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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)

#401

Post by melagonster »

QuantumGood wrote: post #391
booleandilemma wrote: post #383

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Did you feel guilty about the other 4 guys losing their jobs?

Three others, and none were lost. One was the nephew of my boss, who was allowed to just go sit in a break room pretty much any time. The other two just hung around looking busy whenever the boss came by. The cooks knew what was going on but didn't say anything. Eventually, my boss figured it out and assigned me to clean pots and baking racks in the bakery. Dysfunctional place for dishwashers. She told me I could be…

>"He thinks he knows everything!"

God, this is crazy. If she relies on proficient people, she must trust them. I cannot understand her motivation—just for fun or cruel?

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

#402

Post by [deleted] »

dataviz1000 wrote: post #384

I'm a little late to conversation. As a chef for 17 years, here is the advice I was given when I asked someone at age 16 what I should do to become a chef. He said I should get a job as a dishwasher. His reasoning is I needed to learn to appreciate and respect the restaurant's dishwasher because, in his words, 'when shit hits the fan and everything goes wrong, it is the dishwasher who will save your ass.' At 17, I wa…

[deleted]

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

#403

Post by ars »

BrandoElFollito wrote: post #214
getpost wrote: post #160

I had a summer job as a dishwasher, which paid minimum wage. I was required to join the union, so after union dues, I was paid less than the minimum wage! Being a union member provided no benefits whatsoever for temporary employees such as myself. This reminds me, the artist Gregory Blackstock retired with a union pension at 55 after 25 years' service as a dishwasher[0]. His art provided another source of income, but…

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.

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

#404

Post by TheCowboy »

achillesheels wrote: post #385
viccis wrote: post #242

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

The Teachers Unions of America add value? I mean this respectively: are you a Democrat shill? How on Earth can you generalize that? Look at the kids math literacy and obesity in CA. How is this bringing value to the team?

> are you a Democrat shill?

Surely we can be adults enough to discuss this without the partisan edge.

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

#405

Post by HappMacDonald »

carlosjobim wrote: post #363
eszed wrote: post #277

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Please notice that you are responding to a position the GP did not take. He said > people can choose whether they work or stay home raising a family, and nobody _has_ to work to make ends meet. Parents who leave paid employment to raise children are far from "sit[ing] around and do[ing] nothing". If we value future conditions (even restricting that calculation only to economic productivity, though I'd argue other con…

How come socialist countries have the lowest birth rates in the history of the world? Even Netherlands. Words are only words, reality is reality.

For the same reason that desperately impoverished nations with the harshest living conditions and highest child mortality have the highest birth rates in the world.

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

#406

Post by bumby »

pbhjpbhj wrote: post #382
samstave wrote: post #285

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

I think if you're asking "Who are the most important people in a restaurant?" then you're already on the wrong path. The janitor and dishwasher are vital, but so too are most of the roles. It's a collective effort. Which of the legs of a chair is most important? Silly question imo. Which person is least important, usually the one that makes the most money. Their capital is important, but with a more distributed wealt…

>they give up just as much time to be there for an hour as the CEO does.

I think this misunderstands a fundamental economic idea: people aren’t paid commensurate to their time or sweat invested; they are paid (in theory) with their differential contribution to the economy. Therefore, people who get paid well tend to have at least two things: 1) a rare skill and 2) a relatively high contribution to the economy. Sometimes those are correlated with effort and time, but they don’t have to be.

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

#407

Post by maxbond »

melagonster wrote: post #401
QuantumGood wrote: post #391

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Three others, and none were lost. One was the nephew of my boss, who was allowed to just go sit in a break room pretty much any time. The other two just hung around looking busy whenever the boss came by. The cooks knew what was going on but didn't say anything. Eventually, my boss figured it out and assigned me to clean pots and baking racks in the bakery. Dysfunctional place for dishwashers. She told me I could be…

>"He thinks he knows everything!" God, this is crazy. If she relies on proficient people, she must trust them. I cannot understand her motivation—just for fun or cruel?

I've met some employers who dangle these sorts of things in front of people, probably telling themselves that they are being sincere, but when the time comes to deliver there's always a new goalpost. They have the same motivation as any manipulator, to take from you as much time and energy as you can be cajoled into giving.

Obviously I wasn't there, but that would be my suspicion. GP responded to being shamed appropriately. There are times in my life when I have been the sucker who feels compelled to double down. Perhaps it's a form of sunk cost falacy.

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

#408

Post by faeriechangling »

aj7 wrote: 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, and even say whatever it takes for them to help you more. I just don’t trust their motivations as people who “help the disadvantaged” can have INSANE saviour complexes and hurt those around them so they can heal them. Because they don’t actually care about you - they care about saving and being seen saving.

You’re perceptive to have caught on to the game so quickly. It took me years.

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

#409

Post by nradov »

bumby wrote: post #239
nradov wrote: post #236

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The majority of new restaurants aren't profitable and go bankrupt within a few years.

I don't think that adds much to the conversation. That says nothing of the existing (and profitable) restaurants that exist and still pay people wages that qualify them for taxpayer subsidies. You can easily reword my point to say "your business plan should not rely on paying people a wage that requires them to be subsidized by taxpayers without additional oversight". I also don't think the point needs to be constrai…

Your point still makes no sense. Everyone is subsidized by taxpayers to some extent. We all receive a variety of government benefits, tax credits, etc.

As for a "business plan", that's a total joke. In the real world most small businesses have no real plan. They just make it up as they go and try to survive another day.

If you think that unskilled workers should be paid more then how much exactly? Please be specific. And if paying that much would cause the business to go bankrupt and leave those workers with no jobs, is that a preferable outcome?

I worked in a restaurant for a while as a youth and made minimum wage. It sucked and I hated it, but that was good motivation to learn some actual job skills.

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

#410

Post by loa_in_ »

DiggyJohnson wrote: post #341
loa_in_ wrote: post #221

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> your question seems Well it's not.

My apologies I should have made it more clear. Were you advocating against "serious questions" or just explaining why they might have been downvoted?

Just explaining. It's a factual statement which I agree with. It's not making my position any way polarised or argumentative, in a way that I can see.
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