MiniBossBattle
Member
Waitresses often make more than the line cooks. Like multiple times more.
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There's a shortage of cooks?
- Thread starter King Mystery
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capitalCORN
Member
But we got robots to fill in right? ;-)
They're coming for yer jerbs: Miso Robotics releases burger flipping robot
They better miniaturize the shit out of it to make it work for most places, cuz I can't imagine anything but the most extravagant restaurants having enough kitchen space to replace all the jobs.
And for fellow kitchen staff, don't you get gratuity sharing? My last two places did.
That is happening as well.
Lots more food trucks popping up on the West Coast where they can be viable year round.
Lower overhead to get started, but still a large amount of risk.
Restaurants in SF have gotten into regulatory tiffs w/food truck owners and the City because food truck = no rent.
Some restaurants can get quite salty when a food truck parks outside during lunch hours.
Yeah, it's an absolutely crummy job. You go to school for it, but then you make garbage pay. You work in a hot, dangerous environment on your feet all day. Chefs are assholes and owners/managers generally turn a blind eye to them treating their staff like shit. It can take years to move up, and restaurants won't hesitate to throw you out on your ass if you're not performing how they want.
To do the job, you have to either absolutely love cooking or you have to be desperate for money.
To do the job, you have to either absolutely love cooking or you have to be desperate for money.
AtomskEater
Member
Worked front line/register at a restaurant and as badly as the head chef acted to employees, people in the kitchen got it much worse. Not surprised if the "screaming, cursing chef" often shown on tv is rooted in reality, and that it turns people off of the profession when they have better options.
Same. xD
Aztechnology
Member
Line Cooks get shafted, they don't nomrally make/share tips and often make near min wage for really hard work. Of course cooks are in short supply. Nobody wants to be one.
Antiwhippy
the holder of the trombone
I love cooking but I would never want to be a chef. Such fucking grueling work for little to no reward.
Yup, increase the pay to $15-20 and see how much easier it is to recruit.
shira
Member
But we got robots to fill in right? ;-)
They're coming for yer jerbs: Miso Robotics releases burger flipping robot
Robot fine precision is increasing exponentially.
RIP kitchen jobs
Antiwhippy
the holder of the trombone
This gif is making me istressed for some reason.
Yeah, sticky wages always seems to be the underlying cause.
ClayKavalier
Banned
Places like Eatsa are the future. Cut all the front-end stuff and make meals so simple a robot could prepare them.
Yeah, it always blows my mind how the kitchen staff at a high-end restaurant is oftentimes not really paid any better than the people in the kitchen at friggin' TGIFridays.
Except the food at Eatsa is made by people in the back.
Unknown Soldier
Member
The act of actually preparing food is neither fun nor glamorous. And it pays like shit.
Zelenogorsk
Banned
As someone who has worked in food service for the last eight years I can easily say it's fucking awful.
funkystudent
Member
Indeed.
A lot of cooks I know got burnt out after a few years. You work crap hours at the most unsociable times in a fast moving, stressful workplace for not that great pay.
If you can get through it, have the passion and skills eventually the pay works out decent though from what I see.
Something unsure is happening in our culture.
I work in retail, and lately our large shipments have been arriving late to the store.
The reason? Not enough truck drivers.
This is surprising, because these jobs pay well (minimum here in Canada is $11.40/hr).
Over the past year, I've seen this trucking company hire 4 millennial aged workers, and I've seen the same 4 millennial workers leave.
There may be too many factors in play that are preventing millennials to bother getting jobs.
As mentioned for the line cook job, definitely a demanding job compared to the pay received. But for truck driver, while demanding, is definitely properly compensated.
I've also seen other traditional jobs, like bakers, managers, and sanitation being difficult to keep hires. Heck, a new Lowe's opened in our city, and they are having trouble finding reliable people, even though the job pays higher than minimum with benefits.
I believe the problem is independent of what the wage is, and have developed some theories to it.
-A survey shows that 20% of millennials live with their parents,
so the pressure of earning a living may be no where near as strong for a good portion of them.
-A survey shows that only 40% of millennials are married (please note, I do not know if the study excluded newer types of bonds, like common law).
If not married, they have no immediate family future to plan for, and do not feel stressed saving for houses, babies, and college tuition for their kids that do not exist
Because living is not great but comfortable, and there are few future stresses (preparing for baby), too few millennials aren't bothering to work blue collar jobs. If you were living with your parents at age 25, and your biggest monetary stress is paying for data and the occasional loot crate, why would you even consider committing to an environment as demanding as a line cook?
