A few months ago, due to unstable work, I took several casual or part-time jobs (all in the food service industry), so I planned to post to record my observations and thoughts on non-full-time work.
A while ago I applied for a part-time job at a Japanese restaurant. I hate Japanese food and sushi because handling them requires direct contact with various raw seafood. Owing to my history of freeloading tendencies and poor manual skills, and my psychological aversion to dealing with animal parts in the back of house, plus I checked online the brand’s reputation for part-time work and it was consistently exhausting, I still went because the hourly wage was the highest nearby and the schedule and commute were reasonably workable.
First, I went for an in-house interview. There were six or seven of us in this batch, which is different from typical small eateries; we scheduled a time to meet the manager, and that was considered the interview. They looked quite “professional,” reserving a private room in a private dining area as the interview room. When I arrived, I felt deeply uncomfortable. The restaurant was incredibly busy and its layout was very large. Staff members would talk with customers while sneakily guiding me through, winding through several corridors, and guiding me to others before finally reaching the private room. The dining area here looked unlike a typical restaurant; there were no regular tables, only sofas at each seat, and rather than a traditional one-table-one-seat arrangement, every table’s sofa backrest had been raised to obscure the outside, creating a relatively private space. The ordering function had changed from the usual QR code to touching a screen at the seat. They designed the large screens to look like entertainment tablets, with flashy animations for the ordering feature, and there were various mini-games for both parties at the seat to play while waiting or eating. Each such big screen was assigned to each seat. When I first saw this, it felt less like a restaurant and more like an arcade! This kind of maximal material enjoyment at every seat (and not just for dining) was a service designed for social parasites, a culture I thought only imperialist countries could develop. After seeing this I felt fear—on one side, busy staff; on the other, customers who were playing and eating forgetfully, crowded aisles; this opulence built on exploitation seemed ready to swallow me. But my fear also stemmed from my petite-bourgeois mindset—comfort in parasitic environments, so I feared the outside struggle.
The interview was conducted by the deputy store manager; the process was fluent, mainly asking about our available shifts and commuting methods, nothing particularly hard. But just before ending, the deputy manager emphasized: “When you come here to work, you must follow arrangements; do not have emotions, and do not argue with coworkers or superiors. If you’re unhappy, discuss it privately and do not post on Xiaohongshu.” This kind of phrasing is basically a warning that the job will be grueling.
A few days later, we went to receive uniforms, work shoes, and training. The so-called training was essentially meaningless because it didn’t teach any specific job-related skills (half an hour isn’t enough for that), just going through “company culture” and mentioning hours, breaks, etc., with the main focus being the unique enslaving rules. These are all designed to enhance exploitation. This also left a strong impression. One thing: the employee passage is very tedious. To go in and out, staff must not pass through the main entrance; they must go through the fire exit in the aisle, winding through several corners to avoid customers. Changing clothes must be in the lounge, but the staff lounge isn’t inside the store, and is on a different floor, so to avoid being late you must memorize the route or you’ll get lost. Although walking more helps you memorize, at first it was very annoying and time-consuming, causing you to come to work earlier and leave later. In typical tea shops or Chinese restaurants, you can change in-store in the back kitchen, which is more convenient. But this Japanese restaurant has a very large layout, with dozens of employees working at once, and even changing clothes and shoes takes up a lot of space, so they could only rent another large room as a lounge. In this sense, it felt like a small factory.
Another disgusting and controversial enslaving rule—along with hygiene standards—like many brands known for strict, tedious rules, these are combined in a form of moral coercion, under the slogan “the customer is God.” They justify many useless hygiene standards to enslave employees and increase exploitation. This Japanese restaurant was especially exemplary in this regard. A formal trainer led us into the back kitchen and shouted “おはようございます!” (“Good morning!”) and kitchen staff replied similarly. The formal employee said that every day when starting work, we must say this in the back kitchen; then she had all of us take turns saying it as well. I felt extremely embarrassed. Although it’s a Japanese restaurant, here in China all employees are Chinese, so why greet each other in Japanese that most people don’t understand? Who is this for? Also, greeting is not required for starting work—who greets the air before punching in? This performative, enslaving ritual was too obvious. But to keep the job, and since everyone here is a worker toiling away, and they’re used to these formalities, no one would mock you, so I endured the shame and told myself not to care later. Actually this was just the beginning; there is much more Japanese to speak at work. Later I also found that because of the busyness and repetitive labor, everyone paid little attention to this mandatory Japanese rule; they shortened or mumbled some syllables, or spoke garbled characters, and no one was penalized. They know this formalism has no real production value. The back kitchen clock-in area had signs in Japanese, with Chinese transliterations next to them; seeing this I felt it was pathological—they didn’t care whether we understood the Japanese, but insisted on this formality, even if it’s Chinese-Japanese.
