EXPOSED
This is a catch-all bucket — food runners, dining attendants in institutional settings, commissary and food-line helpers, sample demonstrators — and the modal worker spends the shift on their feet handling trays, stocking lines, portioning, wiping surfaces and answering customer questions. Almost none of that is text or screen work, so language AI barely touches it; the real threat is kiosk ordering, conveyor and robotic drink/fry stations, and simple restructuring that deletes the position rather than automating each task. There is no license, no signature, and little decision authority, so the only moat is a body in a messy, variable physical space.
Mixed — a routine tier and a judgment tier. At 13 the physical core — carrying loaded trays across a crowded dining room, refilling a hot line, portioning trays for patient or student meal service, bussing and sanitizing between covers — still needs a person, but the score stops short of 14+ because the position itself is often deleted rather than automated: self-order kiosks, tray-return conveyors, automated beverage and fry stations and simple staffing cuts absorb the work without any machine replicating your hands.
Hands-on in uncontrolled environments. 15 reflects a full shift standing and walking on wet tile with hot pans, sheet trays, steam tables, dish machines and unpredictable spills and customers — uncontrolled enough that no fixed robot arm can be pointed at it, though it stays below the high teens because the room is indoors, mapped, and climate-controlled rather than a construction site or a roof.
No licence, no signature requirement. A 2 is because the only credential in play is a county food handler card — a few hours of training, renewable, transferable to any worker in a day — and when a foodborne illness complaint lands it is the establishment's permit and the certified food protection manager who answer to the health inspector, never you.
Some relationship component. 6 recognizes that regulars in a hospital cafeteria, school line or corporate commissary do come to know your face and you do smooth over complaints and dietary questions, but the guest is buying the meal and the venue — no one follows a food runner to a different employer.
Executes defined procedures on defined inputs. 4 fits because the calls you make are bounded by written specs: portion sizes on the recipe card, holding temperatures on the HACCP log, allergen questions escalated to the cook or supervisor, and a manager voids the check — real-time judgment about pacing and priority, but nothing where you own an ambiguous outcome.
Has AI actually changed your work?