Perhaps these millennials who are late to join the work force are still waiting for an extravagant job to come by. They will not be happy making $18 or maybe even $25 an hour (in CAD).
In the case of Toronto, there is some truth to waiting for a big job. Housing prices are skyrocketing. A sunshine $100,000 salary may not even be enough to get something where you can start a family in. So, for lots of millennials, you might as well stay home.
To end, there really is sadness to reflect on. Less than 40 years ago, many migrants could come to Canada and get a job right away working at a plant, a factory, or a mill, and get paid more than enough to support a family and buy a house. Now, all most of us can manage is maintaining comfy living.
I work in retail, and lately our large shipments have been arriving late to the store.
The reason? Not enough truck drivers.
This is surprising, because these jobs pay well (minimum here in Canada is $11.40/hr).
Over the past year, I've seen this trucking company hire 4 millennial aged workers, and I've seen the same 4 millennial workers leave.
There may be too many factors in play that are preventing millennials to bother getting jobs.
As mentioned for the line cook job, definitely a demanding job compared to the pay received. But for truck driver, while demanding, is definitely properly compensated.
I've also seen other traditional jobs, like bakers, managers, and sanitation being difficult to keep hires. Heck, a new Lowe's opened in our city, and they are having trouble finding reliable people, even though the job pays higher than minimum with benefits.
I believe the problem is independent of what the wage is, and have developed some theories to it.
-A survey shows that 20% of millennials live with their parents,
so the pressure of earning a living may be no where near as strong for a good portion of them.
-A survey shows that only 40% of millennials are married (please note, I do not know if the study excluded newer types of bonds, like common law).
If not married, they have no immediate family future to plan for, and do not feel stressed saving for houses, babies, and college tuition for their kids that do not exist
Because living is not great but comfortable, and there are few future stresses (preparing for baby), too few millennials aren't bothering to work blue collar jobs. If you were living with your parents at age 25, and your biggest monetary stress is paying for data and the occasional loot crate, why would you even consider committing to an environment as demanding as a line cook?
Perhaps these millennials who are late to join the work force are still waiting for an extravagant job to come by. They will not be happy making $18 or maybe even $25 an hour (in CAD).
In the case of Toronto, there is some truth to waiting for a big job. Housing prices are skyrocketing. A sunshine $100,000 salary may not even be enough to get something where you can start a family in. So, for lots of millennials, you might as well stay home.
To end, there really is sadness to reflect on. Less than 40 years ago, many migrants could come to Canada and get a job right away working at a plant, a factory, or a mill, and get paid more than enough to support a family and buy a house. Now, all most of us can manage is maintaining comfy living.
hockeypuck
Member
That grape gif is from 2014. Using a surgical robot system. Operated by a human surgeon. Moving at a fraction of the speed of what a human vascular surgeon can suture. Zero AI in that gif.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0XdC1HUp-rU
Is that robot stitching an onion?
I do think there's an issue that workers have higher standards about the kinds of jobs they're willing to take than in the past, but the market forces nominally correct for that by hiking wages, it's just that businesses don't want to (not to get into a big debate about the fact that some of them flat-out can't hike wages without shutting down, while others just don't want to eat into profit margins or hike prices, but will lie and say they're part of the first group).
That's why immigration is important to these businesses, as it solves the problem without them having to face that dilemma anyway.
This is my experience from the outside of the kitchen looking in while working a couple different jobs
One place I had kept straight stealing recipe ideas from the "head" chef (he was more or less in charge of the kitchen, but didn't get any financial compensation or respect for it) by asking him for ideas and saying that they were good, and that they'd name one after him. Instead the lazy ass owner names the dish after himself and pretends like it didn't happen
Dude doesn't cook anymore, but almost went to culinary school since he still had his military college to use. Kitchens just don't seem to have longevity
lilraylewis
Member
The restaurant industry amazes me. Apparently they work line cooks so hard and pay them so little that no one wants to do the job. They get to pay their wait-staff almost nothing because of the tip system. Yet as an industry they're constantly on the verge of collapse. How? Even more confusing to me is that everyone I know is an aspiring gourmand foodie nitwit whose driving purpose in life is to flock to the overpriced restaurant-of-the-week and take pictures of the food there for instagram. It just doesn't add up.
water_wendi
Water is not wet!
im wondering how bad the restaurant bubble is going to be.
Rentahamster
Rodent Whores
I too suffer from short cook.