Here I’ll focus on the other pre-work procedures and the Japanese to be spoken during work. After entering, you must put away your phone, wash hands once, put on work clothes, wear a mask and hairnet, clock in, take a temperature measurement and fill a health confirmation form, use a lint roller to remove hair, and then the chief and deputy store managers will do a “health confirmation” for the batch, then wash hands a second time. Only then can you officially start. The so-called “health confirmation” is similar to a factory morning meeting, but not just once—there are multiple shifts in a day, and the kitchen runs multiple “health confirmations” daily. In the health confirmation, besides the usual hygiene checks, you must shout slogans in Japanese, and reply “はい” (“yes”) to every routine question from the manager. The two hand-washes before work also must be performed after leaving the restrooms during breaks. The process is very tedious: seven or eight steps per wash (I can’t remember exactly), each step done five or ten times (there is a countdown timer next to the washbasin, ringing every second for each rep). Each step must be announced in full (“one, two, three…”) and you cannot skip anything, because there is even a rule that only a staff member with a “wash-hand qualification” can supervise you during washing; otherwise you cannot wash. You cannot leave your post after walking away and then wash quickly; you must call someone and wait for the qualified person to put down their work and come over to supervise you finishing the tedious procedure. So washing hands is very time-consuming, and everyone dislikes it (but you must wash whenever your hands touch something dirty, and you cannot just rinse in the sink; it’s ritual). It’s said the hand soap is harmful to the skin. Before starting washing, you must shout “Now starting the first/second wash, onegai shimasu (please)”; after washing, you must shout “First/second wash completed, arigatou gozaimasu (thank you).” This entire cumbersome set of rules is, even from a capitalist production viewpoint, backward and rotten; I have experienced many times that after several minutes to over ten minutes of starting work, the whole process completes and you can start. After entering your work area, you must again shout “I’m on duty, ohayou gozaimasu (good morning)” and when you finish you must shout “I’m off work, o-susama deshita (thank you for your patronage)” (though I rarely need to shout as I usually finish last). During work, there are intercom broadcasts in the back kitchen: “A new customer is in the store, irasshaimase (welcome)!” Then staff near the kitchen shout “Irasshaimase!” even though the customer may not hear, to make it look like they are welcoming customers. But I never shout; many staff, when busy, can’t manage to shout, or only do a few syllables.
After starting, I was assigned to the delicate roll and sashimi section. At first I was reluctant to do sashimi, for the reason mentioned earlier, but due to the busyness, to keep up efficiency this seafood aversion is easily overcome and replaced by repetitive work habits. This touches on onboarding: this shop is extremely busy; they don’t allocate time or space for formal training, instead they throw fresh hires straight into action with an experienced trainer, who teaches by doing. What new staff learn depends on what orders show up; how fast they learn depends on how busy the shop is. It’s common for new staff to be overwhelmed and fall behind real-world speed, so experienced staff have to step in immediately, and new staff don’t get much practice. Senior staff don’t like to train newcomers because it increases their workload and risk of mistakes without higher pay (this is probably common across industries).
