Food for Thought

If everyone lived according to the rules of my mother, there wouldn’t be a messy bedroom in sight and we would each play an equal role in dinner preparation. Cars would be abandoned for bikes and public transportation, and global production of single-use plastics would halt immediately. And we would all have worked in a restaurant sometime before the age of 30.

I only truly understood my mom’s enduring insistence on the value of restaurant work this summer, when I found myself back in my childhood home with no plans for the foreseeable future. June had snuck up and rendered me purposeless and green with envy, separated from my peers who had the foresight to apply to resume-worthy internship opportunities or metamorphic study abroad programs.

After a wildly unsuccessful last minute application scramble and a slew of cold emails met with no response, I took to the streets of Los Angeles with 20 copies of my resume in hand, fueled by a sense of desperate hope. By some miracle, within a few days, I had landed a part-time, minimum wage job at a local restaurant.

My role at the restaurant was expansive: taking orders, serving food, bussing tables, making drinks, cleaning and restocking — you get the idea. While my position was rather ambiguous, what I learned from my time there was clear. Two months in the food service industry gave me a rudimentary understanding of the Spanish language, an indelible urge to shout “behind!” when passing behind someone, and an irrational fear of getting trapped in a walk-in cooler — but most importantly, this experience gave me invaluable perspective.

From my interactions across the counter, I learned patience. I met many a Karen whose food was just a little too cold or service a little too slow (I would say we saw an average of three a day). My faith in human decency was tested each time an American Express Platinum cardholder didn’t leave a tip. The receiving end of a service job presented social challenges unlike anything I had ever experienced at Harvard.

From my interactions behind the counter, I learned gratitude. The 0.9 mile walk to the Quad now feels like nothing compared to the two-hour commute one of my coworkers made everyday. No paper nor problem set will ever compare to the sheer chaos that is the Monday lunch shift. What I do — what we all do — at this school is not as hard as it once seemed.

One could make the argument that, as Harvard students, our annual academic hiatuses are best spent doing even more learning or working in a lucrative industry, hunched over an office desk or sitting at a lab bench.

To that, I say: If we truly hope to leave this school “to better serve thy country and thy kind,” we must first possess a baseline understanding of this so-called country and kind. This isn’t the kind of understanding that can be gleaned from taking notes in a lecture hall, reading assigned texts, or even volunteering at a charitable organization. This kind of understanding can only be found via work that doesn’t necessarily boost a LinkedIn profile, isn’t always glorious, and may feel disconnected from the intellectual aspects of our lives.

For many Americans, working in a restaurant is not a novelty or a choice but a necessary source of income and stability. However, the Harvard student body is hardly reflective of this vast majority. Harvard Economics professor Raj Chetty ’00 found that a whopping 67 percent of Harvard undergraduates come from the top 20 percent of the national income distribution, while a mere 4.5 percent come from the bottom 20 percent.

Many students here have never and will never work a restaurant job. If this sort of work is a choice for you — perhaps even one you could avoid entirely — I implore you to give some serious thought to this choice.

Then if, God forbid, you ever find yourself sans summer internship or fresh out of college and unemployed, take a walk around your neighborhood and see if any restaurants are hiring. I think you just may find yourself to be a better person for it. And even if you don’t, my mom certainly will.

Violet T. M. Barron ’26, a Crimson Editorial Editor, lives in Adams House.