‘I gave everything to everyone and didn’t have anything left for myself’
Hospitality workers on the reality of an industry on the brink
From dancing on tables to crying in the pot wash; from instant friendship to substance abuse: four former hospitality workers talk about the good, the bad and the ugly sides of the hospitality industry.
After twelve years of working in an industry that made her feel like she wasn’t worth much, Mary had nothing left to give. On her days off she would lie, isolated, with no energy to see or even just text back her friends. “I find it quite heartbreaking to look back on,” she said, “because when I was working in a restaurant, I would be bubbly and extroverted, but on my days off I would feel weird and empty and isolate myself from the people I loved.”
But it wasn’t always like this for her. At first, it was fun. Mary had left her home on the Isle of Wight and moved to London to study Human Geography. Here, she started working as a bartender at a bar in Temple, a job that she loved because on Fridays they would all get “really, really drunk” and dance on the tables. “I think the flexibility and being able to drink on your shift was quite a big draw, you know, as a 20-year-old with no money. And being able to make friends instantly,” she said.
“I’ve had some incredible moments I will never forget, and I’m so grateful. But I’ve also gained quite a big mental health debt.”
It was the social element and acceptance she experienced amongst staff that attracted her to hospitality and what kept her in the industry for so long. She worked several “chaotic” pub jobs, became a supervisor at the student union bar, then started working at a coffee roaster in Dalston. Once she finished her degree, Mary transferred to New Zealand and later Australia to work as a coffee roaster and barista with the same company. “I loved making coffee, I loved my team and the money was great in Australia. I could live very well and people treated me as though I worked in a real career,” Mary said. But when she came back to London after her visa expired, she noticed things were different in the UK. As a barista, she would only earn “enough to scrape by” she realised, so she started working as a waiter for slightly better pay.
“When you want to make money in hospitality, you just work all the time,” she said. “You never think about yourself and it’s so easy to avoid your own feelings. You put your life on hold.” Over time, parts of the job that were attractive at first, like the flexible hours, the drinking after shifts, and the busy lifestyle, burned her out. In hospitality, she said, even on your days off you have no time for the things you enjoy. “It’s just for sleeping, relaxing, probably eating. And that’s if you’re not hungover. You’re physically tired and mentally exhausted. You’re an empty shell.”
Still, Mary said looking back at her time in service is bittersweet. “I’ve gained so much in hospitality. I’ve had some incredible moments I will never forget, and I’m so grateful. But I’ve also gained quite a big mental health debt.”
Mary is not an exception. From chefs to waitstaff to kitchen porters, many hospitality workers experience problems with their mental health. While reports of such issues are on the rise across all sectors in the UK, they are particularly prevalent in hospitality. Four out of five hospitality workers experience mental health issues at least once in their careers.
“We work weird hours, odd shifts, often doubles and back-to-back, and all we get is minimum wage.”
Mary said there are many things askew in the industry, and it starts with the pay. “I don’t think anyone here [in hospitality] gives us financial or emotional respect.” Despite it being a demanding industry, most hospitality jobs are underpaid. The average yearly salary for a server in central London is currently between £17,000 and £24,000 whereas the average annual rent is about £26,000 and rising. This is after staff shortages drove up wages over the past years. “We work weird hours, odd shifts, often doubles and back-to-back,” Mary said, “and all we get is minimum wage.”
But it wasn’t just about the pay. It was many little things that impacted Mary’s mental health gradually and over many years. “I’ve always been anxious and I’ve always been a bit of a people-pleaser, so put me into a long-term hospitality environment and that’s what you get.” Trying to be the person the customers wanted her to be, or “people-pleasing on a corporate scale” as Mary called it, was what affected her mental health most; the emotional labour of constantly trying to make people like her. “I gave everything to everyone and didn’t have anything left for myself,” she said.
For Monica, a small business owner who worked in hospitality for ten years, the decline in her mental health was gradual too. She didn’t realise how much her job as a waiter affected her mentally until she broke down at work one day. “It was something that grew inside of me. It got bigger and bigger until I had a complete breakdown,” she said.
Like Mary, she enjoyed the flexibility and freedom of her bar and restaurant jobs in Spain, Portugal and London, but towards the end of her career in service she was just “struggling to survive”. For her, the most demanding part of the job was the interaction with customers. Not at first, but over the years.
As a Spanish immigrant, the lack of respect for service workers in the UK came to her as a culture shock when she first arrived: “[Customers] think that because you’re a waitress, you probably couldn’t find a better job. They think you’re less valuable or less intelligent. Some of them honestly think you’re stupid.” But, Monica said, the job is physically and mentally demanding in a way that people who have never worked in the industry cannot understand. “They see us carrying food to the table but they don’t see the reality behind all of that. How well-prepared and organised and ready you have to be.”
Over the years, she too gave a lot of herself and often felt ignored, disrespected and dismissed by the people she served. “Over time it can be quite defeating,” she said. It was the constant exposure to people who didn’t respect her that pushed Monica over the edge. Although she didn’t anticipate her own mental breakdown, she said seeing colleagues break down doesn’t surprise anyone in the industry. “It is a reality. It is part of the job.”
“It gives you nothing left at the end and then we all drink and pretend it’s okay.”
