Reflecting on her time waiting tables in Madison, Wisconsin, Michelle Wildgen proposes a mandatory tour of duty in the restaurant business:
We would all be better people if restaurant work were compulsory. … In the dining room, you face humanity. And this is humanity at its most oblivious, tetchy and petulant. We’ve all heard about the snooty, demanding restaurant guests, but snootiness was not generally a big problem in Madison. … No, it was the regular folks who drained me of my will to stay in the restaurant business, and at times my will to breathe. …
A required year on the front lines would not just be a refresher in simple good manners, but the reminder of the underlying purpose of those manners: Even in a privileged dining room, this is a crowded, uneasy world, and being considerate of each other at the moments our lives unavoidably intersect can smooth the rough edges just a little bit. A former server is more likely to treat wait staff as sentient beings, yes, but I’d like to think we also retain some measure of empathy, too, much as we try to squelch it. A lot of lives came into my orbit when I was a server, drawing me in at moments that were joyous, sorrowful, nerve-wracking and all the more delightful or harrowing for occurring so publicly. You can’t live in your own hermetic world if you’re a server; you can’t avoid learning about the lives of others, not when those others arrive in your life each and every night, bringing with them a bundle of hopes and worries and celebrations and rifts.
The Dish 