Restaurants continue to experience staff shortages after thousands of workers left the industry during the pandemic.At age 25, having endured every toxic rite of passage, I was a seasoned veteran of the restaurant industry. It was the beginning of 2020, and I had just started what would eventually become my last job in fine dining.
From my first cashier jobs right out of high school to the tumultuous fine dining job that finally led me to quit, it was a tornado of abuse, harassment and addiction. When I was finally allowed to wait tables at night, everything changed. I started to really get to know the industry, and the veil faded away. I was no longer intimidated by my older coworkers because I now knew they were drunk off the cheap bottle of tequila they kept in their locker. I knew the best waitresses were snorting Adderall in the bathrooms. I knew the manager would be passed out drunk off merlot in his office by the time I finished my shift.
After that, I worked at a couple of different places. I would go to a place long enough to get through its busy season, then move on to the next place for its busy season. I started using cocaine at work and felt on top of the world. I was a shark, as we call it in the industry, making sure I got every good table and every big party. Often complimented on my work ethic, I finally felt like I was good at my job.
At my last restaurant job, my drug and alcohol abuse got even worse. Forced to return to work too soon after the pandemic shut down restaurants, we were putting our health and lives at risk every day — with no health insurance. Many of us got sick and were instructed to keep quiet about it, keep taking tests until we got a negative result, then get back on the floor. A former coworker was hospitalized and later died after contracting COVID-19. Another coworker lost her neighbor.