The interaction with customers also impacted Mary’s mental health. Not so much because they were rude or disregarding, but because of the energy that went into keeping up her extroverted hospitality persona. There is an element of masking in all areas of life, she said, but it’s particularly strong in hospitality. “You have to put on a show the whole time. Ten hours of my day I would be pretending I didn’t have any other feelings.” Conjuring up those feelings when she didn’t feel her happy hospitality self was hard work, a constant invalidating of her emotions. She called it a skill. An art even. “Some days I would cry in the pot wash for ten minutes, then put up with my emotions and come back as a dazzling creature. It gives you nothing left at the end and then we all drink and pretend it’s okay.”
For Alessia, smiling and faking it was not the problem. Although after twenty years of working in clubs, bars and restaurants across London, she said she despises the hypocrisy of the job. “You just put on a mask to make the interaction work. Be submissive, be a people-pleaser. You cannot snap out of it, you need to be fake as fuck.”
But it was switching off the hospitality persona after her shifts that she struggled with. “I guess sometimes it’s difficult to take off [the mask] when you go home. That’s where the mental stuff comes from. That’s when you start to do a lot of drugs,” she said.
“They will squeeze you like a lemon if you let them.”
Like others in the industry, Alessia resorted to drugs as a way of managing her mental health. At one point, she was so overwhelmed with the pressures of her job that she had to take drugs just to be able to go to work. “I completely lost touch with myself,” she said. “I would smoke a spliff to feel numb. So I didn’t have to hear or feel anyone or even feel myself.”
Substance abuse is considered an open secret in hospitality, with some in the industry relying on drugs to manage the immense workload and pace of their jobs. Close to 80% of hospitality staff report that they have witnessed drug use at their workplace.
Alessia now earns most of her money as a tattooist and only works in a restaurant two days per week. Like Mary, she said that hospitality can give you a lot, but it takes a lot as well. What she has learned over the years is to be careful with her energy. “You can’t give yourself away because they will squeeze you like a lemon if you let them.”
Mary, too, used alcohol to help her cope with the stress at work and so did many of her colleagues. The problem with substance abuse in hospitality, she said, is that it isn’t just harmful to the people who do it, but it also contributes to an environment that enables sexual harassment.
“People’s boundaries are completely fucked…”
Groping, pressing and unwanted sexual propositions are rampant in hospitality and the perpetrators are both colleagues and members of the public. Almost 90% of hospitality workers said they have experienced at least one incident of sexual assault at work.
“In hospitality, it’s much easier to sexually harass someone and get away with it,” Mary said. “It’s seen as banter. It’s just seen as something chefs do with servers.” She said that the sense of companionship between staff, the long hours and the substance abuse blur the lines until “people’s boundaries are completely fucked and no one even knows what harassment is anymore.”
When asked if she had experienced sexual assault in the restaurant environment, Boyce was uncertain. “When I look back I’m a bit like, ‘was I harassed?’ I don’t necessarily think I was, but there’s definitely been weird situations.” Female servers, particularly, are constantly sexualised “to a point where we expect these things to happen,” she said. “It’s not okay, but that’s what I expect.”
Luca did not expect to be sexually harassed at work. He had been working in hospitality for twelve years but was not aware of the extent to which sexually abusive behaviour was happening in the industry. “I’m a man, and it’s probably something that happens but I didn’t realise this before it happened to me,” he said.
Luca was harassed by a colleague at a staff party but because it was “just a kiss and a hug” the incident wasn’t taken seriously. He said the fact that he’s a man might also have affected people’s perception of it. After meetings with HR, Luca was offered to be transferred to a different location. He was told the harassment wasn’t “bad enough” to justify more than a warning to his colleague. In his letter of apology to Luca, the perpetrator said he did what he did because he was drunk.
“I should have left much sooner. I shouldn’t have started at all.”
For the former bartender, the sexual harassment was just the tipping point and the way the incident was handled confirmed what Luca already knew: “I felt like whatever I do, I’m never going to be taken seriously here. Like whatever I say means nothing. Like it has no value.” In the end, Luca accepted one month’s pay and left the company. Then he slipped into severe depression.
He, too, said that a lot of issues come down to a lack of respect in the industry. The way workers are treated pushes them towards all sorts of unhealthy behaviours because there is no protection. Seeing colleagues do cocaine on shift was nothing too unusual. “Because it’s a job that requires an inhumane amount of energy,” he said. “Yes, we all have choices, but we also have to survive in an environment where this is the only option offered to us.”
After twelve years, he felt like he had wasted all his life in an industry that constantly tried to manipulate him and left him with no self-esteem. “I should have left much sooner. I shouldn’t have started at all.”
Luca said he feels lucky to have found a new job in a different industry that doesn’t strain his mental health. He said he’s happier now and his working conditions are better. “Not amazing, don’t get me wrong, we’re still talking about a corporation. But it’s a huge step up and that says a lot about how shit it was before.”
As it stands, however, working conditions are unlikely to improve overnight for the 3 million people who are still employed in hospitality in the UK, and not everyone can or wants to leave the industry. There is a great need for change, Mary said, and it starts with better pay and ends with shifting people’s views on mental health.
Like Luca, Mary left her restaurant job after twelve years in the industry when she felt like she couldn’t live with the stresses of hospitality anymore and needed “some external mental health help” to get better. She found a corporate job that offered more personal boundaries and where nobody ever asked her to stay late. “When I think about it,” she said, “the reason why I’ve got my nine-to-five job was so that I can have regular hours and commit to going to therapy.”
She’s much happier now, she said. “I have time, I feel relaxed, I can go for a drink with friends and not feel like an anxious blob. I know what I’m going to earn and just being able to go home at five is amazing. I’m less busy so I’m forced to do things that actually make me happy and that’s quite a big difference in my life.”
