Poll of the Day > Those of you over 30 and still in food service or retail. How are you doing?

(+) Yeah! (+)

My last food service job was in 2020 when I was 26 Been working white collar jobs since then.

Are any of you at least managers? Do you like your jobs? Why do you feel like you still work there?

Ive only ever been in food service my whole life. Done literally everything front of house and back of house, have managed several different restaurants, then went back down to bartending, then back up to management again.

currently general manager at a fancy burger spot. They keep sending me to different states to train people and stuff. Its fun but I just want to be home

boise sucks

Retail management. Its fine. I make as much or more than many friends who went to college, and I have no student debt.

I'm a cashier at the gas station kiosk at my local grocery store, which I assume counts?

I've got this job because its within walking distance of my house and I have no car. Its fine, but kinda boring. I live with my mom, so my expenses are pretty low..

i have zero interest in being a manager. Its more work for basically the same pay and I'm not a people person.

I hope I'm never manager, it's a decent union job and it's been bearable for the benefits I receive.
As someone else has pointed out, there's people who make the same or less, yet have a degree and debt for their position.

Respect to any of you who are out there. I've never worked in the food industry, but it definitely seems draining.

I dont currently work retail but there parts of it I miss. If I could run my own little shop without having to worry about things like pushing credit cards or other corporate mandates, drama between employees that should have gotten over that shit in high school, and barely getting paid enough to survive I think I would be quite happy with the position. Bonus that as the owner of the little shop I could refuse service to customers that were particularly assholish.

I worked at Old Navy when I was over 30. I liked working there. Not much money though.

Currently in-between jobs but I'm looking to get back into retail again. I've never had a manager role and I don't think I'd want that anyway. Hell I even hate working on the tills. The rest is cool though. Greeting customers, helping them with stuff, getting deliveries and so on.

I managed/was chef at a ramen bar in 2017 - I quit when my mom was diagnosed with cancer. The job was so stressful, mostly just because of the owner's dopey decisions.

I think 2018 was my last food industry job; I dishwashed at a remote fishing lodge on the Haida Gwaii islands. While it was beautiful and cool, it was also exhausting. Work from 7/8am-3pm, sleep from 3:30-6pm, eat dinner, and then work from 6:30pm-10 or 11. 6 days a week. Head chef had a rule that you worked an extra hour on your day off if you were 5 minutes late for a shift.

I still did some 'customer service' jobs after that, as I'd qualify anything where you're serving the general public. I worked in an optometry office from 2018-2020, starting out as a receptionist basically, so tons of the usual nonsense with customers. Not as bad as pharmacies though. To be fair, I liked it a lot more when I was mostly doing the pre-exams, and the phone/customer stuff wasn't too bad. It was when I started dispensing glasses as an optician that you got a bit more in the weeds with indecisive customers.

Then 2022/2023 was working as a home repair tech for Telus (largest ISP in Canada). The odd customer could be annoying, but my main bone of contention was with management. The job could've been chill if it weren't for them. I enjoyed helping customers, but I refused to try to upsell crap to them. Customers loved me while a single dolt in management was always riding my ass to sell people cellphone plans that were worse than my own.

I deal with 'clients' now so they can occasionally be a bit trying, but it's a lot less trivial than retail/service.

I feel called out. That's what I get for procrastinating, though.

I've just gotten better at being mean to people in general.

wwinterj25 posted...

Currently in-between jobs but I'm looking to get back into retail again. I've never had a manager role and I don't think I'd want that anyway. Hell I even hate working on the tills. The rest is cool though. Greeting customers, helping them with stuff, getting deliveries and so on.

Every English customer I've had has been cool as hell. In America we're basically slaves who don't want to make misser' angry, so all interactions are terrible and draining. Even if they are friendly, they'll turn on you like a dime.

But if I ever talk to an English person or an Australian I can relax and drop the shitty fake smile.

I'm a server at a nice restaurant and I do like food service still, for the most part, but I have started to hate my company. Part of me wants to try something new but another part of me just wants to find a new company and keep serving.