A very demanding job
I grew up in a family of restaurateurs, and from a very young age, I listened with dread to those devastating words. It was a way of pushing me to study, travel, and see the world, to not settle for "this slave-like profession" that had the rest of my family chained to the restaurant.
The word "slave" implies piecework, without financial compensation and with no social value. And yet I saw my grandmother happy as she said goodbye to her clients, received compliments, forged friendships, wore new earrings after a good summer, or provided her children with the best possible education.
Was she a slave? To me, she was always a brilliant and hardworking queen bee. Compared to those who spend ten hours a day in front of a screen, to an emergency room doctor working 48-hour shifts under emotionally crushing pressure, or even to a top executive—hounded to meet targets and sleeping more than 200 nights a year in company hotels—my grandmother was privileged.
It's a cliché that working in the hospitality industry prevents you from enjoying life. It's repeated with a mixture of pity and condescension, as if one were condemned to serve while the rest of the world lives. But the truth is, few jobs allow such a direct connection to pleasure: watching a customer toast, pour themselves another plate of beans, or lick the bones off a fish is, at the very least, more entertaining than reviewing an Excel spreadsheet of macros.
Of course, there's physical exhaustion, moments of tension, and days cut short by split shifts, but there's also an immediate reward not found in other, theoretically more highly valued, professions. It demands commitment and a certain tolerance for chaos, but what job doesn't have its price?
It might not always seem like it, but the industry is finally shaking off the yoke of a misguided culture of sacrifice. Today's restaurateurs don't work from sunrise to sunset, like my grandmother. They manage to get more time off, balance schedules, or escape during the off-season. If they play their cards right, they can end up being the envy of their friends, trapped in the drudgery of going out on Saturdays or taking their holidays in August.