During training, I met some people. I feel the social atmosphere here greatly influences whether new staff stay. The team leaders and some formal workers can be very sharp-tongued and anxious, constantly criticizing you for slow work as if you owed them money. But some formal workers are patient and don’t pressure newcomers; getting along with them is comfortable. I could endure initially because a few coworkers were kind enough to give me space to breathe. But overall the environment is oppressive. Each group has POS machines that display data and highlight when a dish should be served; the system will warn you if serving takes too long, forcing faster service. And since the shop is almost always busy, old staff have to manage many new hires with high turnover, so newcomers must juggle busy times and tolerate nagging; it’s exhausting. The back kitchen is divided into several teams that require different collaboration. For example, the cooked food team must deliver finished dishes to the sushi and dessert team via a serving window, and then the plates are moved on a chain to be served. When busy, the back kitchen area can be overwhelmed; a backlog at the serving window or rows of orders can cause conflicts and blame. There was a patient trainer who seemed stressed and busy; when pressed, she would get annoyed. Longstanding pressure accumulated and led to clashes between teams over responsibilities. This is a classic example of a bourgeois persona valuing profit and efficiency, divided labor, and the exploitation of workers in capitalist production. Objectively, all teams must collaborate and share ingredients, but capitalism divides workers even within the same job, hindering productivity growth.
Because I learned slowly, I was looked down upon by the supervisor and a formal worker with a strong slave mentality; I was often paired with them despite this. It was painful and subtle; the frantic pace and the bossy nagging (not aimed at a specific moment but interwoven in work to remind you of your supposed inadequacy) made it intolerable. But there was no way to vent; everyone was too busy to listen, and the next moment new orders came in, leaving little time to argue or justify. This is a form of invisible enslavement. I was often relieved to be assigned to a relatively less tense role doing repetitive work, like peeling extra tofu skin, which allowed me to step away from others’ collaboration for a while; but I still felt anxious and worried about being told off or being fired for not being able to continue.
One night not too busy, I was next to a formal worker who was training a new employee. Perhaps because they were both women, they got along quickly. The formal worker cheerfully shared memories of her earlier experiences in another city, but listening to her talk left a bittersweet feeling. She had also suffered harshly in the past as a low-level laborer (though she now works hard every day). She is kind when talking about past experiences, but when busy, her supervisor-like behavior toward newcomers is very different; how can this be? Perhaps this is the double character of petty bourgeoisie?
At closing time when there were no new orders, there was finally some relief, but if closing is late it pushes end times later; some shifts must finish after closing, others end around 10 or 11 p.m., so efficiency still matters. Because I could not do more complex tasks (the senior staff found teaching me too troublesome), I mostly ended up doing simple, dirty grunt work or cleaning drains at the end of the night. I have grown accustomed to cleaning out the drains; the senior staff, to save effort, are rarely willing to teach me other tasks and typically let me do the drain cleaning whenever I’m around. I also met a new coworker who was asked to clean drains; while teaching her, I vented about the shop’s working policies and discussed wages. In this place, you can only have relatively equal and relaxed conversations with other newcomers.
I also can’t really get along with the male coworkers, because in their downtime they like to talk about crude topics or make sexual jokes, and some cross boundaries and joke with me in a very familiar way. I don’t know how to respond and feel uncomfortable, like being scolded at a relative’s dining table by unfamiliar adults. I try to stay quiet and minimize interactions. Only one or two other new workers can chat with me a bit. It seems this is common in many industries: new workers, due to their low status and unstable work, may find more meaningful topics for discussion, like how to get reimbursed for transport or about the job itself; while formal workers may talk about trivial, uninteresting events.
Here, if you want to go to the bathroom, the process is also very troublesome. Their so-called food hygiene rules prohibit customers from wearing work clothes and shoes to the toilets, so every time you go to the bathroom you must change into the public outerwear (your own outerwear is on another floor in the lounge) and change shoes (they are unisex due to small numbers). This was the first time I encountered this, so I was confused when told how to use the bathroom. After coming back, you must take off the outerwear, put on shoes, then have someone supervise the first wash; then put on work clothes, apron, mask, and hairnet, and have someone supervise the second wash. This whole process wastes a lot of time. You can slack off a little, but your coworkers in the same team will bear more pressure and workload. So initially I felt a strong psychological burden about using the bathroom, both because it’s a hassle and because returning late could invite admonition or social exclusion by senior staff (though I eventually overcame this). Here, everyone hates going to the bathroom at night because it affects everyone’s end time, and it often takes a long time. On one occasion, during closing, I really needed to use the bathroom but feared it would delay time, so I held it, finishing my assigned work first before going to the bathroom, because everyone is busy and there’s no one to replace me. But I couldn’t hold it, and ended up wetting my pants. That sounds absurd.
