@sarcasticmudcrab: Fellow restaurant professional here; I completely understand that take, in fact I'm sure I've made it myself multiple times in the past. I completely understand the feeling of being unable to relate to certain labor complaints from people who are in fields with highly competitive pay, health and investment benefits, etc. More to the point, as a front-of-house worker, my livelihood practically relies on crunch, even if that "crunch" looks nothing like it did pre-COVID.
...But much of this summer has reminded me that it's not exactly progressive, in the literal sense of making progress, to act like a crab in the bucket trying to bring others down to my level just because that's where I am. Restaurant crunch is very different from video game development crunch, yeah, but I'm not sure ours is worse than theirs. Our rough shifts cover a range of 4-8 hours, are highly physical, full of interaction and stimuli that both elates and depresses us. It's a very active form of crunch and one that always ends - and frankly, if a restaurant is busy enough that workers always feel under "crunch", something is wrong at the ownership or management level and they are cutting corners at the expense of their employees' health.
By contrast, tech crunch is 10-16 hour days of staring at code, sitting in a chair, fiddling with a fidget spinner or stress ball every once in a while with headphones on mostly not talking to anyone. I don't know about you, but even setting aside the fact that most of the people in our industry are masochistic bastards and bitches who get off on simply having a good service, I think the constant interpersonal interaction and wearing of many different hats as well as the guarantee that there is a light at the end of the tunnel and normalcy is as near as the next day rather than two or three months from now can't be underestimated.
I opened a craft beer and burger bar right next to an event stadium about two months prior to the space hosting 6 Garth Brooks concerts in four nights. I have never been as busy or overwhelmed as I was those four nights and I've never seen sales numbers like that at any job before or since. Every minute felt like a learning experience and every one on the team was constantly adapting to new problems and solutions. I admit, it was exhilarating, but ultimately what got all of us through it was the promise that, come Monday, it would be just another Monday. Ask any of us to keep that up for one, two, even three months? Or better yet, spring that on us through a tweet in the middle of the afternoon? I dunno, man.
But even then, to my original point - if labor at any level is in a position to fight for their ability to have a more comfortable work life balance, whether that be a mechanist or a major league basketball player, I say go for it. Working conditions are shit for damn near everybody at the lowest levels of their workplace, particularly in the States, and while the hospitality industry is notoriously hard on its workers compared to other industries I don't feel that gives me the right to tell game developers to "suck it up" just because they have it better financially.
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