Anna Good
A TikTok rant about the vast differences between working in an office and working as a server in a restaurant went viral, as many users shared their own experiences.
TikTok user Ellen Therese (@ellen_goeswild) posted the video on June 8, and it has been viewed over 1.3 million times, with 269.2k likes and over 19k comments. In the video, Ellen explained that she had worked for 11 years as a server, thinking that she needed qualifications she didn’t have to work in an office. Since her career change, the TikToker said that she has since become disillusioned by office jobs now that she has one.
“I don’t f-cking understand how all these people are getting paid all the time to do f-cking nothing and I was busting my ass for 11 years,” she exclaimed in the video. “I am so mad, and other people are like, ‘shouldn’t you be glad that it’s easy, and you know what you’re doing, and that it’s semi-whatever?’ No! I have been lied to this entire time.”
The ex-server went on to say that people who work office jobs have been “gatekeeping” their “cushy” roles where they hardly work at all throughout the work day, all while treating people who work in the service industry as if their jobs are “worthless” and people who work in them don’t contribute anything to society.
Ellen went on to say that she felt she did a lot more good in the world in her service industry job than she ever will working in an office.
“I helped more people serving tables than I’m going to do sitting in this f-cking cubicle,” she said. “But no, I can’t get paid appropriately for actually giving a f-ck about human beings.”
She asked, “Does anyone have a job that f-cking—is actually doing something in the world? And getting paid for it and not doing nothing?”
People in the comments shared their own experiences of disillusionment in the difference in workplace performance.
“I spend half my day at my adult job doing nothing,” one person commented. “Did I need my 8 years of school to do this job? No. I need 8th grade math and google.”
Another commenter added, “Genuinely the anxiety that comes with ‘looking busy’ instead of having actual work to do is soul crushing sometimes.”
“I wouldn’t say my office job is easy, but it’s tedious and boring and I help no one and I feel like I’m wasting my life because I want to help people,” a third person said.