I work in a coffee shop / restaurant in London. We will leave details like the name of the company and the location of the branch out of the picture. As a service worker, I encounter the most bizarre situations only making more evident the abyss between those who are enchained to the wheel in the lower tiers of capitalism and those who are not. Hell is a job in hospitality in London. And when you are in hell, London could be anywhere. Can happen anywhere, Hostile Hospitality.  

Call me crazy, but I consider myself someone with integrity. A little bit unhinged, a little bit out there. My manners are odd and absurd, and I do constantly challenge the norm. Is what keeps me alive. But my heart, most of the time, is in the right place. Sometimes I give in to my ego and I become a despicable rotten individual. I am a human being, nothing less. 

As much as I hate capitalism, I’m not going to let that stop me from playing the game. I have two choices, I can sit and moan and do nothing, or I can complain about the system on my way to the bank. I chose the latter. In the process of trying to understand my own contradictions, I have fully fallen into one of the most dangerous traps of the status quo; Honest work.

Whatever it is I am doing, I feel great when I try my best and it comes out nicely. If I show up, I like to feel useful, I like to engage, I like to learn, to figure out how the piping works. I don’t want to be a little piece of clockwork.

I want to be a piece in the engine, the engineer and the one driving the car. 

In this case, the system won, I guess. There is something appealing about suffering a little bit, about trying hard and putting your soul into it.

There is a sense of reward in being efficient, in doing it right, in being effective. 

It feels good to make it happen. Be a doer, not a talker. Or in my case, be both. 

When I work, I say yes, a lot. To almost anything. Sometimes, to my own detriment. In this case, I almost lost my mind, for real. I felt reality warping, I felt hopelessness, I felt like I was going to cry, and then I didn’t.

Everything started with me saying yes to something I shouldn’t have to. They asked me if I wanted to help at an evening event in a different location. And even if I am burnt out from working full time and studying, I said yes. First, because I need the money, but second, because I care. So after my morning shift, I went to the other location and prepare myself for a white wine and salmon poke event where they would decide very important things I couldn’t care less about. 

My mind was at home, in front of my laptop, editing my dissertation, making my industry placement essay make sense, and typing furiously in front of a can of cold brew. And yet, I said yes, because I believe in honest work. When I got to the new place, after greeting everyone, some weird gossip was going around among the workers. I couldn’t care less. If there is something more boring than hospitality work itself, must be the snitching between workers. I did not find out what was going on, but one of the line cooks and the pot wash guy had some lovely verbal conflict with one of the chefs and they left on spot. My boss asked me if I could take care of the washing.

Again, I said yes. Even if it was not my job, even if it was not what I was there for. I said yes because iI didn’t want to screw my boss, because, after years of experience, I understand that the full team is in some deep shit, and if I don’t do it, no one will. 

Fuelled by the moment, by good intentions and innocence, I said yes. The pot wash guy left literally every single pot and pan to wash. I don’t know what the fuck he did until then, but not much. So, I put some nice techno on my phone, took the rubber gloves and smashed it. I cleaned all the kitchen bits and bops, and all the utensils and as soon as the event started, I got on with every single poke bowl and wine glass. I did it. Somewhat happily so. 

Before I left, around nine in the night, I was asked again If I could help them tomorrow as well. A lot of please and thank you were interjected. They knew they were fucked, I knew they were fucked, and more out of pity than anything else, I said yes one more time.

On that Friday, I woke up at five-thirty in the morning, opened early in the morning in my usual building and then left to be pot wash man one more time. And I was mentally ready to do it, still somewhat happily so. 

I got there, greeted everyone good morning and was thanked and blessed and thanked again. They were grateful that they were not washing all the things by themselves. It is not the end of the world; I washed a lot of dishes in my life. It’s all about how you organise yourself, and steadily looking for the most optimum way of keeping a good pace so you don’t get swarmed. Still, after service, an avalanche of metal and cheap ceramics going to find your way no matter what. 

I felt tired, my mind was still somewhere else, but I summoned my resilient energies. I repeated to myself, endlessly, in a whisper that was louder than the music my headphones were blasting. I repeated over and over again.

‘Came on, it’s Friday, come on let’s go. I can do this, I can do this.’