Dish Pig (a person who washes dishes)

A “dish pig” (or “dishpig”) is someone who washes dishes. Dish pigs, like real pigs, have dirty environments. The term “dishpig” has been cited in print since at least 1989 and appears to be most popular in Australia and Canada.
 
Other names for a person who washes dishes include “bubble dancer” and “pearl diver.”
 
   
Wiktionary: dish pig
Noun
dish pig (plural dish pigs)
1.(slang) A dish washer, ie. a person who does that job (at a restaurant or similar).
       
Urban Dictionary
dish pig
staff in a restaurant or cafe who do all the washing up. they’re generally not allowed to wait on tables and have a perpetually miserable expression on their faces, as well as very, very red faces.
Can you call the waiter over? No, not him, he’s just a dish pig.
by londonmark Sep 5, 2003
   
Google Books
Saturday Night
Volume 104
1989
Pg. 34:
The male euivalent of a chamberslut is a dishpig. Dishwashers work horrendous hours, are yelled at and drenched with filth, ...
Pg. 35:
Dishpigs learn to call themselves dishpigs, as in “I’m a dishpig.”
     
21 May 1994, Austin (TX) American-Statesman, “Good cooking, bad-mouthing served up as G/M’s legacy” by John Kelso, pg. B8:
No. 8 was “Respect the dishpig” and No. 10 was “Love thy tip jar as thyself!”
     
Google Books
Working in Ski Resorts:
Europe & North America (4th edition)
By Victoria Pybus
Oxford: Vacation Work
1997
Pg. 124:
Brett got a job as a kitchen helper (or as he calls it — a dish-pig).
 
Google Books
Sputnik Diner
By Rick Maddocks
Toronto: A.A. Knopf Canada
2001
Pg. ?:
“Now you clean up two plates, dishpig!”
 
Sydney Morning Herald (Australia)
Death surrounds her
May 31, 2007
(...)
Valera left the following year to work as a “dish pig”, washing pots in restaurants.
   
Google Books
Portrait of a Modern Day Loser
By Kristopher Collins
Brentwood, Essex (UK): Chipmunkapublishing
2010
Pg. 7:
I worked as a waiter, a bartender, a porter, a dish pig (kitchen hand), and helped the chefs on kitchen stints.
 
The Back Burner
A Glossary of Restaurant Lingo, Slang & Terms
May 6, 2011 by: Heather Turner
(...)
COMMENTS
Steve says:
December 19, 2011 at 8:11 pm
Dish Pig- the poor, unfortunate soul that washes and sterilizes dishes and cookware.