Kaptin M.
Your arrogance astounds me, and it is not just on this thread that it has reared it's ugly head.
The amount of time it would take to train up all of these ("unessential" workers in your eyes) would be enough to see an airline suffer to a huge extent. Possibly even enough for it to go under completely. Unless of course you wanted to park the aircraft, get out and put the gate/stairs on, offload the bags and freight, then load the outgoing. Then you can head up stairs and cater the aircraft, clean it, and if you have time, you can chase up those annoying pax that decide they want to get to the a/c 10 minutes after it is supposed to leave. After they are finally on board you can some how take the gate off, push the aircraft back and make your way on to the flight deck.
And I only mentioned what happened airside.