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mindphlux posted:why you'd want to dwell on how badly you're getting hosed is beyond me Because of the possibility of changing it? Without knowledge of what others in similar positions are paid it's difficult to effect any changes to things like wages. I'm curious what your opinion of unions are, but given that you can't see the point of considering ones own financial situation, I imagine it isn't great.
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Oct 10, 2014 15:42
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Yeah man much love mindphlux but the only person hurt by wage transparency is the owner, who then can't keep people in the dark about being underpaid.
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Oct 10, 2014 21:09
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Knowing what I know about the profitability of small restaurants, I'm just happy that the owner of mine can make payroll every month.
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Oct 10, 2014 21:26
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Kenning posted:Yeah man much love mindphlux but the only person hurt by wage transparency is the owner, who then can't keep people in the dark about being underpaid. I dunno, finding out that one of my co-workers makes 7 times as much as me per hour for performing the same tasks was pretty loving demoralizing. There's valid reasons he's earned a higher pay rate than me, but the actual amount was a real kick in the balls. I don't think it hurt my employer.  I mean, I get what you mean and agree in a general sense, but on the ground it's hard to get into that big picture attitude. Regarding rules and poo poo: I work in Virginia. It's a "Right To Work" state. Finding out even by accident what your co-workers are paid is a fireable offense at my last three employers and my current one.
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Oct 11, 2014 02:40
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Splizwarf posted:I dunno, finding out that one of my co-workers makes 7 times as much as me per hour for performing the same tasks was pretty loving demoralizing. There's valid reasons he's earned a higher pay rate than me, but the actual amount was a real kick in the balls. I don't think it hurt my employer. Uh, well congratulations, your last three employers and your current job are all completely in violation of long-standing federal law that has also been reinforced twice with new legislation signed by Obama in the most recent term, sooooo..... Pretty sure you should have used that info as leverage to negotiate a better wage, my friends. Also: boo hoo people at my last dehumanizing, denigrating job were lovely when they knew other people's wages, boo hoo is not a legit arg against wage transparency. Of course we are all hosed by capitalism, why does that mean you argue for it to be even shittier? That's loving dumb.
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Oct 11, 2014 03:50
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Splizwarf posted:one of my co-workers makes 7 times as much as me per hour for performing the same tasks How in the gently caress does that even happen in any industry anywhere outside of upper management/ceo-style stuff.
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Oct 11, 2014 05:33
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Naelyan posted:How in the gently caress does that even happen in any industry anywhere outside of upper management/ceo-style stuff. Nepotism, favoritism, and people being really, really bad at determining what their labor is actually worth when they've spent their whole working lives not discussing pay.
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Oct 11, 2014 05:54
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This half-dead jockey is slumped up in the saddle again, yes! I will try to last three weeks this time before the dumb questions start coming!
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Oct 11, 2014 06:04
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Liquid Communism posted:Nepotism, favoritism, and people being really, really bad at determining what their labor is actually worth when they've spent their whole working lives not discussing pay. But SEVEN times? If someone's making minimum wage, that means someone else is making $50/hour. How in the poo poo do I convince someone to pay me $50/hour for something that a minimum wage worker is doing? Even if the quote is from a FOH person, then that means a server is being paid $15/hour plus tips? I mean, I know servers that make $15/hour plus tips, but I don't live in a place where server minimum is $2.13.
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Oct 11, 2014 07:04
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Naelyan posted:But SEVEN times? If someone's making minimum wage, that means someone else is making $50/hour. How in the poo poo do I convince someone to pay me $50/hour for something that a minimum wage worker is doing? There are a few possible answers: 1. They're doing much more behind the scene than you realize. 2. They're doing someone much more behind the scene than you realize. 3. They're knowing someone much more behind the scene than you realize. 4. They're blackmailing someone much more behind the scene than you realize. There may be others too!
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Oct 11, 2014 07:27
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Splizwarf posted:I dunno, finding out that one of my co-workers makes 7 times as much as me per hour for performing the same tasks was pretty loving demoralizing. There's valid reasons he's earned a higher pay rate than me, but the actual amount was a real kick in the balls. I don't think it hurt my employer. I don't want to call bullshit on you but saying someone makes seven times the amount that you make for the same job screams hyperbole. Even assuming you make the federal minimum wage, that other person is making 50.75/hr. My mom has been an LPN for 30 years and she doesn't even make that. What style of kitchen do you work in, what do you do there, and what's the other person's position?
