“Where do you plan on doing that then!’’ was my parents’ first response when I announced my plan to become a waiter. Unlike some of my friends – who had carefully rationed themselves two bagels per day, each with a slice of pre-cut Tesco’s cheese – my ninth week had become a financial hemorrhage, and I urgently needed some work to help tide things over.

 

Unfortunately, my small hometown, which for legal reasons will remain nameless, has very few job opportunities but contains three secondary schools full of students looking for work. So perhaps I should have been more wary when a small Mexican restaurant practically begged me to work there despite my total lack of experience.

 

I would be the first to admit that I am not a natural waiter I also stop functioning at 10 o’clock at night, just when a restaurant business should be picking up. And, to top it all off, I am quite shy.

 

My solution to these problems was to pep myself up with a very large cup of coffee before my shift started to make sure my hands were nice and steady to hold large plates of food. It would only be a few evenings a week, and the shifts were quite short. And there was delicious free Mexican food. In other words, a dream job?

 

However, the dream started to turn into a nightmare as soon as I walked through the door. I was greeted not by my manager, but by the landlord of the building. Let’s call him Mr. Pig Farmer (MPF), as that was his job title was during the day. At night, however, he was the waiter who hadn’t read the dress code, turning up in a disgusting pair of check shorts.  I had had the misfortune to meet Mr Pig Farmer many years before, as I went to nursery and primary school with his son (one of the perils of living in a small town.) In each place father and son had distinguished themselves: at nursery Mr. Pig Farmer thought that a freshly extracted pig’s eye was a good object for show and tell. Unfortunately, things went slightly wrong when one of the children thought it was a gobstopper and ate it. At sports day he would become apoplectic with rage when his son lost a race, on one occasion calling the six-year-old victor a ‘fat lump’. And of course there was the small issue that during these years, his son bullied me. So, you can probably imagine what the working environment was like with MPF calling the shorts–sorry–shots.

 

The sad truth was, it was even worse than I expected. MPF was least politically correct person I have ever met, spewing intolerance at every opportunity. One moment he’d be shouting racial slurs at my manager, who was Mexican, and the next he’d be leering at teenage girls whilst serving the house cocktail, ‘Pussy Galore.’ Each cocktail came with a straw in the shape of a penis, which he would wave around in the kitchen, telling everyone that ‘the chef’s a cocksucker!’

 

As someone who has only recently come out, these remarks were deeply wounding. I reverted to my senior school tactic of remaining almost completely silent and watching myself constantly, lest I give anything away. The worst thing was, the other (male) waiters, some of whom I also been to school with, seemed to love him, finding his racist, homophobic, and misogynistic comments hilarious. At first, I looked to my manager for some sanity, but I was sadly mistaken. My manager took out his anger at MPF on the waiters, especially the new ones, i.e., me. He would tell me how to do a job once, and then expect me to do it perfectly every time, responding with fury if I slipped up.

 

My anxiety went off the charts – something which my manager found hilarious, taking every opportunity to sneak up behind me, make bizarre meowing noises and watching with glee as I jumped. And by the end of the third week, the situation started to spiral out of control. Any notification from my phone was enough to set my heart pounding, as it could have been my manager calling me into work. After my shifts I would lie awake for hours, adrenaline and caffeine coursing through my veins. In the day I started to feel ill, not helped by my manager ‘testing my spice tolerance’ with the hottest chilli in the world. My Mum said that I looked ‘pallid and grey’ and asked what the hourly wage was. I replied that I didn’t know. I was naïve, and my manager knew it. My pay was in random amounts and given in cash completely unpredictably. At the end of the third week, I plucked up the courage to ask for that week’s earnings. In response he chased me out of the restaurant, saying that he’d pay me later. As time went on and I was still not paid, I knew I had to leave.

 

I probably wouldn’t have been so desperate for work had I been able to take out a job on top of my studies. The imposed privilege of not working in term time came back to bite me after exams were over, having merrily frittered my money away. Oxford terms are far too short to work through, and businesses know better than to take on a bunch of people for just two months at time.  Plus, even if this was a possibility, the University of Oxford’s website states: “We would strongly advise against you relying on income from employment to fund your studies as this may have an adverse effect on your ability to complete your course to your full potential.” The result: students frantically scrambling for jobs at the start of every vacation. With overdrafts looming, this situation can easily end up like my own, where one’s desperation leads to a job with bigoted co-workers and bosses who take economic advantage of you, just because you are considered young and naive.

 

Whilst a shitty job may be seen as a rite of passage, this is only if you are able to quit. My experience with MPF well and truly burst the Oxford bubble and shocked me back to reality. Above all, I realised how privileged I was. One of my few nice co-workers was a Ukrainian refugee and, though I did not pry too deeply, I do not think she was able to leave the grim smiles of MPF behind any time soon. I was reminded how fortunate I am to exist in a space where I don’t have to wonder if my identity will be criticised, and that I have the means to decide that I do not deserve to be treated badly. The rose-tinted spectacles that I viewed my rural hometown with whilst at college have been firmly ripped off. I look forward to getting back to Oxford – the place gives many things (definitely not all good), but one thing it does give is hope for a future in a job I will enjoy and be passionate about. So, if you want to find me next term, I’ll be working.

 

In the library. ∎

 

Words by Oliver Ray. Image courtesy of Alice Robey-Cave.