A Waiter in the Pandemic

I have worked in the hospitality industry in the United Kingdom for about 10 years. I have worked in various roles in hotels. Housekeeper, Night Porter, Conference Porter, Part-Time Accountant, Assistant Food & Beverage, Food & Beverage Manager, Operations Manager. Many roles, many progressions. Because the hospitality industry allows for progression. It is a flexible world. Then the pandemic came. To save the hotel costs I took a pay cut and a demotion. A decision I agreed with, a decision I understood. The pandemic came, I was demoted in theory, but in practice I was slightly more than a waiter, because this is what the hotel required. Because it was about economic survival. Because we had to save the jobs of those that were furloughed: the hotel had to keep going.

We all changed the way we did things, trying not to ruin the guest’s experience. But the hotel was hit badly. It was so bad a guest once spoke to me with utter disgust at the fact that both the bar or the restaurant were mostly empty. At the time there were no tiers, we were all at the bottom. In my head I thought: wow, not only we are struggling to get money in, to save jobs, we work more because we have to be less; and we are still doing it wrong, as if the pandemic was our fault, as if we were the only ones living in the real world. I thought all of that but I couldn’t let my anger and frustration say a word, I didn’t say a word, I cannot even recollected what I said: it was all about the guest’s experience after all.

Mine is just a story amongst many. I know people in hospitality who have been shouted at because they were too lenient in following the government guidelines; who have been shouted at because they were too strict witinh following the government guidelines; who have been shouted at because the virus does not exist or it was made from China; who have been spat at because a guest had decided they shouted better without a mask and up close; who have kept smiling, because it is all about the guest’s experience after all.

And then the other day I had a thought. If I am a manager but I am working as a waiter, because I have a contract, because my experience made me a necessity. If I am a manager but I am working as a waited, what happened to all the waitresses and waiters that have a 0-hour contract, that earn 80% of their minimum wage, 80% of maybe 30 hours a week, that do not earn tips any longer. What happens to them now that hotels and restaurants and pubs are dying. What happens to those that had just started their job and were not entitled to be furloughed. What happened to my team, to those we cannot pay anymore because we cannot even afford to pay their taxes? What happened to the waitresses and waiters I worked with? Are they working in supermarkets now? Do they clean in hospitals? What happened to an entire category the pandemic is killing in more than one way?

It is not their fault that a guest refuses to wear a mask or advises us they are positive to the test days after they have taken test. It is not their fault that the government has decided to repeatedly close restaurants and pubs and even hotels can only have a limited number of guests such as people that must travel for work. It is not their fault that hotels and restaurants and pubs changed, applied new rules, did their best sometimes, other times they thought they were cleverer than the Law. It is not their fault that even after changing and applying the new rules they are still Tiered-3 so a softer lockdown but still a lockdown, because who wants to go to a Tier 3. Who can go there even? It is not their fault that they are at home looking for jobs while schools are open and kids will bring the virus to their nannies for Christmas. Yes, we do need education, but people need to earn a living. The government has taken extraordinary steps to save jobs, but there is no saving jobs for so long. Hotels are dying. We could spend paragraphs and paragraphs arguing whose fault it is, but the fact remains that hotels are dying.

If I am a manager but I am working as a waiter, what happened to the waiter in the pandemic? What happened to those that delivered you food, with a smile when they could, when they were not rushed off their feet because there was another table to smile at. Not all those smiles were real smiles, but some of those waitresses and waiters were happy in their job, they were happy to have a job. Their smiles were real.