'When Are You Getting a Real Job?': In Defence of Cafe Work
'So when are you getting a real job?' It's a question that makes me cringe every time I'm asked it. I left my graduate job around six months ago to move home, and while applying for similar roles, I went back to my previous job in a cafe.
Over 3.2 million people work in the hospitality industry alone. Nonetheless, there is a sweeping generalisation that the hospitality and retail industries are just one of life's stepping stones – a way to earn an extra bit of money. Maybe while studying, and to help prepare you for a 'real' job.
This can be internalised by its workers too: the chefs at the cafe I work in, ask me when I'm going to leave them and get a 'proper' job. But that undermines the hard work required in the industry. Plus it simply isn't true. I know of all sorts of people working in hospitality and retail. Whether it's a full-time career, they're taking a breather, or they need the extra cash for savings.
As Jay Rayner recently wrote in The Guardian, the hospitality profession is, under new UK immigration rules, facing 'institutionalise[d] snobbery'. These concrete laws are only further enforcing the cultural ideologies of retail and hospitality being dead-end, temporary job options – many would barely even use the term 'career' to describe them. Careers happen in suits; not aprons.
A recent YouGov poll actually found that 92% of the British public consider chefs (and butchers) to be a highly skilled job – and in such a stressful environment knocking out quality dishes again and again, rightly so.
Still, that goodwill doesn't usually extend to waiting staff. While I generally concede that working in a mid-tier cafe doesn't require a degree or isn't particularly high skilled, I'm sure others would find it a damn lot harder than they think. When the chefs are shouting and swearing at you, you need resilience. When it's a busy service, you need excellent time management and communication skills (who took what where and who needs a checkback?). If a customer is complaining about something that you have absolutely no control over, you need to keep your mouth shut, put on a smile and try to be as polite as possible. There's something about hospitality and retail that brings out the very best and worst in people, and the downright odd (such as strangers who read my nametag and say, 'Thanks for your help Sophie' and 'How are you today Sophie?' It's always the men – why is it always the men?).
You also experience the complete opposites of fully-grown adults who make you (another fairly-grown adult) cry, to those who give the team a Christmas bonus in tips.
As mentioned, my job hunt for a role in marketing has been going on longer than I hoped. A passing comment from my Dad sent my brain into panic mode when he said that if the latest job application didn't work out, then I should try to 'get an admin job at a uni or hospital in the meantime’.
But why would that mean I'd be any happier? Would it look any better to a prospective employer? A friend of mine is in a similar situation, and after completing a marketing master's degree, started work in an admin role in a college. Fast forward a few months and they hate the job and almost wish they were back in retail. Another colleague in the cafe quit after a couple of months to go back to a temporary office job – would a telephone sales job look that much better on their PhD applications?
What I am certain about is that hospitality and retail teams are the best I've known, and you become a strong team in a short space of time. They also really give a shit and will try to make a difference.
We have a lot of regulars, and we try to make an effort to know their order and their habits – especially if they come alone. One time, we noticed that one of our regulars hadn't visited in a while and obviously were worried. We eventually got the news that they'd passed away, but we were told that the family knew how much the place had meant to their relative and that they appreciated the effort we always made towards their loved one.
Knowing that you can still make a difference is why I'd much rather work in a 'low-skilled' cafe job than in a shitty little office.
Written by Sophie Ellis
Sophie is a twenty-something cafe assistant near Bristol and Bath. You can usually find her trying to perfect her latte art and book shopping, but ideally, she's by the beach.