First, let me introduce my current situation: my main job is working in a laboratory, from 8 am to 5 pm, relatively leisurely, with one fixed overtime day each week until 7 pm. I am currently unable to quit this job, considering it a long-term commitment. The work itself is quite dull—just doing experiments behind closed doors, and I don’t get along well with people in the lab, so I am basically quite introverted in the research room. To reform my thoughts through labor, improve my working ability, and also earn some extra activity funds for the organization, I found a part-time job after work, from 17:30 to 21:00, riding my bike to get there right after work. I initially wanted to find a factory job, but factories rarely hire part-timers, and the timing didn’t suit me either, so I ended up working in the catering industry. Through an acquaintance, I got a job at a small restaurant. I plan to start a thread to record my thoughts related to this.
I want to understand what this catering industry is like, whether it leans more towards serving customers, or if it involves preparing dishes and working in the back kitchen.
Today was the first day of the trial work. This restaurant has no special dress code; upon arrival, you only need to put on an apron and a hairnet, but there are quite a few rules. When you arrive, you must first say “Thank you for your hard work!” to the manager.
This restaurant is not very large, selling noodle soup and water dumplings. There is one manager and three employees, including myself. The official employee is only the manager; the other three are part-time. This store has several branches in the city, and the manager’s role is somewhat subtle, which is also the cunning of this store. The manager is a college graduate who took this job as a manager; in fact, the work he does is no different from that of ordinary restaurant workers, and his salary is also comparable to regular full-time employees. This is a means by capitalists to divide and deceive workers. The student who just started working as a manager might see it simply as a formal job, which involves checking whether other staff have arranged things correctly every day, and blending in with the employees. For the employees, joking with such a manager from time to time, they see his work as similar to theirs, and thus they feel that the manager is also “similar” to them. Through chatting and joking, the class boundaries become blurred.
A store with only 2-3 employees means everyone has to handle all aspects of the work, from customer service and taking orders to cooking and washing dishes. The dishwasher in this store can only wash some plates; before use, you have to manually wash off the grease on them. Essentially, the dishwasher is just for rinsing. The dishwasher and stove are the most valuable equipment in the store; employees must shout loudly “Manager! Please turn on the dishwasher!” after setting everything up, and the manager personally checks before turning it on.
The griddle is something I fear quite a bit. This store’s griddle is used to fry water dumplings, which are frozen, so frying is like a “battle”. First, spray a little oil and spread it evenly, then take the dumplings out of the freezer and place them on the griddle in a nice shape as required, then press down the lid of the griddle. When opening the lid, oil splatters everywhere, which can easily cause burns because employees have no protective measures.
The whole night is basically nonstop customer flow, so by the end, I am very exhausted, especially when closing. There are many things and they are very messy. Since I only slept for 4 hours, my eyes are already half-closed, and I am constantly urged by the person guiding me. Later, I even fell asleep for a second or two while washing the trash bins. Because of this, I was writing last night and fell asleep before finishing.
When it comes to the issue of blurred class boundaries, the toxicity of the service industry towards workers is really too great. Almost every service establishment will assign pawns like store managers or supervisors to maintain the bourgeoisie’s order, but unlike the county chiefs and managers in factories, they do not straightforwardly treat workers as tools for extracting surplus value. Instead, they insult workers at work, boss them around, and give orders. On the contrary, they might even joke and laugh with employees, tell some vulgar or banal jokes, or even play rough or give small favors to employees. But in fact, it is precisely these kinds of bourgeoisie tactics of division and suppression within service stores that they use to select people whose worldview is similar to theirs — those who are obedient to the bourgeoisie and maintain the exploitative order — and to separate these people from other employees, giving small favors and promotions such as deputy store manager or other pawns, thereby continuously strengthening the store’s ruling power. I don’t know how your store is, but I think that no matter what kind of store it is, it will to some extent reflect this tendency.
My store has the same tendency; the store manager here has been replaced, but that older sister has been working since the previous manager’s time and still does. She is more strict than the manager and even teaches the new manager the rules.
If you don’t follow his requirements, will it be audited? Also, I want to ask if this restaurant has something like SOP (Standard Operating Procedures) to manage the workers and the pressure?
Can we apply for protective equipment for them? Additionally, if the situation cannot be changed temporarily, it seems better to cover the oil splashes with a lid.
SOP is verbal, very strict, the shop is very small, and basically turning your head slightly will get you caught.
In this shop, including me, there are a total of three employees: a manager, who is a big sister responsible for guiding me. She is very shrewd, highly capable, and good at making friends, often calling others “baby” and liking to shoulder shoulders with others. She is busy all the time, and whenever I go over, she is eager to teach me all her skills so I can handle the shop on my own by tomorrow. She also emphasizes some language rules that even the manager doesn’t mind. I haven’t asked why she came to work here or about her background; today was too busy, and I didn’t even have time for small talk. The other is a college student working part-time. This person seems to have just started here, but probably has been here longer than I have. The college student is very eager to take on tasks, works quickly and diligently, and doesn’t like chatting. We haven’t interacted much because the manager is a young person. She doesn’t act like a boss to them, and since the manager is also a recent college graduate, their relationship is very harmonious. It reminds me of a popular saying among the young bourgeoisie: “We are all workers.”
Previously, I worked part-time at a milk tea shop. A part-time worker who only worked 4 hours a day was a housewife. She even taught management staff to do their work. When encountering unreasonable SOPs from management, she would also assist in revising the SOPs to improve labor efficiency.
