Like I have said before, I have been in the restaurant business for a decade and I have had interesting things said to me. When I had first started out as a manager, there were numerous times where a guest would ask for a manager and when I got there they said that I am too young for a manager and that they wanted to speak to the real manager. There have been many times where, not only has it happened to me but probably every manager I have worked with, that a guest has accused us of being racist. We would not treat the other race like this. It is because I am ______ isn't it? Just once I want to be able to reply, nope it's just because you are stupid. Why do people think that we are trying to always get over on the guests? Do people realize that if it wasn't for the guests, none of us would have a job. Guests pay our checks, this is why I tell all managers that we need to take care of our guests. Unfortunately though, there are guests out there that do take advantage of us. They know what tricks they can do to get things for free or how to get something extra, or how to get the best service. People like this is why some guests get mistreated because we have gotten to the point where we don't know who is telling the truth and who is trying to rip us off. With this in mind, let me tell you a little something about the restaurant.
Did you know that the wage rate of a server in Virginia is 2.13 per hour and in California is not even 8 bucks an hour. So how do servers make money? Off of the tips that guests leave. Think of it this way. The average family of 4 comes out to dinner. You sit in a table and order drinks, apps, entrees and desserts bringing your total bill to around 75-100 dollars. Now, you leave the server 10 percent which is 7.50 to 10 dollars. You sat at the table and talked bringing your entire amount of time at the table to 1 hour and 30 minutes. This means that the server has made a whopping max of 7.13 cents per hour. The minimum wage in Virginia is just below that!! The problem is, this job is great for single moms because of the flexibility of the schedules. I know most people think of college students being the largest portion of servers but you are wrong. They do make up a decent amount, but a large quantity is made of single moms, teachers, and the ones that the spouses work during the day so the other works at night because they can't afford daycare for their child. But yet we can give AIG insurance company three bailouts but we can't help the single mom of one whose dead beat father of the child has run off and hasn't paid child support or just didn't want anything to do with the kid.
Something else for you to think about. You think that teachers, and police officers get paid poorly, check out a restaurant manager. (Before you get angry, I know that police officers risk their life to protect us and that teachers mold the minds of our youth to be the next generations, but restaurant managers are part of one of this worlds largest indulgence, FOOD, and we need to make sure it is healthy for you) The average starting manager salary in Virginia is around 32500 per year. Not bad right, but think about it. Teachers get paid to work Monday through Friday, and are off through the summer. Police officers get paid to work a 40-45 hour work week but they get paid for overtime. Now let's look at a manager. We get paid to work an average of 50 hours a week. Now, we do get lucky every once in a while and work 40 hours, but there are many times where we work upwards of 60-70 hours a week. And we don't get paid for the overtime, how is that for great? So, when you break it down for a manager making 32500 a year and working an average of 50 hours a week they get paid roughly around 11.10 dollars per hour to run a multi million dollar business. Most of us do it for the love of food opposed for the money.
These are just some things that you can think about next time you go out to dinner and you want to get something for free, or stiff the waitress, or even run out on your bill. It hurts us worse than you originally thought.
I know this was a little different from my previous posts, but hey, it is called restaurant managers rant....This is just my outlook on restaurants...
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