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Brendan Crowley
February 20th, 2024
ENGL-1001-09
Social Justice Essay
Social Justice in the Restaurant World

I have been working since middle school. I enjoy working. When at work, I feel

satisfied, I feel like I am accomplishing something, that makes me proud of myself.

However, at work things are not always fair. When I was younger, and first started

working, I felt as though it had to be fair. I was just a middle school kid. It felt as though

everything in the world was fair. I did not understand fully that some people were treated

differently. Growing up in school you learn about MLK and the silver rice movement in

the 20th century. You celebrate MLK day to understand how the United States was

different than it was back then. As a kid, if you are privileged enough, it feels like that

the movement fixed everything, however, as you grow older, you realize it did not.

When I first started working, I did not realize that people would treat their coworkers and

customers differently because of the color of their skin. As time went on, I started to

realize that unfortunately, I was wrong. At first, I noticed some of the looks my

coworkers would give when the African American walked into the restaurant. I didn’t

understand what these looks meant. I thought maybe I was seeing things wrongly or

taking these looks out of context. And unfortunately, I felt like I couldn’t ask. This was

early in my working days and I was only a bus boy. That is the lowest position in a

restaurant. Now by saying that I do not mean it is unrespected or underappreciated. It’s

just the fact that I was only a kid who I’ve been working there for all of five minutes.

Some of my coworkers had 10+ years on the job, so who was I to say something?
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The day I am thinking about, particularly in my story was the day that all these looks and

little comments under people's breath I couldn’t understand finally were exposed, and It

became an all too real reality. The experience started as I was sitting in a chair in an

area where the employees conjugated. It was the start of the shift, and it was a slow

start. You always hear in the working world that there’s always something to do, and

restaurant management jokingly says “If you have time to lean, you have time to clean”.

Well, I can personally attest that this is not true, and that’s why I was in the position to

hear what I heard, and I was not the only one who could hear what was about to

happen. One of the hosts walked back to this area to inform one of my coworkers that

they had a table. We can call my coworker “Ben” for the sake of the story. The host said

“Ben, you have two at 32.” Since it was a slow start and it was Ben‘s first table, you

think you’d be happy to receive a table for the opportunity to make money. However,

this was not the case. Ben said thanks for the host and she walked back up towards the

front. Ben got out of his seat and walked over to look in the direction of table number 32.

He rolled his eyes and walked back towards the area to grab two coasters for the table.

As he did this, he said out loud not to anyone in particular, but to all of us “You gotta be

shitting me, she gives me them as the first table?”. At this time, I could not see table

number 32, so I figured that there must be two people who come in often and don’t tip.

So I stood up to look over in that direction and saw two people that I’d never seen

before and of African-American descent. My initial reaction was “Oh I’ve never seen

these people before”, but then again, I don’t know all the regulars, so it just must be
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people I've never seen. But as Ben continued to wait on this table, and as a shift went

on I realized more what he meant, and how terrible it was.

As time progressed Ben kept complaining how much he hated waiting on this

table. When he would say something, everyone else would just roll their eyes at him.

Being a young kid I didn’t fully understand what he was implying. I just figured they

must’ve been rude or maybe even needy. When Ben went to go over the table for

another, I had a table to clean next to that one. I figured if I went over at the same time

as Ben, I could eavesdrop and see what he meant. As he was talking to them, I noticed

a blatant rudeness and shortness in his tone of voice. The couple speaking back to him

seems to be very nice and polite. As I sat there wiping the table I felt very confused. My

initial thought was that maybe they felt bad and started to be nice, so as Ben walked

away as did I. I went about my business, but I couldn’t help but hear Ben once again

complaining about his guests “I am sure they probably won’t even tip anyways”. I was

very confused when I heard this, they seemed like very nice people, and they even

dressed nicely. I knew I must’ve been missing something, little did I know how terrible it

would be. Eventually, they left, and the night moved on.

As the night progressed it never really got busy. When servers are not busy

servers do not make that much money. So typically, and rightfully so, they get annoyed.

Pretty much every server was annoyed, and Ben was no exception. However Ben was

annoyed by more than just no tables, he was annoyed by who occupied his lone tables.

Ben was consistently telling everyone that the hosts kept giving him “the same shitty

table” over and over again. I got busier so I wasn’t so worried about what Ben was
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saying, and besides, everyone was complaining about their night. My attention was

eventually drawn back to Ben, and it wasn’t just my attention it was everyone’s. It was

one of Ben’s last tables and the restaurant was basically empty. It was quiet at the time

as everyone felt tired, and there was no life with no customers. Quickly a couple

stormed up to the area we were all sitting in. It was Ben’s table, they demanded to

speak to a manager. My manager was already there so she immediately tried to help.

“Hi I'm (her name), how can I help you, what’s going on?” she said emphatically.

However, the male customer took a more serious and direct tone of voice when replying

loudly “Our server has been racist to me and my family all night”. At this point, I noticed

the couple was black. Of course, I saw that they were black when they walked up, but I

didn’t process it, because I didn’t care. All the workers in the area froze. My manager

didn’t have a response for a couple of seconds, she never had to deal with something

like this before. She told them she was so sorry and asked if they knew who their server

was, to which they replied that it was Ben. Almost like a scene out of a movie, Ben

rounded the corner with drinks in his hand, he was headed to a table. Everyone stared

at him. Dumbfounded why everyone was staring at him, he simply said “What”. At this

time, my manager tried to handle the situation as best as she could. She first told Ben to

stop what he was doing and meet her in the office, she then told the angered guests

that they could go back to their seats and she would be over in a minute to talk this over

more with them. Once Ben went to the office and the guests went to their table, she

distraughtly turned to all of us and just said “What the fuck”. One of my co-workers

broke the silence that followed and told her to worry about the customers
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and Ben, and that we as a team could take care of what Ben had to do. She thanked

everyone and went to speak to the customers and the rest of their family. My shift was

basically over at this point, and I knew right now was a good time to leave. As a busser,

you are supposed to check out with the manager to make sure the restaurant is clean. I

did a once over myself and knew she was gonna have her hands full for the night, so I

double-checked with the closing server to make sure everything was all set for me to

go, and when he told me “Yeah it looks fine”, I clocked out and left for the night.

I never knew what officially happened with Ben, or what happened with the

couple and their kids, but I never saw Ben again, so I can assume what happened to

him. After this moment I would be more keen on these sorts of things, and I would be

lying if I said I hadn’t heard a thing or two since the Ben incident. I know I treat everyone

equally, and so do most of my coworkers. Reflecting on what I thought as a kid, I hope

one day the world will be as equal as I thought it was. But for now, we can only try to

make it a better place one step at a time.