Britain’s jobless could be put to work as waiters and bartenders to ease the country’s labour shortage, Downing Street has said.
The problem with this is that none of the current ruling class have ever worked as a bartender or waiter. They’ve therefore no clue about how easy or difficult it is.
It’s actually skilled – and physically hard – labour. One of the reasons I despise that oaf Soames is because he used to make fun of John Prescott for having been a steward. Would shout “gin and tonic, gin and tonic” when Prescott was speaking in the House. OK, given Prescott, mangling the language, not speaking. And Lord Knows I thought Prescott was a bad politician – I’m the person who did that “fuckwit” googlebomb after all. But the steward thing? Tosser.
It’s difficult work. It really isn’t something that you haul someone off a pizza strewn sofa to do. Well, not unless you want to make British table service even worse than it already is.
Note, please, that it’s not the idea itself that I’m really complaining about. It’s that none of these people have enough life experience to understand why it’s such a bad idea.
Err, about 39/- pubs in the UK, around 450/- longer term unemployed. So, 11 staff per pub.
At around minimum wage, tenner-an-hour, 20 hours per week, that’ll cost each pub getting on for two and a half large per week.
That’ll help the hospitality trade.
Hang on a mo’ – “be put to work as waiters and bartenders to ease the country’s labour shortage”
Does that sentence make any sense whatsoever? It’ll make the shortage worse, shirley?
How are you going to force people to do the jobs? If they are on benefits then you can threaten to remove their benefits. If the person is say 56 years old and has decided on early retirement then what are you going to do? Remove their private pension?
And does forcing people to do a job they do not want to do mean modern slavery?
Salamander, yeas they are. They are increasing the minimum retirement age for private pensions from 55 to 57
Surely *all* job vacancies are filled by the jobless.
I was about to complain about the subAmerican “bartender” and then realised that I should instead complain about the Woke “bartender”. Though maybe it really ought to be “person of bariness”. I mean, we can’t let people be defined by their jobs, can we? That would never do.
I had a student summer working in a village pub/hotel. I was barman, Boots, petrol pump attendant, caravan park attendant, and occasional waiter at breakfast and afternoon tea. Sometimes I had to protect the waitresses when the boss’s father got drunk.
I recommend it as an educational experience. Working in the sticks you do need personal transport. I had a motorbike. I recommend that too.
jgh – nope, any vacancy can be filled by someone swapping employers.
“Well, not unless you want to make British table service even worse than it already is.”
Is that even possible?
Ok..”Anything is possible if you try hard enough”, but…..
It might be hard to do silver service waiting or be Tom Cruise in Cocktail, but being a barman or waiter is a piece of piss for anyone sentient and reasonably sunny natured. Two shifts, you’ve basically nailed it.
Not quite. Some people just can never do it. Others do find it easy enough. From my years of doing it ( A lot more than just a uni holiday) and training others to do it the distinction is between those who can run 4 to 6 clocks in their head and those that can’t. If you can internally time how a table’s doing then you’ll get it, if you can’t you won’t – and you need to be able to do that for however many tables it is you’re running.
Very like, in fact, being able to cook commercially. Can you run those clocks for all the different things you’re trying to get onto the plates at that one and the same moment?
Interested – it may be easy to learn how to wait but those on the dole aren’t on the dole because *they want to work*.
The issue is how do you get your conscripts to work and not spit in the food.
Tim, if you’re talking about busy restaurants in tourist towns like Bath, maybe. But most pubs have two or three tables waiting for a cottage pie and a ploughman’s salad. It isn’t complicated.