. That is a sticker that I have on my water bottle that I got from a co-op grocery store in Roanoke, Virginia, where I was raised. And I go by that because good food is the source of our nourishment, it's the source of our happiness. If our gut is happy, then we are happy. That's one part of it, I guess. There's also the mental and emotional part of life, physical as well. But good food does add a lot of good to our day-to-day life. And I'll be goddamned if I ever end up working in the service industry longer than a year. Because I'm not doing that. I am willing and I am able to create the life that I want for myself. And I want to get together with my friends and do the same thing with them. And I want them to do the same thing for themselves. Because they are willing and they are able. Like some mindless machine. I see some of my co-workers that are 10 years older than me, 15 years older than me, and they're just like, well, another day, another dollar. I gotta do what I gotta do. And it fucking hurts my soul to see them this way. Because obviously I love some of them, and obviously, like I understand that they were hardwired this way. It's been implemented in their minds since they got into fucking elementary school, that money was important. But I don't know what I can do about that. Are they too far gone? Is that a valid question? Are they too far gone? Are they too deep? I hope not. Because I care about these people and I care about their well-being, and I don't want to see these people waste their lives away in an industry that does not care for them. In a world, in a little structure, and a little patriarchal structure that does not care for us in the way that they have made us think they care for us. There's so much more to this world than there's so much more to this life than working 30 to 50 hour weeks to make a living wage. We should be out here having fun and enjoying the earth itself and taking care of it, preserving it, interacting with it, learning from it, being curious about what is around us. And I swear I'm on my fucking last straw. One more thing happens and I'm I'm quitting cold. And they won't ever see me again. And that's just the type of person I am. I take my fucking chances when I do something, and I feel it completely in my soul when I do something with some passion. So I'm looking for other avenues, I'm looking for other ways, I'm looking for different places that maybe don't treat me so badly. And if it's in the restaurant industry, then well fuck, I'll have to bear it. But get me out of this place. Because god damn it, I can't do it anymore. But I am strong enough. And I'm passionate enough to show people that the little loop we're in isn't something that we need to be in. So hopefully me and all of my other friends, we can get together to make a different life for ourselves. I think that's what so many of us are hoping for. Anyways, from my soul, from love. See you next time.