so, i've read my fair share of anthony bourdain, and i'm sure most of my readers have as well (seriously...if not...go get kitchen confidential right now), and i'm seeing some things at work that are setting off alarm bells, or at least, would set off bourdain's alarm bells. i dunno if i'm reading too much into this sort of stuff, but a few of the things i've noticed are:
we stopped giving water to everybody. people can still get water, but they have to ask. i think it's pretty redneck to have to ask for water at a restaurant. apparently we are "saving money" by not having to wash tons of water glasses a day, but if you're trying to cut costs by not running loads of dishes...maybe there's bigger trouble. ironically we are supposed to tell people that we're "saving the planet" with the water thing, but we still use tons and tons of styrafoam and don't recycle shit. ha.
we have cut portion sizes on some things while keeping their prices the same. i just found out yesterday that our half pound burgers now only weigh 6 oz. that wasn't announced to the staff, by the way, it happened real quietly and i only found out cause i overheard a conversation about it last week.
we now require drink purchases in order to get the happy hour specials. never had to do that before.
there's all sorts of notes up about making sure you charge for sodas and if anybody is caught not charging for sodas they will be terminated for theft. also sodas went up in price a dollar to a whopping $2.50. i have issues with this because in montana designated drivers are supposed to be able to drink soda for free (we are a bar, after all) and really...who pays two fifty for a coke? ridiculous.
this hasn't happened to me yet, but lots of the kitchen fellas are getting hours missed on their paychecks. like, they should have 63 hours on the check but only have 59. and there's serious tip issues as well.
there's actually lots of other sketchy shit that i see and i'm not going to go into it here, but suffice to say, i have my worries about the state of my job right now. part of me wants to stir the pot just to see what's really at the bottom, but my common sense tells me to just be happy i have a job right now. i like my job, and i love my boys, but we all see these things, and we all worry.
we stopped giving water to everybody. people can still get water, but they have to ask. i think it's pretty redneck to have to ask for water at a restaurant. apparently we are "saving money" by not having to wash tons of water glasses a day, but if you're trying to cut costs by not running loads of dishes...maybe there's bigger trouble. ironically we are supposed to tell people that we're "saving the planet" with the water thing, but we still use tons and tons of styrafoam and don't recycle shit. ha.
we have cut portion sizes on some things while keeping their prices the same. i just found out yesterday that our half pound burgers now only weigh 6 oz. that wasn't announced to the staff, by the way, it happened real quietly and i only found out cause i overheard a conversation about it last week.
we now require drink purchases in order to get the happy hour specials. never had to do that before.
there's all sorts of notes up about making sure you charge for sodas and if anybody is caught not charging for sodas they will be terminated for theft. also sodas went up in price a dollar to a whopping $2.50. i have issues with this because in montana designated drivers are supposed to be able to drink soda for free (we are a bar, after all) and really...who pays two fifty for a coke? ridiculous.
this hasn't happened to me yet, but lots of the kitchen fellas are getting hours missed on their paychecks. like, they should have 63 hours on the check but only have 59. and there's serious tip issues as well.
there's actually lots of other sketchy shit that i see and i'm not going to go into it here, but suffice to say, i have my worries about the state of my job right now. part of me wants to stir the pot just to see what's really at the bottom, but my common sense tells me to just be happy i have a job right now. i like my job, and i love my boys, but we all see these things, and we all worry.
3 comments:
Answer: Maybe
Not giving water is common in the industry. Water costs money and makes none. Serving 6oz burgers instead of the 8oz it says on the menu is again all to common. That is a huge way to save money. $2.50 for a coke is a bit high for NYC, let alone Montana. I hope you get free refills delivered by a topless waitress.
Missing hours stuff is what would worry me more then anything. No restaurant will succeed by screwing employees. Keep good records of your hours. Save those clock-in slips that most people throw away. Don't think they won't change them on the computer during service. I don't want to make you paranoid but your place is someone's investment and they want to make $$$.
The time clock bs hit my boys and I right before I left my last restaurant. They higher management justified it by telling the staff that we weren't taking breaks, so they were taking them for us. They also cut free meals for back of the house after right hours of work. Lets just face it. The restaurant industry isn't as thriving as we wish it to be.
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