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Oct 11, 2014 13:06
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Maybe he's discussing takehome, not just hourly, and so complaining that this other guy gets more hours, too.
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Oct 11, 2014 14:07
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I'm not in foodservice anymore, this is automotive. And yeah, his hourly is a non-hyperbolic $53. He's not doing a lot more behind tbe scenes, I work right next to him all day and am obligated to pick up his slack (which he still gets paid on, not me) when he's overloaded. Keep in mind also that this is flat-rate hours, and he regularly makes 125+ hours per week. Also yeah, nepotism etc and he's wearing the manager like a sock puppet. Mechanic pay is weird. I did say that I agree that he deserves more than me due to experience and certifications, I was trying to make clear that it was just really staggering how much it actually was, when much of it is paid on tasks that I also perform with equal result. Make No Babbys, I don't think you know how Right To Work works? v  v
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Oct 11, 2014 15:08
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Just because the law allows no-cause firing doesn't mean it allows them to have a policy that is in violation of federal law. Also, you mean at-will employment. Right to Work has to do with unions being able to run a closed shop.
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Oct 11, 2014 17:50
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Kenning posted:Just because the law allows no-cause firing doesn't mean it allows them to have a policy that is in violation of federal law. Also, you mean at-will employment. Right to Work has to do with unions being able to run a closed shop. You're right, I forget that they're separate things because Virginia has both. Often "Right To
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Oct 11, 2014 18:19
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Splizwarf posted:I'm not in foodservice anymore, this is automotive. And yeah, his hourly is a non-hyperbolic $53. He's not doing a lot more behind tbe scenes, I work right next to him all day and am obligated to pick up his slack (which he still gets paid on, not me) when he's overloaded. Keep in mind also that this is flat-rate hours, and he regularly makes 125+ hours per week. Also yeah, nepotism etc and he's wearing the manager like a sock puppet. Mechanic pay is weird. 1) If you do the same job that he is being paid $53/hr for, then get a job elsewhere that pays more because you're being taken advantage of. 2) You have absolutely no idea what Right to Work means. Firing someone for discussing their salary with a coworker is outrageously illegal, and having a written policy describing that is basically a slam-dunk lawsuit.
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Oct 11, 2014 18:19
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Splizwarf posted:I'm not in foodservice anymore, this is automotive. And yeah, his hourly is a non-hyperbolic $53. He's not doing a lot more behind tbe scenes, I work right next to him all day and am obligated to pick up his slack (which he still gets paid on, not me) when he's overloaded. Keep in mind also that this is flat-rate hours, and he regularly makes 125+ hours per week. Also yeah, nepotism etc and he's wearing the manager like a sock puppet. Mechanic pay is weird. From the article I posted above: "Under the National Labor Relations Act of 1935 (NLRA), all workers have the right to engage concerted activity for mutual aid or protection and organize a union to negotiate with [their] employer concerning [their] wages, hours, and other terms and conditions of employment. In six states, including my home state of Illinois, the law even more explicitly protects the rights of workers to discuss their pay." " As NYU law professor Cynthia Estlund explained to NPR, the law "means that you and your co-workers get to talk together about things that matter to you at work." Even "a nudge from the boss saying 'we don't do that around here' ... is also unlawful under the National Labor Relations Act," Estlund added." "This is why President Obama recently signed two executive actions addressing workplace transparency and accountability. One prohibits federal contractors from retaliating against employees who discuss their pay with one another. The other requires contractors to provide compensation data on their employees, including race and sex. But while these actions protect workers at federally contracted employers, they do not affect others" "The bill that would cover the rest of workers is the Paycheck Fairness Act. The law would both strengthen penalties to employers who retaliate against workers for discussing pay and require employers to provide a justification for wage differentials."
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Oct 11, 2014 21:23
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In a state where someone can be fired on the spot for any reason, it's absurd to make something like that a written policy. However, it was/is certainly a spoken rule, and I got to see it enforced at my last employer. If there's no reason given, it's probably hard to prove afterwards that pay discussion is the reason? I can't tell if this is reasonable discussion or I'm making GBS threads up the thread like Alobar, please tell me to gently caress off if I am. I really enjoy this thread and I wanted to toss in an (admittedly frustrated) anecdote as opposed to cracking open a  . This week has been a a really big bag of poo poo for me and I'm worried that I'm spilling it everywhere. I'm sorry, thread.
