First and foremost, never ever refer to service individuals, as the help. The people I'm referring to are those often unseen and ignored individuals who work in the service and maintanence industries. These are the people who bring you water at a restaurant, clean the toilets at your office, serve you hot school lunches, fix your sqeaky desk before a meeting, mow the grass, chauffeur your children to soccer practice, and the list goes on. These people are not your slaves. They are ordinary human beings, like you or I, who work for a living and should not be treated as if they don't exist because if they didn't, either you would have to do the jobs they do or your place of buisness or your school or wherever would eventually become run down and/or turn to chaos.
How many of you actually know the name of the person who empties your trash at work every single day, or have had a conversation about something other then the work needed to be done with these individuals, or even know what these people look like? Can you imagine working at a place and seeing the same people every single day and not having them ever say anything to you or have them avert their eyes when they see you? Would you like to be treated like that? The way you treat others is an absolute reflection of the type of person you are. It doesn't take any vast amount of time to say hello to someone or ask them their name and greet them in the morning as you do your boss or your classmates or your friends.
People often have this attitude that they are better than those working in service industries. They also make blanket or unfair assumptions about people who do these jobs. How can you be upset or digusted about the fact that someone has a job? These people may have the job they do to help pay for school, or because of a tough layoff, or because they are in between jobs, or are just trying to pay bills like the rest of us. Unless that cabbie, or the cashier, or that janitor has done something to you personally, why do some people just take it upon themselves to treat them rudely and with the utmost disrespect. It's appalling especially considering most of us at one point when we were younger started out in some of these positions and know exactly what it feels like to be treated like crap. So why do it to someone else? Does that make you a better person?
Be a part of what makes humanity good. Make an active effort to get to know someone who works with or for you or serves you in some way. When you see someone treating someone in the service industry poorly, don't just shuffle by and ignore it if you saw the situation happening, but stick up for that person and don't allow them to be bullied or treated poorly for doing nothing wrong, but their jobs. Don't snap at, bark at, or talk down to service industry employees. Just be nice.
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1Opinion
I am usually quite good - Once I have more than a couple of dealings with a person, I would ask their name and pass the time of day with them when we interact - They are someone's father/mother/son/daughter/brother/sister etc and would leave a place in a respectable state for example tidy a hotel room before I leave basically act as I expect anyone to act with a member of my family (or even me).
"I speak to everyone in the same way, whether he is the garbage man or the president of the university." Albert Einstein
Why is this a take? Why is this even a thing people needed to be reminded of?
My god. Okay. I'm done. There's the straw. Done.
Not going to bother thinking well of people. No more. I'm only being disappointed.
This is a take because it's not just people outwardly treating staff members like they are dirt, it's often the subtle things people do like not returning their clothing to it's hangers after trying it on, because "someone will get it," or not tipping your cab driver enough or at all, or just plain ignoring those employees which so many people do. Just because you may not be doing it, doesn't mean others aren't. That is sad. The thing about life is, we've all done something like this in some other context. If we just shut the door on people because they do these things or continue to ignore a problem, that doesn't make it go away. Talking about it, correcting people's behaviors, shedding light on something, can change people's attitudes. You're not going to get everyone, but you may get some, and that to me is worth it.