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Pastry Chefs Are in Demand, Why Aren’t Wages Rising?

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Re: Pastry Chefs Are in Demand, Why Aren’t Wages Rising?

#231

Post by Chris2048 »

internaut wrote: post #16

There are a number of reasons why wages might not rise that have nothing to do with free market supply and demand. The most obvious is you could control wages by being the owner of inelastic goods your workers require to live, such as housing. I think this is how the feudal system worked originally, workers produced cereals but the Land and the worker's cottages were both owned by the Landlord. If the price of bread…

> workers are typically indebted by student loans or mortgages, that the wages are so low. Look at any London software engineer thread if you'd like to be depressed, 300-400 a day and sometimes much less, for people with 10+ years of experience.

Student loans are paid back based on salary. 400-300 a day is low for a senior software contractor in London, or even a FTE (hard to judge difference given benefits).

6-8k a month is a good wage on London.

Re: Pastry Chefs Are in Demand, Why Aren’t Wages Rising?

#232

Post by rietta »

rietta wrote: post #172
emodendroket wrote: post #112

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's nothing inherent in software that makes it so that can't be the case for software products either. I anticipate the response here is that some products are more complex than others -- true enough, but how many people buy a wedding cake at the grocery store?

My wife and I did in fact buy our wedding cake from the Publix Bakery near the church. We were extremely satisfied with the quality and the much more affordable price. Enough cake for a couple hundred guests for about $400.

To expand my point, we had a really tight wedding budget but still wanted to have friends and family. We had our reception in the Church's Fellowship Hall, not some fancy venue that cost 10x more. My wife and I had to make some hard decisions (harder for her than me, I could have gone much cheaper), but in the end we stuck with the plan. Are more expensive designer cakes worth the money, absolutely! And the pastry chefs who make them are worth their wages. We met with one of the local bakeries that won on Buddy the Cake Boss. But! We didn't have the money. No amount of wishing could make us have the money at the time. We loved our wedding cake from grocery store bakery. It was yummy with good icing and our guests said nice things. Maybe its just because you always say nice things at weddings.

In software, startups can be the same way. Do they need the super scalable, secure, best in breed software? Sure! That'd be great. But sometimes you just have to get out the door now and do improvements later.

My wife and I are just as married as we would be if we had an expensive cake. There are startups in business because they started with what they could afford and then got traction.

Re: Pastry Chefs Are in Demand, Why Aren’t Wages Rising?

#233

Post by [deleted] »

zanny wrote: post #28
riskable wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not only that but a cheap, inexperienced dev can create negative value. Not just in the product that they're working on but your entire brand. Just ask LinkedIn or Yahoo if it was a good idea to put some ignorant fool in charge of the system that stored passwords. Aside: I'm sure that person is worth more now because they won't make such mistakes (again)! Rant: Looking towards the future I want to know which ignorant…

Cheap, inexperienced pastry chefs can also ruin a restaurants reputation if they screw up too badly. You get the quality you pay for.

[deleted]

Re: Pastry Chefs Are in Demand, Why Aren’t Wages Rising?

#234

Post by SixSigma »

harryh wrote: post #26
woopwoop wrote: post #20

Part of the reason could be the tipping system. It is impossible to raise the price of the food in your restaurant without giving a raise to your waitstaff, since almost everyone tips a fixed percentage. So if you want to give a raise to your chef, you want to fund it with a price increase, but you can't do that without giving a raise to your waiters.

There is definitely some evidence for this hypothesis. If you read about the restaurant industry you'll see a lot of comments from restauranteurs that seem to indicate that they think the salary ratios between FOH and BOH staff are off. We've had a couple of restaurants in NYC go tip free, instead building the cost of service into the base cost of menu items. Unfortunately it appears that this can be a challenge beca…

You can thank "the other NRA" for many of the problems in food wages.

http://rocunited.org/the-other-nra-unmasking-the-agenda-of-t...

They have lobbied hard to keep FOH staff wages down (up to 3x less than ROH) supplemented by tipping.

The driving force for this is that your wage bill is not as strongly correlated with demand - no customers means no tips so your FOH staff pay the price for your poor management.

Re: Pastry Chefs Are in Demand, Why Aren’t Wages Rising?

#235

Post by mc32 »

ansgri wrote: post #169
Moru wrote: post #147

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Would be much easier to try out recipes on the net if people would use scales for flour and sugar instead of a cup...

After reading enough American news I can only joke that they are afraid that the ownership of marginally precise scales would automatically summon a police drug raid against them.

They are not uncommon, I have an electronic metric/imperial scale (they are sold in most home appliances shops). I prefer just scooping quantities out over weighing.

In any case lots of times, after you get to know the recipe, you just eyeball the proportions. No need to be super precise in most instances. We're not making alloys.