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Oct 11, 2014 22:10
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MAKE NO BABBYS posted:From the article I posted above: Holy poo poo. I can't believe that such a thing needs to be asserted in this day and age - I knew that the US was anti-labour but I didn't realize that it was that actively hostile to people's rights to stand up for themselves and that it was S.O.P for employers to dismiss people for trying to get the basic information necessary even to consider applying the power of the so-gilded "free market" to the value of a human being's time. CommonShore fucked around with this message at 23:27 on Oct 11, 2014 |
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Oct 11, 2014 23:20
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as if any company who was firing you for talking about wages would be stupid enough to put that down as the reason, even if they were stupid enough to tell you so.
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Oct 12, 2014 03:06
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Naelyan posted:Honestly, if there's one thing I've learned in my years in the industry, it's that leverage (in that way) is very, very rare unless you're very high up in management. Everyone is replaceable. There are exceptions, sure (like the FL head porter), but they're very few and far between, and if you're one of them then you're already treated well enough that you wouldn't ever feel the need to put forth an ultimatum. The management corrollary to this is "never ever put yourself in a position where you can't afford to sack someone" - sort of a too big to fail syndrome. I've worked for people who wouldn't fire a guy who stole from the till because they were concerned about getting his shifts covered (and were too lazy to take the shifts themselves). Try and guess how much respect management had from staff after that.
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Oct 13, 2014 00:46
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Dane posted:The management corrollary to this is "never ever put yourself in a position where you can't afford to sack someone" - sort of a too big to fail syndrome. I've worked for people who wouldn't fire a guy who stole from the till because they were concerned about getting his shifts covered (and were too lazy to take the shifts themselves). Try and guess how much respect management had from staff after that. The weekend in which I went from being a regular shitbird teenager to an actual useful cook was one such circumstance, though management had the balls this time around. We had 4 guys on staff in this bar and grill, which built most of its summer business around a) teams coming after ball games on Thursdays for beer and nachos b) Friday happy hour and pre-bar, c) Saturday afternoon patio. Cook #1 had a weekend booked off for a trip. Wednesday night the manager catches cooks #2 and #3 sneaking out the back door with a case of beer and stuff to make nachos. He cans them on the spot, which leaves me. Boss asked if I was up for it, said he'd pay me a bonus in addition to OT (he did, because he wasn't a shitlord), and the two of us worked every hour from open til close Thursday til Saturday. One of my friends got hired on and started that Sunday. I think I made more $ in those 3 days than I made on most two-week paycheques at that job. Going through that gave me perspective on how restaurants work as a systems, which I had previously lacked. It's easy to blow off a bit of prep or cleaning when you know someone else is coming in for a 6pm-2am shift, but when it's just you who has to do it anyway, the game changes entirely and it all comes into focus. gently caress that guy was a good boss. I'm getting all nostalgic here. Someone tell me a horror story to remind me of why I should stay out of the service industry.
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Oct 13, 2014 00:58
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I have a "" "chef""" manager who was amazed you can cut bread and make croutons from it. She's also poo poo at prep and production, unsurprisingly. Howzat?
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Oct 13, 2014 01:13
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ugh. Ok. Thanks. That'll do. I had a guy who insisted that we use a retarded procedure of his to prep avocados that involved a spoon and left half of the flesh stuck to the peel. He was a poo poo-throwing rear end in a top hat, too. Brings back the more efficient kind of memories. Ok. That'll do.
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Oct 13, 2014 01:19
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Man I love doing caterings. Had a wedding reception for 150 people today and I thoroughly enjoyed my boss being constantly nervous as hell despite us being on schedule and everyone being very happy with the food. I don't know what it is about larger events but he always seems to loathe them. I think they're fantastic because you have a list of exactly what needs to be done and when and all you have to do is make it hot, good and on time.
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Oct 13, 2014 08:40
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Dude was probably nervous cuz he had to interact with the wedding planner. Those people are loving insane. I've only catered a few weddings, but each time the boss man was constantly getting screamed at (no exaggeration) by the wedding planner, even though everything was going smoothly and everyone loved the food.
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Oct 13, 2014 21:27
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Any ideas what specific spices gives the Taco Bell ground beef the pzazz? I have the cumin and paprika and everything else but I think I'm missing something key. Allspice or cloves maybe?
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Oct 13, 2014 21:52
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onion and garlic powder, chili powder, beef base/stock + corn starch to make it stick together.
