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A dishwasher can make or break a restaurant (2017)

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Re: A dishwasher can make or break a restaurant (2017)

#311
post #66

I was a dishy for years in a few different restaurants and hotels. It's hard work but if you do your best to help out the kitchen and wait staff wherever you can (picking up ingredients, helping mise en place, fetching dish carts yourself, stocking bar) then you can really make a difference in the day to day. Sometimes I miss the camaraderie. It's an easy industry to get stuck in though, and there's usually a lot of…

I washed dishes in a downtown tower with four restaurants, all sharing one kitchen. The output of the dishwasher took four people, mostly because delivering the dishes across the huge kitchen distances was time consuming. I had a lot of generalized anxiety, and so I liked complex physical challenges. I eventually replaced all four dishwashers. Took a lot of intense speed and strategic dish delivery. I came very close…

> I came very close to the dishes coming out going back into the loading area again, and that's where I needed the greatest speed.

I had trouble parsing this and got a vision of you meeting yourself coming out of the loading area.

Re: A dishwasher can make or break a restaurant (2017)

#312
post #242
post #202

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think that the give-away that the union wasn't beneficial is that you were forced to join. If there is value add to parties, it would have to be voluntary. For instance, in financial industry, there is a certified financial analyst (CFA) designation that some choose to get. Employers normally pay those with a CFA higher wages and people sign up to get this certification and pay dues, all without anyone being forced…

All effective unions are mandatory. They represent the interests of the mass of workers there, and they wield that collective power against two groups who would be happy to take food out of their mouths if they could get away with it: their employer and new employees who need a job enough that they are willing to work for less money or worse conditions. So if you want to join a company and enjoy the benefits that a u…

>All effective unions are mandatory.

That's a very US centric view. Unions are ample powerful in other countries without requiring mandatory membership. Previous places I've worked in Europe it's not unusual to have multiple unions represented in a company, and even collaborating together on various negotiations. It wasn't unusual for employees to change unions based on what the union was or wasn't doing for them as a member. Monopolies are absolutely awful, and that applies to unions too.

>So if you want to join a company and enjoy the benefits that a union has fought for without contributing to their continued push for better conditions, you are a parasite and their enemy, and they are justified in locking you out of that job via collective action.

That's a really bizarre quirk of US mindset. So what if someone else gets the benefits of a better working conditions? Great for them, that's a fellow human being who's life now doesn't suck quite so much. That should be celebrated.

If better working conditions is the only value the union provides you, your union sucks.

I've joined unions in the past because of the access to all the other stuff that they can provide, like free legal support, representation in disciplinary situations etc, just as much as working conditions.

Re: A dishwasher can make or break a restaurant (2017)

#313

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I washed dishes in a downtown tower with four restaurants, all sharing one kitchen. The output of the dishwasher took four people, mostly because delivering the dishes across the huge kitchen distances was time consuming. I had a lot of generalized anxiety, and so I liked complex physical challenges. I eventually replaced all four dishwashers. Took a lot of intense speed and strategic dish delivery. I came very close…

> I came very close to the dishes coming out going back into the loading area again, and that's where I needed the greatest speed. I had trouble parsing this and got a vision of you meeting yourself coming out of the loading area.

Dunkin Donuts commercial

"Time to make the donuts"

"I already made the donuts"

Re: A dishwasher can make or break a restaurant (2017)

#314
post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I literally did this. At the end of Chaos Communication Camp last year I had no reason to immediately leave, so I went to see if they needed some extra help and ended up drying and stacking dishes for an hour.

I hope you realize this mostly just reveals you have no clue how hard and skill-intensive kitchen work is. Yes, even dishwashing. The average person is not going to be able to drop into a kitchen and wash thousands of dishes a night.

They are, but it's exhausting. I thought the complaint was that it required skills and training, not that it was exhausting?

Re: A dishwasher can make or break a restaurant (2017)

#315

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I got stuck a long time in restaurants from around 18 years old to right at 30. Finally got out and move to the construction industry. I'm just wondering what exactly Aguilar did in construction that's definitely harder than some high volume fast paced kitchens. Only thing I can come up with is most likely roofing, especially during the summer, because everything else I've been through in construction is easier. "I a…

The difference between construction and the kitchen is that if I mess up in the kitchen we're out probably less than $100. If I mess up in construction we're out significantly more in particular if it's a commercial construction job.

