> Who are you to say that providing folks with good food and pleasant hospitality they want to keep coming back to and enjoying is somehow a psychologically draining career?
Someone who has experience in those careers, not in Spain/Italy/Japan, but in America. And I've never heard on them being unionized in my particular corner of the country. The only place I've heard of it is in Las Vegas, and yes, the people in those jobs seem to do ok financially and do a good job.
In several of these crap employers I was forced to sit through their anti-union training which I have to was the best proof I ever encountered about how useful a union must be.
It's not just the crap pay, irregular hours and lack of health insurance either. The contempt from customers (I'm sure not you and not all of them) is palpable. Honestly, I'm becoming a bit upset just thinking about it now well over a decade since I last held down a retail counter or slung a burger and fries. I wish all the jobs were as nice as your brother's, but I assure you that the people who work them are unhappy in them for a reason.