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Oct 13, 2014 21:58
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Jewigi posted:Any ideas what specific spices gives the Taco Bell ground beef the pzazz? I have the cumin and paprika and everything else but I think I'm missing something key. Allspice or cloves maybe? the tears of dying calves
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Oct 14, 2014 01:22
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Jewigi posted:Any ideas what specific spices gives the Taco Bell ground beef the pzazz? I have the cumin and paprika and everything else but I think I'm missing something key. Allspice or cloves maybe? http://www.takepart.com/video/2014/05/02/and-now-you-know-whats-taco-bells-seasoned-ground-beef Citric and lactic acids, two different kinds of sugar, oats (for moisture, they say).
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Oct 14, 2014 01:45
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Jewigi posted:Any ideas what specific spices gives the Taco Bell ground beef the pzazz? I have the cumin and paprika and everything else but I think I'm missing something key. Allspice or cloves maybe? Probably needs more salt
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Oct 14, 2014 05:16
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Wroughtirony posted:The long-term usefulness of a culinary degree mostly pertains to non-cooking jobs. It's a nice feather in your cap if you want to work as a rep, work FOH someplace fancy, work for a winery or manage FOH or be GM of a smaller place. It can offset the blow (slightly) of not having a Bachelors in a food-related job. idk the community college im going to is only like a little above 1k per semester of full time, acf exemplary certified and you gotta aprentice under a chef, but blah i'm probably gonna not do the apprentice poo poo anymore though. food + bev mgmt is like the same amount of work and more businesslike. Probably more marketable like that wine dude was saying. flesy fucked around with this message at 07:09 on Oct 14, 2014 |
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Oct 14, 2014 06:55
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The owner of the diner I work at has apparently decided that relying on four of his cooks to work 50+ hour weeks every week and never take time off when the students are in town is preferable to hiring another cook so I'm going to have to give him the old "you can either hire someone now or in a month when I quit" talk.
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Oct 14, 2014 23:58
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Crazy Larry posted:The owner of the diner I work at has apparently decided that relying on four of his cooks to work 50+ hour weeks every week and never take time off when the students are in town is preferable to hiring another cook so I'm going to have to give him the old "you can either hire someone now or in a month when I quit" talk. The chefs at my place make me so happy I've never been crazy enough to get on the line and stayed FoH. Two guys working doubles every day, 5 days a week, plus coming in for private events, and on on of the days off to do ordering and prep, also there's no backup other than the owner which both of them would rather come in deathly ill than let him on the line (which has certainly has never led to 60% of the staff getting the flu so badly that we almost had to close down during the holiday party season). We used to have 3 people, but the owner realized he could just work these two poor bastards to death and not pay them any extra. Now the girl who worked the cold station left, and he's expecting them to pick up all kinds of her prep in addition instead of having the new guy he hired do it because he doesn't want to pay the hours. Of course they're salary. Poor bastards. I'm amazed they haven't killed him and hidden the body in the walk-in.
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Oct 15, 2014 04:58
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WanderingMinstrel I posted:The chefs at my place make me so happy I've never been crazy enough to get on the line and stayed FoH. Two guys working doubles every day, 5 days a week, plus coming in for private events, and on on of the days off to do ordering and prep, also there's no backup other than the owner which both of them would rather come in deathly ill than let him on the line (which has certainly has never led to 60% of the staff getting the flu so badly that we almost had to close down during the holiday party season). We used to have 3 people, but the owner realized he could just work these two poor bastards to death and not pay them any extra. Now the girl who worked the cold station left, and he's expecting them to pick up all kinds of her prep in addition instead of having the new guy he hired do it because he doesn't want to pay the hours. Of course they're salary. Poor bastards. I'm amazed they haven't killed him and hidden the body in the walk-in. The lovely thing is that I probably make more slinging pseudo-fancy burgers at a bar than they do. I know for a fact that I'm taking away $7/hr more now than when I was a salaried sous chef selling $30 steaks and pulling 50-60 hour work weeks. This loving system is broken. It takes the hardest-working motherfuckers I've ever known and beats them the hell up, obliges them to become alcoholics, pays them slave wages, and explains it away with a casual "ah poo poo well that's just part of the business dude" and "well check out this one really driven motherfucker, he does this poo poo for 14 hours straight, seven days a week and now he's staging as the third-in-command dishwasher at Noma!! Dude's going places! And he does pop-ups on his days off!!" And yet, here I am, still doing it and with no plans on stopping. poo poo, I'm gonna start taking classes at OCI in the spring, and I'm excited as hell. tl;dr: I'm a masochist.
