Hospitality Offers 100,000 Jobs, Mostly To People Who Can Carry Six Pints
A real youth employment scheme has been expanded into a bizarre national trial involving sentient menus, unionised bar stools and one extremely formal gravy boat.
LONDON, The UK hospitality sector has joined with the Department for Work and Pensions to offer up to 100,000 job placements over three years for 18- to 24-year-olds not in work, education or training. By lunchtime, the National Association of Things Found Behind Bars had welcomed the plan. It does not exist, though it has already issued membership cards.
The placements are meant to give young people experience in pubs, restaurants and the rest of hospitality. Several thousand pint glasses then formed a negotiating committee. They want every recruit trained in advanced glassware diplomacy before getting anywhere near a dishwasher.
“We support bringing fresh energy into hospitality,” said Mavis Quill, provisional secretary of the Committee for Objects With Strong Feelings. “But if one more human calls us ‘just glasses’, we will collectively roll off the shelf and block the corridor.”
“If one more human calls us ‘just glasses’, we will block the corridor.”
Paperwork has responded in its usual measured fashion. Application forms began queuing, stamping their own dates and rejecting anyone who seemed “too comfortable with free-form handwriting”. One spreadsheet, apparently keen to get ahead, appointed itself regional manager of a fictional pub called The Spreadsheet Arms.
Things were no calmer in Lower Wombley. At a training session, recruits were shown how to carry three plates, spot a customer waiting for ketchup, and keep a straight face while a menu announced its lifelong ambition to become a lighthouse. The menu applied for a placement shortly afterwards. It was rejected because it had no legs.
The furniture has now entered the dispute. A group of bar stools has called what it says is the first industrial action in furniture history, seeking shorter shifts, better lumbar support and five minutes’ notice before somebody sits down. Their spokesperson, a polished oak stool named Colin, said management could settle the matter today if it stopped calling splinters “part of the journey”.
Officials in an entirely imaginary office say everything is under control. The office has started emailing the walls, which complicates that claim. A man standing nearby said the kettle had been made head of recruitment after correctly identifying a candidate who knew where the spare bin bags were kept.
The placements remain focused on getting young people into work. Elsewhere, the invented union of napkins, trays and emotionally complicated condiment bottles is preparing for its first annual conference. A gravy boat will give the keynote speech, assuming it can stop interrupting itself.