Daily Reflections

Firstly, a case for the relevancy of a service worker perspective. In the film, “The Peaceful Warrior,” there is a small but thought-provoking piece of dialogue. Dan Millman is speaking with his would-be guide, ‘Socrates’

“You work at a gas station,” Dan accuses more than asserts.

“A service station,” Socrates corrects with a kind of quiet resolve, “We provide service. There is no higher purpose.”

That resonated with me for obvious reasons. Reasons which, while certainly providing bias, are no less impactful. There is an ontological debate as to what constitutes “service” for any proper context within which I use the term. The Oxford dictionary has two definitions for ‘service.’ The first, relating to individual action; the second to a system of those individual actions. I refer principally in the following to individual actions and the desire or intention to provide service.

So then, Service as the highest purpose. Practically speaking, one could easily see this as self-sacrifice in varying degrees. For this reason, I include the military, firefighters, teachers, medical personnel, and an arguably much larger list of professions under the same tenuous umbrella us cooks and waitstaff huddle beneath for purpose. It seems ironically self-serving to mix such high regarded company with Bourdain’s “family of motley misfits,’ but I think the baseline empathy that draws people to these types of work is only a difference of degree regarding self-sacrifice and not one in kind.

A kind of drive to put others first. The choice to embark on a path that only ends in beatification (a thin moment of recognition delivered with a gold watch or plaque of some sort) or a kind of martyrdom that builds churches for a generation or two of souls touched along the way.

So many of us offer up our time, health, and sanity upon the altar of utility. Even our families in some cases, whether by absence or distance (psychological, emotional, or geographic). Service workers summon a force of will to provide despite cost. A unique kind of care surpassed in this life only by the unconditionality of a parent’s love.

Now, all this sounds a bit melodramatic. I assure you; it is. It absolutely is. Anyone who ever spent significant time in the back of the house will back me here. Melodrama is the pressure valve for the inevitable buildup of ego that resists its own irrelevancy in doing the job.

At this point, any reader falls somewhere on the following spectrum. On the one end are those who have been silently, if not inattentively nodding along (this could be from either a nervous tick from existing stress or the whisper of mild trauma response) On the other end? Those asking why in shock, bewilderment, or pity; or perhaps some emulsification of all three.

To those leaning towards the former, this may all seem a bland and mild description and I feel compelled to apologize for reiterating these conditions at length and thus wasting a piece of what little free time you have.

To those towards the later, just give me a margin of berth to suspend your disbelief in. Or ask a friend who performs one of these jobs. Tight quarters, high volume workload, high pressure, urgency and looming consequences and exhaustion topped off with the golden rule of conduct—perform with grace and humility. Just trust me on this when I say, these people exist.

But is this intrepid and often self-harm-stricken course truly the highest purpose as Millman’s gas station (sorry, service station) guide suggested? I am unconvinced. Selflessness is most certainly symptomatic of higher vibrational living, if not a direct consequent. Yet the propensity for self-destruction and abuse that pervades the industry suggests that something is lacking. So, service itself may be among the highest of callings, but foodservice is at best, its estranged child.

I don’t know that I can fully agree with Millman’s Socrates here. However, I have not read the book wherein might lie enough exposition to make the case. Yet, even if it does not, the above exploration establishes its first assertion. That the perspective of service workers is indeed relevant. And, with the characteristically cliché lack of self-advocacy we find in the business, I will call it good enough.