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Oct 15, 2014 13:14
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I've just realized that the chaos of a shithole on Kitchen Nightmares, despite being dramatized, is pretty much what my part-time is going to look like once the holidays hit. Cooks walking off the line for up to ten minutes and having zero fucks to give, cooks who can't cook, cooks blaming outside expo because the lead station didn't send tickets down to them, cooks being assholes. Last Friday I watched an average weekend crowd put that kitchen under worse than any Mother's Day or holiday season rush I've seen anywhere else, and that's anything from fast-casual to seafood chains where you pay $30 for three bites of fish to mom and pop places. Service is important but when you have 40-minute leads and you're comping multiple entrees on every other table you have a serious loving problem. According to some of the longer-serving staff, this is the worst this store has been in seven years. Apparently they used to have a very rude but skilled staff who basically all walked out because the job sucks. Which to be fair, it does. My main job, for all it's negatives, is much easier than a wok line and I get paid three dollars an hour more, closer to five or more if I count the free food we're allotted. That said, karma is biting my rear end off for every attitude I ever gave a FoH staff as a cook ever. If these cooks put half the effort into actually cooking that they do into being dicks about trivial things we would have an entire line of Anthony Bourdains. But hey the holidays are coming and my savings is going to be very happy based on volume alone, so whatever.
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Oct 16, 2014 00:31
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So fun time today. I got an order of dried hibiscus flowers in and made some simple syrup. I wanted to use the flowers after making the tea for the syrup so I chopped them up and added them to some onion and cumin, seared some tilapia and made tacos with that and some fresh jalapeņo and lime juice. I had enough for 6 orders and they went out in 15 minutes to a half crowded bar with people asking if it was going to go on the menu. It might with how popular they were. Anyone else have any ideas for hibiscus flowers? The simple syrup I put with tequila, Cointreau and soda water with a squeeze of lime, that's one refreshing cocktail.
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Oct 16, 2014 01:07
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Hibiscus, ginger, and the tiniest pinch of cayenne.
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Oct 17, 2014 03:13
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Already typed out "seltzer and lime" looked back up to finish reading your post and, yes, you'd already figured that one out. That's basically The Drink unless you like spicy drinks *spits* in which case, as also mentioned ginger and cayenne's the way to go. One place I worked at had the door open in the kitchen to the backdoor of the building for "airflow" (because the hoods didn't work because why would you observe basic safety when you can bribe any regulators with coke? Don't Mess With Texas, Y'all) and so the flies and bees would come in for a sniff of our fine selection of daily ceviches and a very interesting thing would happen: They'd start making slow, lazy circles away from the food and descend to the floor or a prep surface, land, and after about ten minutes or so flop over belly-up. Turns out wasps and flies and such die at 117 degrees fahrenheit. The inside of that kitchen was north of 120 in summer. Hibiscus tea in lime and seltzer are the only things I credit to making it out of that shithole alive. While its probably better for your workflow to do simple syrup what with your bar outlet, we found through testing and received Mexican Folk Wisdom (read: one of the old cooks long since moved on) that the death-avoiding effects were enhanced by just making a really thorough extraction of the petals in a Stupid Strong TeaTM, and then sweetening to taste after erring on the side of less. It won't slot into a cocktail like a simple syrup, but it's a goddamned health food in its own right if you live in any part of the world where heat stroke is a concern, ever. Hibiscus vinaigrette is legit on salads (esp. julinenne salads imo), and hibiscus sorbet is worth doing murders for in summer but we're just sliding out of the weather for that as a slam dunk menu option. If you're braising a protein in red wine throw hibiscus into the sachet as well and then waft the smells into the dining room with a comically oversized fan for good cooking, free advertising of your special, and bonus showmanship which you cannot overlook as an entrepreneur. Hibiscus is a bitter rear end in a top hat alone that's mostly aroma and lifesaving alkaloids, but as long as you have a strategy to work around its preposterous bitterness whether its a shitload of sugar or acid or effervescence its a slam dunk aromatic that'll also regionalize the gently caress out of your business in a really classy-but-not-snotty way.
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Oct 17, 2014 09:11
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Anybody work on the supply side of this madness? I've got a very real chance at getting in as a sales rep for a big seafood distributor and would like to discuss the finer points of fish monging.
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Oct 17, 2014 22:06
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