The only bad interactions I've had with restaurant staff was staff getting a bit irritated at ordering slowly.

Our floors aren't ever really filled with trash though! We're one of those 2010s-era brewpubs so it's a large, open space but these things are so awkward to navigate around and I wish so much that they would send them to the basement.

Sorry for being nosy, is it about fighting loneliness? If that's the case, is it effective / something you'd recommend? I've been thinking about it for myself, and I worry that the physical exaustion, coping with nasty customers and lack of deep relationships on the job would make any benefit moot.

For what it's worth, working as a server can be really helpful for loneliness though - at virtually every place I've worked, the coworkers become very close and good friends as we all commiserate together throughout the shift haha

Serving did help me a ton with getting comfortable speaking in large groups of people; was a huge benefit - being able to strike up a conversation with just about anyone, build rapport and make a connection has been infinitely helpful in my personal and professional life.

I'm sure there is a better way to frame this but when I approach a table of guests I kind of pull from a "rolodex of personalities" to instantly make them comfortable and build rapport (since it's kind of awkward on the guest side, too, if that makes sense) - it's like having hundreds of small, genuine conversations a day. Some tables can be toxic but they are quickly forgotten by another group who are incredibly fun to wait on.

Definitely recommend trying it out at a non-corporate location if you have one! I work at a Rock Bottom which is a definitely a corporate owned brand but it's a lot less suffocating than a chain like Applebees, Olive Garden or others in that vein. A local place will give you a lot of agency and autonomy on how to manage your tables - the owner at the Mexican restaurant I worked at would walk up to your table and tell them to 'get the hell out' if they were being hostile towards you

For some people, this is a feature.

https://unbelievable-facts.com/2024/10/ichiran-the-japanese-...

This isn't the first time and won't be the last time the general public had to deal with things being worse, just so companies can make money. We can't have companies not making money. Good heavens!