Service Sector

At home, sometimes the wife asks for my help for something, I don't know, she needs to lift something heavy, she needs to move something from one place to another, she can't do it alone, she asks for help. And sometimes I say, let me help her, and she gladly accepts. In the end, male strength is different. When something requires strength, I think we all behave the same way. So it is normal.

I'm not talking about the division of labor, we probably all fulfill the requirements of living together in our own way in household chores. It's our family after all. Solidarity!

But doing something for someone you don't even know? And adopting it as a profession? Earning money in return?

I'm talking about the service sector.

In fact, almost every profession is a service sector. You serve someone in exchange for money, you spend your knowledge, your labor. Yes, you get paid for it, but whatever you do for someone is actually a service.

Even if you are a factory owner, you are doing what you do for someone. Even if you have ships, you are transporting goods for someone. You are serving someone. Yes, you get paid for it. 

But if you are not doing it for yourself, whatever you do, you are doing it for someone, that is, you are serving!

Even if you sing, you sing for someone. Maybe you enjoy what you do yourself. Applause, fame, these are the benefits that artists do not hesitate to serve for. 

Still, in the end, if you are doing something for someone, you are actually serving. 

Even we civil engineers are service laborers for the companies we work for, for the company owner or the employer we do the work for.  

Somehow, when I thought about it, I realized that this is a strange situation. The condition for living together is to serve. He will serve you and you will serve him. So I guess we can overcome the difficulties of life with the strength of living together, of supporting each other.

But as I said, it's a balance, I guess service is a requirement of living together.

However, we still consider some professions in a separate category called the service sector. In such professions, service is probably more prominent, maybe that's why we call it the service sector.

If we want to eat something in a restaurant, an employee greets us at the door and welcomes us by saying welcome. In some restaurants, when we are shown to a table, there is a rush around us as we settle in. If the service is not open on the table, the service is opened first, sometimes salt and pepper, which should be standard, is immediately added if it is not on the table, bottled water is brought if it is missing, and the table is immediately put in order.

Then the waiter arrives a little later, and if you are in an Anatolian city or a restaurant on the road, you are asked what you want to eat in a friendly way, like "what should I give my brother?". In more elite restaurants, the waiter asks our choice from the menu in a very haughty tone, takes notes, makes suggestions, explains the options.

The customer is a benefactor, service sector employees are friendly. Our people are warm-blooded.

Speaking of restaurants, let me share a memory with you.

We went to Germany on a business trip for a material we planned to use in a building in a project, because our employer said let's see it on site and decide accordingly. This request was a request to show us around a little bit.

The material sales representative in Germany had made the general organization. Like a normal German, he arranged a hotel as close to the factory as possible. The hotel was quite far outside Munich. 

When we reached the hotel from the airport, it was already evening time. Even though a lot of time had passed on the way, we didn't really understand where we were going because of the conversation. 

After we left our belongings in our rooms, we decided to go to the city with the request of our employer, we thought that we would walk around a bit and we were all hungry, so we thought we should eat something. 

The German representative's eyes were wide open when we said we wanted to go to the city, he tried to say that it was too far, but he couldn't resist our insistence and said okay. He was driving the minibus-style vehicle he had arranged specially for us.

Again, after traveling for quite a while, we reached the city late in the evening. 

When everyone said we were hungry, let's go to a restaurant, the German representative was really surprised, but even though he said that there were no restaurants open at this hour, we looked around and found one. It was a place that was about to close. Almost everywhere was closed as he said. The restaurant we found either had one last customer left or it was about to close.

Luckily the waiter boy who greeted us was Turkish, we explained our problem in Turkish, the German representative looked at me with surprised eyes, realizing that he had to give up control to us. The waiter boy said okay, I'll take a look inside, you settle in here, I'll think of something, and I can't describe in words the look of astonishment on the German representative's face for this situation that would not normally happen. Apparently he had never encountered such an event before.

I am still grateful for the service of the waiter who soon arrived with a tray of delicious kebabs and ashbasti. These are things that a German cannot understand in Germany.

This is how our people are, sincere.

There are many other professions that we can call the service sector, those hotel workers in hotels whose faces we don't even see, those who tidy up the rooms, those who work in the laundry, those who wipe and clean. 

Are they only in hotels, restaurants, the workers who carry the products in the fruit and vegetable markets, do they serve us less? 

The cleaning workers who clean our parks and streets?

The workers who collect our garbage? 

The workers who clean municipal buses, airplanes and trains?

When we talk about service, do nurses and caregivers in hospitals serve us less? 

In a store, do the clothes we want to buy hang on hangers by themselves? All ironed, not even a wrinkle. Do the ironers, cleaners, window washers, sales representatives serve us with their smiling faces?

Do the doormen who bring the bread and newspapers to our door in the morning do less service?

Most women now hire helpers for house cleaning.

The ladies who go to clean houses, what about them? Is their service a little labor?

Wherever we turn our heads, we encounter a service sector. 

As I said at the beginning, we all serve each other in some way.

However, most of the workers in these service sectors are either unregistered or, if they are registered, they are insured on the basis of minimum earnings instead of their actual wages. As I said, most of them are actually unregistered workers. 

Hotel and restaurant workers in holiday destinations are already seasonal employees. Most hotels in touristic regions are closed during the winter, and if they are open, they work with minimum staff. The intense work tempo in the summer is unfortunately not possible at other times of the year. 

Yes, the service sector is a sector that I normally criticize. In my opinion, everyone should do their own work. Serving someone normally seems to me to be against our character.

But still, when I think about it, as I said, we all serve all of us in some way. 

I think it is the right of every service sector laborer to live like a human being, to have a certain guarantee. We need to seriously think about this issue and do whatever can be done. 

We say employment, the service sector has a big share in employment. And it has a lot of problems. The service sector is a big sector waiting for a solution.

I wanted to draw attention to this issue today. Greetings to all service sector workers!

Love and respect to everyone from Moscow.