Antick Musing's Fridays, Black and Otherwise

[james_davis_nicoll]

[...] [M]odern Westerners can be separated by the work they did when they were young and unskilled. One great mass worked in retail, selling goods of one kind or another. A second cohort worked in food service, waiting tables or working a grill. And the third group, seemingly the luck ones, were those rich or privileged enough not to have to work at all -- the ones who were children, then entirely students, and then set off on their careers, without ever having had "just a job."

Comments

[ann-leckie.livejournal.com]

No, intelligence doesn't always translate to waiting skills, that's absolutely my experience. Though I suspect attitude is a component in situations where "obviously" intelligent people manage to do a dreadful job learning to wait tables. I have no support for that hypothesis, it's just my take on it. Most of the people I worked with who fit that category also felt the job was beneath them.

It's also my experience that native intelligence doesn't always come in the sort of package conventionally expected of it. I don't personally think "special needs" means "not intelligent." No matter what special needs a person might have, if they manage to learn to wait tables well, that argues to me that they are, in fact, pretty intelligent.

The job requires the ability to prioritize and organize--on the fly--anywhere from two to ten--or more--sets of customers at one time, and each set needs lots of little tasks done, at the right time, in a way that hopefully won't delay your attending to the other tables. IMO, no one who can learn to do it competently is lacking intelligence.

Or that's how I see it.