Re: Pastry Chefs Are in Demand, Why Aren’t Wages Rising?

#236

Post by harryh »

SixSigma wrote: post #234
harryh wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There is definitely some evidence for this hypothesis. If you read about the restaurant industry you'll see a lot of comments from restauranteurs that seem to indicate that they think the salary ratios between FOH and BOH staff are off. We've had a couple of restaurants in NYC go tip free, instead building the cost of service into the base cost of menu items. Unfortunately it appears that this can be a challenge beca…

You can thank "the other NRA" for many of the problems in food wages. http://rocunited.org/the-other-nra-unmasking-the-agenda-of-t... They have lobbied hard to keep FOH staff wages down (up to 3x less than ROH) supplemented by tipping. The driving force for this is that your wage bill is not as strongly correlated with demand - no customers means no tips so your FOH staff pay the price for your poor management.

When I said "they think the salary ratios between FOH and BOH staff are off" I was indicating that they think that FOH is overpaid relative to BOH. That is not inconsistent with lobbying to keep FOH pre-tip wages down.

I don't think this is an industry conspiracy so much as a particularly challenging market. The consumer is a vicious seeker of value. This depresses wages and also makes it so that restaurants aren't particularly profitable enterprises(1).

1. http://www.newyorker.com/business/currency/the-thrill-of-los...

Re: Pastry Chefs Are in Demand, Why Aren’t Wages Rising?

#237

Post by wfo »

Chris2048 wrote: post #197
wfo wrote: post #109

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Let's be honest. Writing code is not really hard. You can spend 30 minutes watching youtube videos and learn how to write basic code. It won't be glorious but it will work. The arrogance is bleeding out of the text itself, I'm not even sure how that's possible but it's happening.

How many companies need "basic code"? Many need much more than that. Your phrasing makes it seem like advancing beyond that point is just as easy, but it's not. What happens when you need to debug, and you don't understand anything because you copy-pasted from a tutorial? How long would an employer be willing to wait while you google for the right tutorial telling you how to fix the problem?

I think you're missing the point of my post -- I don't think writing code is easy.

Re: Pastry Chefs Are in Demand, Why Aren’t Wages Rising?

#238

Post by wfo »

Chris2048 wrote: post #197
wfo wrote: post #109

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Let's be honest. Writing code is not really hard. You can spend 30 minutes watching youtube videos and learn how to write basic code. It won't be glorious but it will work. The arrogance is bleeding out of the text itself, I'm not even sure how that's possible but it's happening.

How many companies need "basic code"? Many need much more than that. Your phrasing makes it seem like advancing beyond that point is just as easy, but it's not. What happens when you need to debug, and you don't understand anything because you copy-pasted from a tutorial? How long would an employer be willing to wait while you google for the right tutorial telling you how to fix the problem?

I think you're missing the point of my post -- I don't think writing code is easy.

Re: Pastry Chefs Are in Demand, Why Aren’t Wages Rising?

#239

Post by kafkaesq »

riskable wrote: post #19
hughes wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Does a more expensive pastry chef produce more expensive pastry? Or can a more experienced chef produce higher volume also? If the cost of the pastry increases with the cost of the chef, then it's entirely reasonable that there is a lower demand for more expensive pastry and therefore a lower demand for more expensive pastry chefs. With software development it's a little different - it's entirely possible for a more…

Not only that but a cheap, inexperienced dev can create negative value. Not just in the product that they're working on but your entire brand. Just ask LinkedIn or Yahoo if it was a good idea to put some ignorant fool in charge of the system that stored passwords. Aside: I'm sure that person is worth more now because they won't make such mistakes (again)! Rant: Looking towards the future I want to know which ignorant…

Just ask LinkedIn or Yahoo if it was a good idea to put some ignorant fool in charge of the system that stored passwords.

Ultimately, the "ignorant fools" responsible for such mishaps are almost always at the management level.

Re: Pastry Chefs Are in Demand, Why Aren’t Wages Rising?

#240

Post by tracker1 »

tluyben2 wrote: post #121
blawson wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think by that logic no one values high quality food? A croissant in Paris is probably about 2 euros as well. If we both agree the French tend to do croissants better, and care about it more, so how come theirs don't cost significantly more?

The price comparison is a bit weird there; there are some of the best croissants and baguettes by very small cheap shops in France while you pay a lot more for a nasty piece of 'doughy thing' in Starbucks for something that has the same name. That is incidentally another comparison where this falls flat; when my American friends visit, they insist on Starbucks every day. Not only is the coffee and the food better nex…

Can't speak for anyone else, but for years now, I tend to seek out more local mom-pop shops over the chains. Don't get me wrong, I eat at the chains too, especially breakfast (more functional meal), and will try to eat more locally at lunch/dinner. I also try to cook at least once a week. The cooking comes in spurts because I live alone.
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