The Kids Belong in the Kitchen
Arguing in favor of mandatory (customer) service for America's youth
Unlike in South Korea or Israel, in the United States of America, there is currently no service requirement for the country’s youth. It is time for that to change.
Of course, I’m not advocating for the deployment of our children to foreign countries to fight for the political agenda of domestic animals — that was so 2003! Trade the assault rifles for guns that dispense Coke products, combat boots for non-slip Skechers, and helmets for hairnets. Have the kids forego basic training in the sense of push-ups and buzzcuts, and instead, have them learn how to clean feces from a toilet bowl and why you never put raw meat on a shelf above the cooked products. In a world determined to teach the next generation how to survive, all Americans before turning 21 should complete at least one full year of restaurant service to understand better the society they’ll become a part of — and, as a result, a part of themselves.
Many people would have already fulfilled this proposed requirement in our current world. When I was in high school, for instance, a good number of fellow students worked for one of the numerous McDonald’s spread throughout Pasadena. Those not flipping patties for the cheeseburger clown found themselves working for the rat at Chuck E. Cheese’s or the Christian overlords at the local Chick-fil-A. Amongst a population who had virtually no income, our food service friends were sometimes considered within the 1% — especially if they were working just for mall money or cannabis cash, as opposed to actually supporting their families. And while they would often come into the classrooms tired and worn out, likely from a daily schedule that required 10+ hour days, I always considered these friends1 some of the hardest-working individuals on campus.
It wasn’t until I was in college that I was deployed into the food service industry.2 In the summer of 2020, as the COVID-19 pandemic continued its global tour, I applied to be and got hired as a host at a nearby Mexican restaurant. In the course of these 13 months, I became immersed in the restaurant industry, practicing the semantics of food service while navigating a wide variety of customers, co-workers, and overall nuisances.
Every shift had a different plot line, a different conflict to resolve. As a host, I had to ensure that customers either received ideal seating arrangements or had their to-go orders properly packaged. During busier shifts, I attempted to be a server, a busboy, and, once, a delivery driver. For my co-workers, I was tasked with evenly distributing the clientele so that no server felt like their shift was simply a waste of time and, most importantly, a waste of tips.
Coming in through the doors of the El Cholo Café, we had the racists, the disgusting, the entitled, the deranged, and the obnoxious kids who decided a bustling restaurant floor was the best venue for a game of tag. Of course, I had a nice roster of regulars who made the job easier; but in the food service game, the wonderful are so few compared to the deplorable. No one in my team could forget the internet-anointed public health experts who decided to push back against common sense regulations by yelling at and berating the wait staff as if we were the personal foot soldiers of Dr. Anthony Fauci. That was the environment I found myself in during much of 2020 and 2021, within a team of individuals tasked with easing the masses and their problems by delivering tacos, tamales, and tequila.
In the grand scheme of things, not many people see their investment bankers regularly. Fewer consult with their lawyers frequently or make appointments with their surgeons. Everybody, however, goes to restaurants; and when everybody goes to restaurants, every body at the restaurants needs to learn how to deal with the everybodies who go to eat. In the battlefields known as the kitchen or the main dining floor, conflicts over missing sides or too-rare steak can often lead workers to their breaking point, a designated checkpoint located farther for them than compared to most. For work that is paid for what it is, too many find themselves berated, belittled, or, frankly, beholden to the insanity of the general public.
When one has to work with or around the needs of the local population, it can become quite an eye-opening experience. Within a team of cooks, chefs, bussers, and hosts, everyone finds themself leveled and as close to equal as possible. Whether your uniform is all-black Dickies head-to-toe or pressed shirts and ties, whether you came from rags or from riches, once you clock in, you’ll likely find income, race, gender, and any other separators to be irrelevant. During whatever shift you’re assigned, whether it’s a couple of hours or a double that takes up your entire Saturday, you’ll be arm-in-arm with your peeps in service to the public. You’ll revel in the smiles of a family who saved up to enjoy a birthday meal at your restaurant, and you’ll cuss out the UberEats driver who decided to yell at you for the lateness when he was the one who came 15 minutes earlier than expected. You’ll serve people some of the best dishes they have ever had or drop it right in front of them, if not on them. You’ll find poorly aimed excrement in the bathrooms, and try your best to clean it up without hurling some projectiles of your own. One time, while taking out the trash, I found an abandoned bra.
As youths, this environment allows you to see the world in which you’ll become an adult. It’ll teach you never to look down on the mothers and fathers who have to clean the bathrooms for your enjoyment, to refrain from raising your voice at a teenager who made a simple mistake while working a shift to help pay for her and her single mother’s rent. You’ll learn that reservations matter and that if you don’t have one at a place that offers them, you have no right to be mad about the wait time; because, whether you believe it or not, the hosts want to sit your annoying ass down just as much as you do. For someone to fully appreciate the joy and comfort that is eating out, you have to spend some time giving that experience to others. For someone who wants to fully understand how people behave outside their homes, you must find yourself on the receiving end of their demands.
In our country, a horrible stigma is placed upon those who work in food service. There is this belief that low wages equals low work, effort, and commitment. Most that hold this belief do so from desk jobs requiring little to no interactions with the wide cast of characters found in the real world. They hold these views while holding incomes that are the accumulation of years of work for others while “working” half as much. I have no doubt in my mind that my job at El Cholo Café was, and will remain, the most challenging job I have ever had to do — certainly much harder than running this blog.
Would you like an idea for a reality show? Take a crowd of tech workers typically making hundreds an hour and enroll them to work at the Cheesecake Factory in Glendale for two months. Tell them to put their protein smoothies and circle lights away. It’s time to grab a black button-up and a can of Red Bull! Call the show “Cheesecake It ‘Till You Make It” or something like that. Four contestants will have mental breaks by the first Saturday dinner service. Have you noticed that the servers at Cheesecake3 never have the time to vlog their whole day? They’re too busy dealing with the drunk asshole seated near the breezeway.
Kids, if you have no summer plans this year, go out to a restaurant and grab an application. Society will find a way to thank you later.
Food service friends are the best kind of friends. They’re heavy-handed with the scoops if they’re deployed at Chipotle, generous with the discounts, and always give you advice on what or what not to order. I genuinely love my food service friends.
I did try to enter the service earlier, but apparently, The Habit Burger Grill only hires 18 and older.
And if they’re working at the one in Pasadena, they’re too busy anticipating the next bomb threat.
Would you like to pitch that show idea to Amazon? I’m sure they’d bite.