Defying the heavens, what crownless management
【Update 3.3】
Today’s work was very absurd. The people in the store were the manager, his mother, and only me as an employee. I learned that this manager’s father was the original store manager, and after retiring, his son used connections through a job application to take over this store. His mother would come over for free to help when business was busy and they couldn’t find employees, helping her son manage the store, and she has many rules. I initially thought the rules the older sister taught me last week were many, but I didn’t expect there to be more. For example, when the older sister taught me, she said to rinse the rice three times, knead it four times, then wash and drain it in a colander to settle. But his mother要求把米洗到淘米的水变成透明的，我太无语了。洗米洗了半天，而且期间一直在教我，一刻见不得我闲，并且告诉我之后在工作日不忙的时候，这个店里只会有我和店长两个人，摆出一副现在教我都是为我好的姿态。而这个店长他则是能不干活就不干活的，我刚到的时候他就在玩手机，发现水槽里堆了中午的一堆盘子没有洗，满是油污的池子没有换水。他总是在店里闲的时候就在玩手机，甚至躲到后厨去把整个店面从接待客人点单到准备碗筷，到制作煎饺，到洗碗，到打烊到收拾桌子，全部都留给我和他妈干。这家店包一顿饭，于是在快打烊的时候，我看没什么客人了，就问店长说现在能打饭吗？结果店长说再晚一点，因为打完饭的时候到回家还要一两个小时，现在就打给我的话，到家冷掉就不好吃了，要尊重食物，当时我就更无语了。
From this, it is clear to see this oppressive relationship: in a seemingly harmonious, blurred class boundary work environment, employees cannot rest, while the boss can choose not to work and shift all the pressure onto the employees. Moreover, this shop also has many Confucian hierarchical relationships, which are very annoying and exhausting. Truly reflects the heavy oppression of capitalist society.
SOP is verbal, so there should be a standard. Maybe observe how the store manager works, and if his steps are simpler than the mother’s, using his steps might be better, otherwise it’s exhausting physically and mentally.
Actually, this kind of shop could easily hire an extra worker, but to save costs, they desperately squeeze the remaining worker and dump all the work on him.
I’m not sure how to say this exactly, but these small capitalists who run their shops quite openly actually don’t have much SOP (Standard Operating Procedure) or standards. At most, they have a set of procedures verbally, and whether you do well or not depends entirely on the shop owner. Moreover, it seems that this standard is just to oppress workers; clearly there are better and faster ways, but they insist on making you rinse rice until the water is clear. And there are things they can do that you can’t, for example, they find rinsing rice multiple times tiring and won’t do it so many times, but you can’t.
Standards vary from person to person, which is quite annoying. That older sister has her own standards, the shop manager has his own standards, and my mother has her own standards. I usually choose the easiest option and change it if told to.
The back kitchen of this shop, although small, has all the essential organs, which is a point that makes me very headache. I have to spend a lot of brainpower to remember where to place things and can’t break the rules, so I especially dislike closing the shop. It’s been a long time since I did physical labor. Although I only worked 3-4 hours during my last two visits, I was basically exhausted and kept dozing off afterward, either feeling neurotic and very tired, unable to sleep, or closing my eyes and finding it hard to open them again.
【March 5 Update】This time, that big sister is here, let’s call her D for now. She will go to college in April this year, and it’s a full-time program, not a half-day one. She is going to study architecture, and the textbooks for the architecture major at that school alone cost over 10,000 RMB, not to mention the tuition fees later. This is not even the most outrageous part; she is quite old this year, and I thought she was finishing college for employment reasons. But she said she wants to use college as a stepping stone, and after graduation, she plans to study architecture or psychology master’s in Europe or America. She just wants to keep studying for fun, and I was shocked to hear that. She works very diligently, doing any job quickly and eagerly, telling me not to be lazy at work because the shop manager is very sharp and knows everything. I thought, can the shop manager really have eagle eyes? She told me I must respect the shop manager because he’s a very good manager. If you don’t respect him, he won’t hire people from XX, and people from XX won’t find good jobs. She works very hard. After going to college, she has to work as a cashier at YongX Supermarket early on weekends (from 6 am to 12 pm), and after 12 pm, on all her days off, she works moving jobs paid by the day. She needs money and wants to earn more, so she even does tiring moving jobs. But she finishes her shifts quickly, and her working hours can be about half an hour (if she works a little slower, she can finish by 9 pm; if faster, by 8:30 pm). She wants to get off work early because she and the shop manager have the same goal—they both want to go home early and lie down. I don’t understand why she wouldn’t want to finish quickly if she can relax more and earn more money. She said she just wants to go home and play on her phone. She said working here is really good; if it weren’t for her full-day classes, she would want to keep working here until she goes to Europe or America. I think this shop manager isn’t that good either. He won’t call me over unless he just casually moves chopsticks, and he doesn’t want to, but he will call me over, tell me what the correct way is, and ask me to do it again. Today, the shop manager forgot to prepare my work meal, but he gave me an extra hour’s wages and sincerely bowed three times to apologize, telling me to buy something I like. It’s really tough. I finished work late, and my night vision is poor, so I hit a safety pole on my bike—damn pedestrian divider poles have no warning at night, and I couldn’t see clearly.
It’s too abstract. What era are we still learning architecture? Not to mention whether she truly understands architecture or has a deeper knowledge of this field. Even graduates from UCL Bartlett or Ivy League schools have a hard time finding jobs, and their salaries are quite low. Probably, she can’t satisfy her desire for a petite bourgeois lifestyle.