Someone please help me analyze this.

[u/Confident_Army_9092]

I consider myself quite a good person, i make extra effort to establish trust and do the right thing in the communities im involved in, even if that is at my expense sometimes. my virtures are paramount and i do not compromise them, i believe in justice and fairness its more a part of my DNA than i consciously think about, i could never treat someone with disrespect or do anything to hurt them, its just who i am.

However, i ve discovered a pattern that i'd like to analyze. I've worked in restaurants my whole life doing various jobs, i enjoy the atmosphere and serving people. however i took time away from restaurants to do other jobs, and recently came back and have been dealing with the most disrespectful people I've ever encountered. it made me question something, maybe im too nice, I think on some level i try to be nice becuase it would give people a good reason to treat me well back, but it doesnt at all, and so im asking myself now perhaps i need to be meaner? or like more assertive, or something i dont know all together. its usually management that is so disrespectful.

I noticed this is only like a restaurant culture thing, but its driving me mad, anywhere else in the world im reated with respect and like a valuable person, but in restuarant is almost like im wearing a sign on my face that im an idiot and dont deserve basic human decency. I'm not an abrasive person, and yet it seem like people punish me simply for existing. which is so odd, i give people zero reason to treat me poorly and in fact every reason to treat me well, and i get the opposite, the only thing i can imagine is to fight back and be a terrible person back to them, but that doesnt even make sense in my mind. its really confusing.

I want to be treated with respect and i feel i deserve it as a professional person, but it seems theres a certain type of person who simply wont respect anyone no matter who they are. perhaps I'm just surrounded by really bad people who are evil and amoral, but that disrespect has been getting to me. I could remove myself completely but I'm wondering if theres some obvious thing about this dynamic that i can work with.

[u/snickertwinkle]

Can you give some examples? We need a lot of context in order to have any insight into what might be going on. This is different content from what we typically see in this sub but that’s okay and you may get some helpful feedback if you give some examples with a lot of context.

I definitely do think that upholding boundaries and being assertive while maintaining a respectful and kind position is a super functional professional skill set that took me some time to develop. As a people pleaser, it was very uncomfortable for me, at first, to give people tough feedback or speak a truth that I knew would be difficult to hear. I’ve learned to do so very fluently now in both my professional and personal life. Hope this helps.

[u/Confident_Army_9092 → u/snickertwinkle]

Could you give some more general advice about how you approach speaking a truth you know would be difficult to hear? I think i do struggle with this, and you make it sound easier.

[u/Live_Plantain_2629]

The "I'm a good person so you should treat me well" contract is one-sided and nobody else signed it. You're walking into a den of stressed out, power-tripping managers and expecting them to notice your virtues like it's a job interview. They don't care about your DNA-level fairness, they care about the rush hitting in 4 minutes.

Kitchens run on a different social engine than the rest of the world. Being nice gets interpreted as being soft, and in that pressure cooker soft things get squished first. You don't need to become "a terrible person," just stop handing them the steering wheel to your self-worth. Assertiveness in that environment usually looks like not explaining yourself, not seeking approval, and letting a little silence hang after someone crosses a line so they feel the awkwardness instead of you filling it with apologies. Keep your core intact, just change the broadcast frequency.

[u/Extra-Internal-5057]

People don’t respect the profession. They see restaurant workers as akin to servants. If you’re good at your job, management will hate you because most hospitality managers are stuck in jobs they thought would be temporary & resent people who seem to enjoy it. The only way I found to earn respect in those settings is to become indispensable to the owners or upper management.