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A dishwasher can make or break a restaurant (2017)

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431–440 of 496 posts

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

#431

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.

If you mess up in construction, you (or others) might get killed. Less likely in a kitchen.

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

#432
post #21

The "heart," but the only mention of pay is $10/hour, and advancement leads to more long nights as a chef in the volatile restaurant industry? Such respect Edit: also, the lip service of the title "porter" - the electric company will surely except that as payment

Honest question, what should they be paid? Its purely manual labor, there is not much if anything to innovate or be creative. The output is fairly binary, clean or not clean. I am all for fair wages but how do we know if $10 is the right price or too low? Interesting how serious questions get so quickly downvoted. I am genuinely curious how you would price a dishwasher when the output is important but the work itself…

> Its purely manual labor, there is not much if anything to innovate or be creative.

So is that cushy-ass PM job with a plethora of fringe benefits. How much do they make?

> We could say raise labor costs but most are already running razor thin margins.

Absolutely true

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

#433

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, busboy clears tables and delivers it to the dishwasher, who cleans the items using a dishwasher.

In practice, at least in the US Midwest where my experience is, there is not always a clear line between the two jobs. I washed dishes as a busboy and bussed dishes as a dishwasher.

It was a bit tongue in cheek. I've bussed, served dishes, pulled coffee, mixed cocktails and washed dishes as a waiter all in the same day.

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

#434
post #297

I have a PhD in Physics from Berkeley. Still, in the strictest real estate sense, my best and highest use is as a dishwasher. I was managing a small optics factory in Livermore. We made laser mirrors to order there — any wavelength, any reflectivity, any angle, any polarization, you name it. I was working my ass off and was unmarried at the time. Thanksgiving came around and I had nowhere to go. But I hooked up with…

> Everyone on the supplicant end noticed this I’ve downright gotten philosophical about it. The way my and other people’s suffering is used as a prop in other people’s stories. The way I see it, if some people get personal satisfaction and a good reputation from being the stars, and their stardom leads to them helping people, I shrug. If you’re in a desperate situation you use the resources you have in front of you,…

At least you caught on eventually. I was completely unaware until now.

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

#435
post #403

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is joining a union in your country mandatory? (or can be made mandatory?). I am not talking about peer pressure but legal requirements. This sounds quite crazy. What if there are 5 unions like we have in France?

> What if there are 5 unions like we have in France? So it's important to remember that European Unions and American Unions are NOT the same thing! Despite having the same name. In the US the union is directly tied to the job, you can't pick your union. In Europe you can chose your union. This "little" difference dramatically changes the unions, and is the reason why a majority of Americans hate unions.

You can't really choose any union, it has to be something that supports your type of work. But you don't have to join the union, and the union have very different functions. What americans call Unions isn't really what we mean when we talk about Unions. This is why american companies tries to fight unions in europe so hard. When they finaly realize the difference they accept the unions of europe. Some just take a bit longer to come to understanding.

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

#436

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why did you not wear gloves? When I did dishwashing at Mc Donald's I wore gloves they worked fine. Maybe my stint was shorter at only a year, but I'm pretty sure McDonalds is using plenty hard chemicals too.

When I worked at Lyon’s Restaurant (a slightly upscale Denny’s, to my mind) as a dishwasher, the heavy-duty rubber gloves they provided were frequently wet enough inside that mold formed rapidly. Only put the awful things on once or twice before giving up on them because they were so unpleasant!

Would disposable gloves (like the kind you can get 100 for $5-10) not withstand the heat or chemicals?

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

#437
post #297

I have a PhD in Physics from Berkeley. Still, in the strictest real estate sense, my best and highest use is as a dishwasher. I was managing a small optics factory in Livermore. We made laser mirrors to order there — any wavelength, any reflectivity, any angle, any polarization, you name it. I was working my ass off and was unmarried at the time. Thanksgiving came around and I had nowhere to go. But I hooked up with…

> Everyone on the supplicant end noticed this I’ve downright gotten philosophical about it. The way my and other people’s suffering is used as a prop in other people’s stories. The way I see it, if some people get personal satisfaction and a good reputation from being the stars, and their stardom leads to them helping people, I shrug. If you’re in a desperate situation you use the resources you have in front of you,…

On the other hand there is almost always a somewhat selfish motivation behind any extensive action. I would rather prefer someone being seen helping the poor rather than being paid to do the same.

Besides, in some regard the helpers might also be in need, even though not in a material sense.

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

#438

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Minimum wages are not "good on their own"; they're a solution to a specific problem: making sure people can survive with at most a relatively reasonable amount of work, though they're currently failing at that goal. If we stop having that problem we stop needing a solution to it. Making it so people don't need to work to survive is strictly better. And if people have a guaranteed level of support, then yes, there is…

> the uninteresting or unpleasant jobs will be having to raise pay to get people to work them They do /eventually/, but because working takes time, working a bad job reduces the time you have available to find a better one, which has the effect of giving everyone less than ideal work situations. That's why it's called search theory.

With UBI, people don't have to worry as much about lining up the certainty of a better job before quitting a worse one, and people aren't likely to take those worse jobs in the first place unless offered substantially higher pay than they'd have settled for if they needed the job. That and other factors seem likely to make search theory around the minimum wage boundary much less of a problem with UBI.

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

#439
post #436

Earlier quoted context omitted.

When I worked at Lyon’s Restaurant (a slightly upscale Denny’s, to my mind) as a dishwasher, the heavy-duty rubber gloves they provided were frequently wet enough inside that mold formed rapidly. Only put the awful things on once or twice before giving up on them because they were so unpleasant!

Would disposable gloves (like the kind you can get 100 for $5-10) not withstand the heat or chemicals?

I expect disposable gloves would have worked, but they weren't provided, and as a naive 17-year old I was way too dumb to ask.

For reference on my stupidity, around the same time I mixed chlorine bleach and hydrogen peroxide to make a stronger cleaning agent and independently discovered that chlorine gas is really nasty stuff! Wow -- only did that once!

It wasn't all bad. Several times I got to fill a 2'x2'x3' bin with strawberries after cutting off the bad bits, and ate several pounds of them each time. For non-Americans, that's around 40 kilos, but as an American I don't know much about the metric system, so that might be a few grams off :)

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

#440
post #436

Earlier quoted context omitted.

When I worked at Lyon’s Restaurant (a slightly upscale Denny’s, to my mind) as a dishwasher, the heavy-duty rubber gloves they provided were frequently wet enough inside that mold formed rapidly. Only put the awful things on once or twice before giving up on them because they were so unpleasant!

Would disposable gloves (like the kind you can get 100 for $5-10) not withstand the heat or chemicals?

Water will just get in at the wrist and then the moisture is trapped in the glove, which could be worse.
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