Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Bad waitress: Dying on your feet

dirt.fyi

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

131–140 of 153 posts

Re: Bad waitress: Dying on your feet

#131

Post by NoZebra120vClip »

Swizec wrote: post #42
doodlesdev wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How so?

The biggest way school teaches bad writing is by asking for minimum word counts instead of maximum.

I took a two-year course, where our homework was primarily focused on developing an essay at the end of each class (about 14 of them all told). All the classes had similar formats and requirements, and so all the essays also had maximum word counts. I really, really appreciated that, because it surely forced me to distill all my thoughts into the most essential passages and cut out the fat.

Occasionally, I would be plagued by a bit of writer's block, and I couldn't think up enough to write, but eventually I could gin up enough logorrhea that I would have a nice tapestry to begin snipping out the wordy and irrelevant bits.

And that was my favorite part about the classes, being able to write a really tight research/opinion paper every few weeks.

Re: Bad waitress: Dying on your feet

#132

Post by onionisafruit »

stavros wrote: post #113
badpun wrote: post #112

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Have you programmed as a full time job before?

For 25 years now.

I’m right there with you. I recently quit my job to recover from burnout. I expected that would involve a break from programming. Turns out I’m spending more time programming now than when I was paid for it. I was burned out on the non-programming parts of the job. I’m relieved to know it didn’t break my love of programming.

Re: Bad waitress: Dying on your feet

#133

Post by nonameiguess »

riffraff wrote: post #92

> Waitressing didn’t seem permanent. Nothing ever does. As the adage goes, "life is what happens while you're busy making other plans". If there's one thing this piece made me think of, is that you should either be happy doing what you're doing or be on the path to do that. I have friends in their 40s who have worked in the service industry for decades while planning to do "something else later", and they're not the…

This woman's like 32 and hasn't been a waitress in years, so it wasn't permanent.

Re: Bad waitress: Dying on your feet

#134

Post by stavros »

onionisafruit wrote: post #132
stavros wrote: post #113

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For 25 years now.

I’m right there with you. I recently quit my job to recover from burnout. I expected that would involve a break from programming. Turns out I’m spending more time programming now than when I was paid for it. I was burned out on the non-programming parts of the job. I’m relieved to know it didn’t break my love of programming.

You can even get burnt out on the programming parts of the job! Having to do a thing you normally like doesn't mean you will still like doing it when it doesn't inspire you.

Re: Bad waitress: Dying on your feet

#135

Post by ChrisMarshallNY »

Jun8 wrote: post #36
ChrisMarshallNY wrote: post #7

That was excellent! > The life of the American worker is inherently undignified This is true, and even goes for highly-paid, high-status gigs. In fact, I think that sometimes, companies consider high pay, a license to humiliate.

Those of you who have low paying service jobs in Europe, is it more dignified than the US?

From my understanding (I suspect that not too many of them are on this forum, so you may not get an answer), the service position jobs aren't so low-paying, and many are actually good career positions.

Anecdotally, I have a couple of friends that basically have to be "professional shoppers," once or twice a year. It seems like a dream job, going to Europe, and buying the top-of-the-line clothes, from shops in every country, but it seems to actually be quite difficult for them.

In any case, they have been doing this for decades, and I have been told that they regularly see the same sales associates, cashiers, and managers, at these stores, year after year. They have actually made some long-term friendships, and look forward to meeting these people, who have families, kids in college, etc.

I assume that this means that many folks can actually make lifetime careers from work that, in the US, is often considered "transitional."

Re: Bad waitress: Dying on your feet

#137

Post by Pigalowda »

freetime2 wrote: post #106
tomcam wrote: post #79

Author refers 3 times to 20-pound plates of potatoes. Is that really a thing? I’ve eaten at thousands of restaurants and don’t recall anything like that but I’m not the most observant person.

Here’s a photo from their FB page. I could picture a tray with several orders like this approaching 20 lbs. https://www.facebook.com/HashHouseAGoGoSanDiego/photos/a.120...

That cast iron plate is most of the weight

Re: Bad waitress: Dying on your feet

#138

Post by bamfly »

ipaddr wrote: post #10
cafard wrote: post #2

I don't know. I never graduated to waiter, but I worked as a busboy a few times. I have much sympathy for wait staff. My recollection is that the waitresses were always decent to me. Still I don't buy, "I suspect it’s easier to teach a waitress to be a writer than an intellectual to be a waiter." One of my other low-paying jobs was as a copy editor, and I have seen how commonly schools have failed to teach PhDs to be…

Everyone learns to write in school. A waiting job most can pick up but not all. I couldn't get past serving training. Carrying four plates and keeping them straight takes without spilling is for others.

> Everyone learns to write in school.

Check out studies of adult functional literacy. It's, uh, not great.

Re: Bad waitress: Dying on your feet

#139

Post by kaliqt »

Hard_Space wrote: post #105

What a great piece. Glad to see it on front page of HN. I worked for years in retail, in camera shops, and I understand the episodic hilarity and mundane heartbreak of a career in service. But it was washing dishes in a restaurant, my first ever job, that made me aware of the time-pressure intensity of food service, and that it's a lower-risk version of the old space/air travel aphorism: 'Flying is hours and hours of…

Why do you say that the food service business is the least threatened by automation?

Re: Bad waitress: Dying on your feet

#140

Post by Jochim »

kaliqt wrote: post #139
Hard_Space wrote: post #105

What a great piece. Glad to see it on front page of HN. I worked for years in retail, in camera shops, and I understand the episodic hilarity and mundane heartbreak of a career in service. But it was washing dishes in a restaurant, my first ever job, that made me aware of the time-pressure intensity of food service, and that it's a lower-risk version of the old space/air travel aphorism: 'Flying is hours and hours of…

Why do you say that the food service business is the least threatened by automation?

Cost: Wages for food service workers are extremely low. Automation is extremely expensive.

Capability: Industrial machinery struggles to meet many of the requirements of a professional kitchen. Plating alone requires the ability to handle and place aesthetically, both solids of different consistencies and liquids. Avoiding cross-contamination is another concern. Setting aside a set of pans and chopping boards is very different to installing another assembly line.

Flexibility: Typically, automation pays off when you're making lots of the same thing. Most restaurants will change dishes out relatively frequently and don't have anywhere near the volume of an assembly line. Most kitchens will also try to accommodate requests for the modification of dishes and in some cases for things that aren't on the menu at all.

Resiliency: An automated assembly line is much more complicated than an oven or fryer and much more prone to failure. If a frozen burger can jam up the machine you end up paying someone to watch for that happening, plus a much more expensive maintenance worker when you could've just paid the first guy to chuck the burgers on a grill.

Fast food places are likely to get further than most with automation. Although, I'm sceptical of how the economics work out.

Post reply on HN