If your only criteria for a job is that it pays 20-40% higher than minimum wage, then why would you ever do anything difficult or stressful? Baristas, pizza delivery drivers, servers, and Uber drivers all make better-than-minimum salaries without the dangerous and toxic work environment that kitchens have. Only people with a passion for cooking will ever want to be a cook.....in some sense that's good for restaurants in that they will get employees who are passionate and enthusiastic about their work. The bad part is that those passionate, enthusiastic employees will be increasingly hard to find.
acheron_xl
Member
I worked very hard to go from dishwasher to line cook in few years with an eye on training up to be a sous chef or something. Then I came to my senses and became a janitor. It's much less stressful.
CrocMother
Banned
Restaurant industry is a fucking toxic work environment, tons of drugs and assholes. Some good people as well no doubt, but it's no surprise that for the pay that's offered people are turning it down.
Many restaurants startup and fail, but I don't think the entire industry is always "on the verge of collapse". At least not any more that other retail/service establishments.
I think the problem is just that the marketplace is overcrowded with owners who have some wistful, romantic idea of opening a restaurant, but didn't ever realize that it's actually really hard work with really tight margins. Naturally this overcrowding means a labor shortage, and it means that every individual restaurant is in a pretty precarious position.
Let's be real, no one's going to culinary school to work at a greasy spoon.
psynergylover
Member
I work at a country club restaurant and it's fun, and our executive chef is mad chill, starting pay is $16/hr for us, get healthcare, 401k's and even life insurance!!!($15,000)
It's pretty damn good!!! And we just hired another cook today.
It's pretty damn good!!! And we just hired another cook today.
Zelenogorsk
Banned
For me personally I have no desire to have a wife or kids and that has enabled me to take a lower paying job I like more as opposed to having to make (and save) as much money as possible to start a family.
I honestly feel like country clubs and yacht clubs are maybe the best places to work. They're expensive and people run up huge checks, but those customers are older and don't really have the same expectations as someone who frequents a high-end restaurant. Since people feel the need to justify their membership dues, they will keep visiting even if they have mediocre food or mediocre service experiences.
I was at a private club last year and ordered an Aviation. It's a relatively simple classic cocktail that is well known. It consists of gin, Luxardo maraschino liqueur, lemon juice and creme de violette. When properly made, it should be a cool grey/purple color. The drink I got was a bright red cherry abomination -- I presume that the bartender looked up the recipe and thought that "maraschino liqueur" meant that I wanted grenadine or cherry flavor. I didn't really care that much, but it dawned on me that bartenders and experts at craft cocktail bars are probably making way less money despite all their knowledge and expertise. The bartenders at the private club were making more just because they're pouring $50 scotches all day long and pumping out lazy muddled Old-Fashioneds with expensive whiskeys as their base spirit.
Working at country clubs and yacht clubs just works out better because you have customers that will spend crazy money without really expecting knowledge or expertise.
Yankee Ruin X
Member
I was the Head Chef of a restaurant for 10 years and 18 months ago decided to get out of the industry completely as it's terrible. I was working 60ish hours a week, 6 days a week for a shitty salary, no thanks or gratitude for your hard work, no time for any kind of life at all it's absolutely dreadful.
Got myself a cushy office job at a well known company working Monday-Friday, started at the bottom and within 18 months I have advanced through the company and more than doubled my head chef salary, work super easy hours that leaves me with loads of free time and holidays. My quality of life is so much better for leaving the industry that's for sure.
Got myself a cushy office job at a well known company working Monday-Friday, started at the bottom and within 18 months I have advanced through the company and more than doubled my head chef salary, work super easy hours that leaves me with loads of free time and holidays. My quality of life is so much better for leaving the industry that's for sure.
Cpt.Underpants
Member
No surprise
Even worse if its a split shift. Start 11:00 and finish at 2:00 then start again at 4:30 and sometimes finish at 10:30 in the evening or 11:30. Hotels and restaurants tend to think you have to know everything when you start working
*shrug*
Even worse if its a split shift. Start 11:00 and finish at 2:00 then start again at 4:30 and sometimes finish at 10:30 in the evening or 11:30. Hotels and restaurants tend to think you have to know everything when you start working
*shrug*
Dictator93
Member
Yeah seriously many of my mates have been burned out by Cooking and hospitality jobs.
Boss Doggie
all my loli wolf companions are so moe
SapientWolf
Trucker Sexologist
At some point the chefs are going to be able to cheaply deliver the food directly to the customers (drones?). And then the restaurants are fucked.
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