Photo by Brian Lundquist on Unsplash

The “Make the Service Industry’s Day” Challenge (especially for men)

What if you could be the brightest spot in someone’s day?

Dalton said it best, in Road House: “Be nice.” It’s a pretty simple principle, learned in kindergarten.

Somewhere, though, especially for boys, “be nice” got associated with weakness. Blame it on tough-guy movies and TV if you like; you can even go deeper and blame on traditional gender roles and the cultural expectations that girls and women should provide care and emotional labor.

Maybe it’s more simple: boys see how their men treat people they view as “beneath them” — usually service industry workers. That’s how they learn to treat those who have no power over them — and usually, it ain’t good.

Before the chorus of “not all men” or “what about Karens?” in the comments, let me acknowledge that this is an intersectional issue of gender, class, race, and privilege, among other things. This particular post is addressing one particular part of it; if you want to talk about the other parts, feel free! Medium is always looking for writers.

Servers, cashiers, attendants — they are trained to be nice to us and paid to do it. Not well, but it’s (almost) a living.