SINGAPORE: A Singaporean man who left his corporate job to take on a service crew role at a local café shared on social media how challenging the Food and Beverage industry is.
“I feel like it is a lot harder than the desk-bound jobs I have been doing almost all my life. At one point of my career before this, I was even managing a retail shop, but that did not seem as overbearing as this current job I’m holding,” he wrote on r/askSingapore forum on Saturday (Jan 4).
The man went on to explain that his role requires him to juggle several tasks at once: serving customers, managing the cash counter, cleaning the café, washing dishes, and occasionally handling bar work, such as making and serving drinks.
“While the job sounds easy, for instance, things like mopping or washing dishes are something you’ll do regularly at home if you have no helper, I feel like I am struggling,” he wrote.
“So it sounds like a no-brainer job, but if you lump everything together, such as demanding/rude customers and having to manage five things in a go, it messes with your brain… it has with mine at least!” he added.
In addition to the heavy workload, he mentioned that many customers tend to look down on him, seeing him as a “good-for-nothing person who’s lower than them.”
Feeling frustrated, he turned to the community for help, writing, “Has anyone from corporate switched and was in a similar situation as me?” he asked.
“What did you do, and how did you cope with your responsibilities? My current job makes me feel useless, although a lot of things are based on common sense,” he lamented.
“F&B is only good if your supervisor and colleagues treat you as a normal human…”
In the comments section, numerous users shared that they could relate to the man’s struggles, as they had once been in his shoes. One user who worked at KFC 19 years ago said, “F&B is only good if your supervisor and colleagues treat you like a normal human.
I remember working at KFC, getting paid $2.80 per hour, juggling tasks like cleaning, making mashed potatoes, and handling ad hoc jobs.
I reached a point where I was so stressed that my face would turn black, and customers could tell because I’d softly shout every time I needed to clear the table.” The user said he quit without notice after only one month because the job was mentally draining and exhausting.
Another remarked, “People in corporate have no idea what ops/retail/frontline/shift work is like. They also tend to think it’s not that hard… so like I said, they have no idea.”
Meanwhile, other users suggested that the man consider applying for positions at high-end restaurants or hotels.
One user commented, “Don’t work in low-end cafés and restaurants. Work only in 4 to 5-star hotels or upmarket restaurants. I have worked in FnB all my life in upscale restaurants, and the work is a lot easier than McDonald’s or KFC, I am sure.
We have cleaners to do the cleaning. You don’t have to be multitasking all the time. The customer traffic is also lower compared to low-cost places. It means you work less hard within the same time frame.”
In other news, a man took to Reddit to share a rather unusual experience with an employer who told him he “had to submit his resignation letter to his current company and serve notice first” before they would reveal the salary and contract details for the new role.
In his post on r/askSingapore, a Reddit forum on Monday (Dec 30), the man recounted that when the company reached out over the weekend to let him know he was shortlisted for the “Sales and Marketing entry-level role,” they also made an unusual request: for him to resign from his current job.
Featured image by Depositphotos (for illustration purposes only)