Do you work in an office? Or are you one of the unfortunate lot that works in the service industry? Of course, we’re sure you love your job. But we say unfortunate only ‘coz of the long hours and the lack of time for a personal life. These unsung heroes do not get the credit they deserve. Let’s take a minute and celebrate them, shall we? In tribute to this bunch, we’ve got you a list of things only an employee of the service industry will relate to. Here they are:
1. Bye-Bye Weekends
You can bid every single weekend goodbye! While everyone goes away for the ‘long weekend’, you’re working twice as much. And let’s not get to the public holiday struggles. Whether it is Diwali, Christmas and New Year’s, you have to crawl to your workplace and survive the entire day.
2. No Monday Horrors
While people put up social media posts of Monday blues, you think of it as any other day. Because in the life of a service employee, there’s no such thing as a weekday or a weekend. They’re all the same.
3. Annoying Customers
They are the worst. These customers are the reason why you drink your sorrows away on your day off. The constant complaints, arrogance, and tantrums are what make you say FML.
4. No Work-Life Balance
There is no such thing as a ‘work-life balance’. You wake up early to go to work, and by the time you’re home, you’re so exhausted that you just want to pass the eff out. Forget movies, dinners or even a good night’s sleep.
5. Erratic Roster Timings
Those goddamn rosters are the worst. Even if you plan out this roster a week in advance, someone would make random plans and want to swap with you. So forget planning your outings, it won’t matter.
6. Unhealthy Eating Habits
You almost never eat on time. And because you’re always in a hurry, you eat all the possible junk because you don’t have time to eat healthily and hence, you settle for easily available food like samosas or parathas.
7. Pilferage
Ah, you just want to kill yourself because of all the missing inventory you need to pay for. It may not even be your fault, but some dimwit working with you has misplaced or maybe even shoplifted and now you need to pay for his sins. It was bad enough that you barely made rent this month, now you have to sell your kidney to pay the company.
8. Straight Shifts
If you’re unfortunately working in retail, you’d have to work may be for two days straight during the end of season sales. And if you work in the hospitality industry, then you’re in for a world of pain during the wedding season.
9. Uncooperative Management
The management just never understands. They firstly add so much pressure to your daily life and God forbid you ever have issues with any of them. They wouldn’t entertain you at all.
10. Mystery Audits
A mystery audit is when a person pretends to be a customer but is actually hired to score you based on how you deal with them. It’s bad enough that the management doesn’t believe in you and is constantly putting you down. But they top it off with a passive ‘we don’t trust you with this job so we’re testing you’ BS that really pushes you over the edge.
But hey, on the bright side, you make tons of incentives and network with like-minded people. So, don’t stress, while other people are suffering from Monday blues, you’re on your day off enjoying staying in and binge-watching shows on Netflix. That’s not so bad now, is it?
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