When I meet Ed Burgess, the 18-year-old has worked as a waiter for the past nine months and is about to spend the next six travelling in South America. His trip has been funded by the ￡3,500 he earned, a combination of his ￡6 an hour wage plus any tips he received.
I'm keen to get an insider's perspective on what it's like to work as a waiter in a busy London restaurant. During our meeting, Burgess speaks at a breakneck pace but when he arrives at Canteen in Canary Wharf, he says very little, initially. Instead, he just looks around, surveying the room.
“This looks like a really nice place,” he says. “Everyone seems to be in a good mood. I would like to work here. Since I started as a waiter, I've begun to notice things I never saw before: whether people are smiling or the purposefulness of their walk. The whole experience has made me much more observant.”