My s.o. and I have both left the service industry after a decade. He went the blue collar route and I went into an office setting though not quite white collar.
We both got raises that came with our promotions / added responsibilities. But before those came we both had similar meeting invites from management- “A Quick Chat.” Three words that can give anyone a panic attack, and start the process of spiraling into “am I getting fired?” “What did I do?”
You see when you’re in the service industry you never have a meeting unless it’s to be reprimanded in private, or to be terminated without warning. The service industry conditioned us to think that all 1:1 meetings are bad. You never receive praise in the service industry because then you might ask for a raise. You don’t make money owning a restaurant without exploitation by keeping labor costs down. Only when a restaurant is doing well, will employees perform better– but only to compete with each other (for better shifts, sections, reservations, positions.) And even then the employer isn’t paying more, the customer is subsidizing wages by providing gratuity.
To bring this all back together. Our meetings went great! We had positive feedback on performance and higher wages at the end. We both are so thankful for the choices we made to leave the restaurant / service industry / golden handcuffs in our dust.