That's not a meaningful difference from the employee's perspective. If you mess up in either job then the worst that they can do is fire you (unless you engage in some sort of malicious sabotage that could be proven in court).

Re: A dishwasher can make or break a restaurant (2017)

#316
post #242
post #202

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think that the give-away that the union wasn't beneficial is that you were forced to join. If there is value add to parties, it would have to be voluntary. For instance, in financial industry, there is a certified financial analyst (CFA) designation that some choose to get. Employers normally pay those with a CFA higher wages and people sign up to get this certification and pay dues, all without anyone being forced…

All effective unions are mandatory. They represent the interests of the mass of workers there, and they wield that collective power against two groups who would be happy to take food out of their mouths if they could get away with it: their employer and new employees who need a job enough that they are willing to work for less money or worse conditions. So if you want to join a company and enjoy the benefits that a u…

[deleted]

Re: A dishwasher can make or break a restaurant (2017)

#317
post #305

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It's stepping backwards for short term comfort. Hmmm...can you elaborate? Because I've always thought the "right to work" (ie, not be forced to join a union in a unionized industry) is an example of sacrificing short term comfort. In that case, weakening the union provides a short-term benefit (no paying dues) at the cost of long-term benefit (higher wages, better benefits, improved safety etc.). I'm trying to find…

> of long-term benefit (higher wages, better benefits, improved safety etc.). If the labor market functioned correctly you wouldn't need unions to enforce any of this, which is obvious, because these benefits exist in almost every non-unionized industry as well. The only reason to engage with a union is because the employer is so large they not only monopolize the consumer market but the labor market as well. The cor…

>If the labor market functioned correctly

See my previous comment about theory breaking down in practice. There are all kinds of asymmetries that make economies not function correctly in a theoretical sense and we (as a society) develop policies to mitigate those dysfunctions.

I don't know that the scales operate in ways that allow for every corporate (pseudo)monopoly to be broken up and still have viable industries. Especially in countries that succumb to regulatory capture. That means there would need to be some countervailing balance to that power, and that's where unions come in.

Re: A dishwasher can make or break a restaurant (2017)

#318

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm quite surprised the majority of people are fine with drinking that stuff. Not just because it noticeably changes the taste of beverages but because it's covered in chemicals and people are fine with it mixing together with their beverage. Our rinse aid is disabled on our dishwasher.

It doesn't noticeably change the taste of beverages to me. As to the chemical argument, that doesn't matter to me. I'm willing to trust that people have done the homework and that it's safe to drink.

That is wishful thinking, no one is looking out for the things you think they are.

These products all have surfactants as the main ingredient, and surface tension is what literally define us.

Re: A dishwasher can make or break a restaurant (2017)

#319
post #201

This as good a place as any to mention one of my favorite authors, Dishwasher Pete[0], who wrote a zine about dishwashing and dishwashers[1], and a memoir about his quest to wash dishes in all 50 states[2]. 0: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dishwasher_Pete 1: https://archive.org/details/dishwasher7 2: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/827458.Dishwasher

When I was a teenager and I had just got heavily into martial arts - my Professor was teaching us about perception. (1992) One of the examples he used, was to ask us "Who is the most important people in a restaurant?" > "The dishwasher, and the Janitor" >>" Do you think you'll go to a restaurant again if its bathrooms are filthy and your dishes are dirty?" His point was that you have to look beyond whats in front of…

On a bigger scale, look anywhere garbage collection people have gone on strike.

There are tons of jobs many take for granted and are much more important than we give them credit for.

Re: A dishwasher can make or break a restaurant (2017)

#320
post #242
post #202

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think that the give-away that the union wasn't beneficial is that you were forced to join. If there is value add to parties, it would have to be voluntary. For instance, in financial industry, there is a certified financial analyst (CFA) designation that some choose to get. Employers normally pay those with a CFA higher wages and people sign up to get this certification and pay dues, all without anyone being forced…

All effective unions are mandatory. They represent the interests of the mass of workers there, and they wield that collective power against two groups who would be happy to take food out of their mouths if they could get away with it: their employer and new employees who need a job enough that they are willing to work for less money or worse conditions. So if you want to join a company and enjoy the benefits that a u…

When you're calling workers "parasites", you shouldn't be surprised if people dislike unions. In my experience the unions is just another layer of scammers stealing money from young workers after the employer and the government.
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