There was a period when I was temporarily called to the front area outside several times to assist during busy periods. When the customer flow is high and the front area is understaffed, the front area supervisor or deputy manager may come to the back kitchen to recruit staff to fill the front area. If you go to the front, you don’t need to wear the ear hook mask and headgear and you don’t need to repeatedly perform the back kitchen tedious tasks; you just help clear tables, and stand at the walkway at other times. But being in the front means you must interact with customers; this is the most disgusting and hardest for me. As a support staff, you are not a waiter, so you don’t need to serve, but you’re still required to always keep a smile and greet customers when they come or go or when you pass by. This is a basic expectation of the service industry, but it’s the part I find most difficult; I would rather be in the back kitchen busy than smiling for customers. So I would not open my mouth to use the customer-facing script (or just pretend to be busy to avoid talking). The supervisors discovered this and reminded me several times; fortunately I was only a temporary support and didn’t have to endure it for long. Our closing duties are quite different from typical Chinese or Western restaurants; usually you either stack leftover food on trays and bring them back to the dishwashing area, or you cart them to a service trolley and then to the dishwashing area. Here, there is no tray or trolley; the tools you use are baskets. And there are no many different plates; only various small plates of different colors and types. When clearing tables, one person uses their hip to press the basket against the edge of the table, while the other holds the plates and places them inside; the other person also helps with cleaning the table. Overall, it’s somewhat easier. Perhaps traditional clearing methods can’t meet the high-efficiency fast-food style demands of this Japanese restaurant, so they skip bringing the dishes back to the dishwashing area and instead use a conveyor belt at each front area; just place the cleaned baskets on the conveyor and press a button to automatically send them back to the dishwashing area. This is indeed efficient, but there’s no place to put the baskets when clearing the tables; you must press the basket against your hip, which I think is unreasonable and a form of cost-cutting at the expense of workers.
When I was on front-house support, I observed that the hardest workers are the frontline servers. The back kitchen has many phrases and rules; the front area must deal with customers, of course there is also. Here, customers sit in rows on sofas with each table separated, and the waiter stands on the inner side against the wall. On the wall opposite the waiter is a digital screen: one per area, showing which tables are calling for service, which have finished eating, to help actions. Whenever a table presses the call button, the digital screen lights up and a supervisor shouts, “XX table, I’ll serve you!” Then regular staff shout “I will serve you shortly!” (Of course this has nothing to do with those who come to support us.) At first I didn’t react, but after watching a few times I found this is the standard routine. This kind of demeaning script is not necessary to ensure service quality, but it must be shouted. I also saw several times staff squatting on the floor while interacting with customers, not standing, with their hands on the table, smiling broadly. I don’t know if this is a fixed requirement; I wanted to ask other front-house staff, but they were too busy and I didn’t know them well. Anyway, it’s disgusting.
Once clearing the tables, I looked at the menu on the central screen in the sofa area; it’s dazzling. A normal sushi dish costs twenty to thirty yuan, and a full meal can cost hundreds or even thousands, hard to imagine what sort of person comes here often to eat and enjoy themselves.
That’s largely my experience here. It seems long, but I didn’t work there for long; later the restaurant found a pretext to not schedule me and fired me. When I asked for the reason, the deputy store manager hedged for a long time, finally saying that they felt I “wasn’t learning efficiently.” The thing that annoys me most isn’t the arbitrary dismissal of a new employee—which I see all the time—but the arrogant attitude of superiors toward subordinates, and I don’t know if this culture is also common in Japan. I want normal communication, but it inevitably involves lecturing and barriers, making communication difficult. These superiors seem to have absorbed the enslaving spirit promoted by the store’s propaganda to the point of not treating others as normal people. I later considered seeking compensation, but since it’s part-time and under Chinese law, it’s not illegal dismissal, so I gave up.
