Sex and working in the service industry
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Why do hospitality workers often get mistaken for being interested in customers?
I was fifteen at the time working at an RSL. And I it was a glossy there. I had this older lady, probably in her fifties, mid fifties. And she grabbed me underneath between my balls and my buttocks.
Oh Trent, I'm so sorry to hear that. That must have been really scary.
Oh, it was so scary and I had glasses all at my right arm and I dropped them 'cause got such a shock.
The hookup Love
and
honey on.
On Triple J. Warning Sex and Adult Themes. We all have that one friend who is constantly falling in love with baristas or bartenders or other people in the hospitality industry who are paid to be nice to them. And that's why working in hospitality, the lines between sex and professionalism get so heavily blurred. On the pod, we are talking about sex and hospitality. Because it's a real catch-22, it can often be a great place to meet people or pick up, but it also opens you to so much sexual harassment. And we found out on the show a lot of that harassment is coming from a very surprising group that you wouldn't expect. Joining us on the podcast is Clinton Power, who is a psychologist. Clinton, thanks for coming back on the show.
Uh great to be back, Hannah.
So why do you think we so easily forget that people in the service industry are paid to be nice to us?
Yeah, this I think it's so easy for boundaries to get blurry in this industry because they are being nice to us, they're being friendly, it's customer uh service related. It's all part of the job, you know, to to give the customer a great experience, whether you're in a bar or cafe. But I think the customers sometimes lose the uh well they forget um that people are doing a job.
So Clinton, what do you think the the ethics are around stuff like this with, you know, picking up someone who is a customer or vice versa?
Well that's uh it's a really tricky area. I think it's unethical. If you're if it's your job that's part of your you know, this is part of what you need to be doing in your job is to provide a service to your customers to then start to move it into the personal realm. Um is really problematic and Um, I think one of the major issues here is alcohol. You know, because in the hospitality inj industry we have l so m is so much alcohol and then drug use sometimes as well in some of these venues.
Yeah, yeah, absolutely. Uh we've heard from you in the text line. I used to work as a waitress at a cafe and asked out a cute boy once. Five years later we're married with a baby girl. Another one of you said, I worked at a bookstore and said yes to a date with a customer, it did not go well. Kind of perfect contrast there. It is such a gamble to either ask someone out who is working somewhere or asking out of customer because if it goes badly You could maybe never go to your favorite cafe again or you could get fired.
Exactly. And and then your customers don't want to come back as well. They they're gonna feel awkward, you're gonna feel awkward. It's it's not a good situation, Hannah.
Yeah and Why do you feel that some people have feel that they have the right to treat people in hospitality as objects or or badly?
I really think it's it comes down to basic respect, you know, and it's disrespectful to treat people as objects. And I think there's this culture of kind of getting away with things. It's certainly you know, I've seen it a lot with men, this culture of let's just push the boundaries, let's see how far we can go. And once you kind of mix in alcohol and drugs, it's that's that's where it gets out of control.
We've heard from you on the text line.
How does the blurred line between service and flirtation lead to sexual harassment?
I'm an eighteen year old girl waitressing at a local pub and not a day goes by without somebody, generally older men, making some comment about my boobs or legs or something. And coming up on the show we are gonna be talking about the rife sexual harassment that happens to mostly women i working in the hospitality industry. So Do you think people know when they're being creepy or do they just not care?
I think peop I think sometimes people do know and it's just it's really just bad behaviour.
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Chapters
8 chapters
1
Why do hospitality workers often get mistaken for being interested in customers?
0:00–3:48
2
How does the blurred line between service and flirtation lead to sexual harassment?
3:48–7:35
3
What ethical concerns arise when customers pursue staff members?
7:35–10:07
4
How can listeners tell if a barista’s attention is genuine or part of the job?
10:07–13:29
5
What are the warning signs that a customer’s behavior is crossing into harassment?
13:29–17:10
6
How should hospitality staff set boundaries and respond to unwanted advances?
17:10–20:42
7
What steps can workers take when management fails to address harassment?
20:42–23:36
8
How can industry leaders create safer workplaces and reduce sexual harassment?
23:36–25:51