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Wolfgang Puck can’t find waiters because of labor shortage


Armybrat

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Is there actually any data that former restaurant workers are working at other jobs even for lower pay or is everyone on here pulling opinions out of their ass for confirmation bias?

I can’t find it on tapa but on the restaurant worker shortage thread, I’d posted an article with a survey of workers and over a quarter of them had move on to careers outside of the restaurant industry.
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19 hours ago, UpperWestside said:

I worked for several years as a server. This reckoning for restaurant owners has been a long time coming. I thoroughly enjoyed the work before switching to a different pathway and job during the pandemic, but restaurant life is a stressful experience for most everyone else I worked with. Many people just do not want to return to that lifestyle once they have gotten away from it for an extended period. I made more money where I worked than anyone outside of the GM, was able to do it just working 40 hours with no weekend shifts (I really had a great setup) and only one night, but I would not return to having another job in that line of work. 

I have an old high school friend that made the switch to a normal gig during the pandemic. She had been working big city fine dining gigs for 20+ years and had to find something else to do. She says she's never been happier. Office admin type job with regular hours, HC and retirement. Doesn't make as much money as a good year in service, but she says she's lost 20 lbs, drinks a ton less, and doesn't have to deal with nearly as many assholes. She said she gets calls every day from her industry contacts offering her whatever hours she wants. She's thinking about picking up a Saturday night shift here and there for spending money, but has no interest in going back into the industry full time. 

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1 minute ago, Pescado_Rojo said:

I have an old high school friend that made the switch to a normal gig during the pandemic. She had been working big city fine dining gigs for 20+ years and had to find something else to do. She says she's never been happier. Office admin type job with regular hours, HC and retirement. Doesn't make as much money as a good year in service, but she says she's lost 20 lbs, drinks a ton less, and doesn't have to deal with nearly as many assholes. She said she gets calls every day from her industry contacts offering her whatever hours she wants. She's thinking about picking up a Saturday night shift here and there for spending money, but has no interest in going back into the industry full time. 

I was in the understaffed thread in the food forum talking about this. Lifers like your friend left the business and don't miss it, at all. It's a toxic environment that has a very negative impact on quality of life, but a lot of the people who kept coming back to it did so out of necessity and habit. Remove necessity and habit, and they very quickly found a better job and many took a pay cut to do it. My wife was, at one point, the youngest manager in the southwest region for her chain and she wouldn't go back for 120k. Doing so would mean she would never see her family. Weekends, holidays, nights, and Hallmark holidays like Mother's Day and Valentines would all be off limits. 120k can't buy back the time lost.

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1 hour ago, Bevo said:

This is crazy. Local businesses were going out of business left and right. Most of my favorite restaurants are now closed. With a return to normalcy, owners are now looking to hire. If they can't hire at the going rate, they are going to have to pay more for employees. Then business owners will try to pass along those price increases to customers. If customers are unwilling to pay the new prices then the business will fail. Selfishness has zero to do with any of this.

It involves a basic economic principle called inflation and a basic capitalist phenomena called business.

Local businesses went out of business because they were less adept financially and structurally to survive the disruption event. The pandemic affected every restaurant the same for the most part, the ones that survived were better businesses. That is the free market working. I'm sorry your favorite restaurants went under, it sucks, but all businesses aren't successes. Huts wasn't crushing it pre-pandemic, same with Threadgills. I remember reading the threads and seeing people discuss how they'd fallen off, etc. Millions lost their jobs during the pandemic. The pandemic changed business, businesses models, employee attitudes towards employers, life goals, etc. Some people changed careers. Millions retired early. Some aren't going back to work until childcare is available, and yes the group of lazy fucks who don't want to work. This was the biggest disruption even on the planet in the past 100 years.  

I reject the premise flat out that it's unfair that restaurants can't just fire up the oven and pay their employees pre-pandemic wages, or expect the same amount of customers. If you think UI ending returns everything to normal, you are living in fantasyland. If Puck is having trouble finding 120K waiters, this was a bigger disruption than you think. Maybe people realized working in a shit job for shit pay wasn't worth, and decided a change is needed. I know a few people in this category, and they're not waiters and the pay was really fucking good. 

 

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2 hours ago, DanRydell said:

Why shouldn't the restaurant go under if they can't figure how to turn a profit while paying market wages?

They should.  But in the same vain, if a waiters value is 2.13/hr plus tips, no amount of your feels changes that. People are worth what someone is willing to pay you for it.  Can’t live in the city you’d prefer on that? Well, I guess hope the govt starts to support you again or find another line of work.  This is pretty simple stuff without the subsidies. 

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22 minutes ago, wildcat09 said:

The people who never worked in the industry can't understand what an absolute fucking beating dealing with people like them as customers is.

Yea, she used to post a ton of service industry type memes on her FB. I told her once I'd never worked food service, but I'd worked retail for almost a decade and it was probably pretty similar. She told me to take the worst retail customer I'd ever had and imagine that person hangry. 

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10 minutes ago, Pescado_Rojo said:

Yea, she used to post a ton of service industry type memes on her FB. I told her once I'd never worked food service, but I'd worked retail for almost a decade and it was probably pretty similar. She told me to take the worst retail customer I'd ever had and imagine that person hangry. 

Ehhh, I'm sure it is every service industry. Doctors, dentists, plumbers, store clerks, restaurant workers, etc. are all pretty similar. I guess the worst part about restaurants is that you have to add the fact that people have been drinking so they tell you how they really feel. Plus, of course, they have the opposite schedule of everyone else in the world.

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24 minutes ago, fattyflattie said:

They should.  But in the same vain, if a waiters value is 2.13/hr plus tips, no amount of your feels changes that. People are worth what someone is willing to pay you for it.  Can’t live in the city you’d prefer on that? Well, I guess hope the govt starts to support you again or find another line of work.  This is pretty simple stuff without the subsidies. 

vein.

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28 minutes ago, fattyflattie said:

They should.  But in the same vain, if a waiters value is 2.13/hr plus tips, no amount of your feels changes that. People are worth what someone is willing to pay you for it.  Can’t live in the city you’d prefer on that? Well, I guess hope the govt starts to support you again or find another line of work.  This is pretty simple stuff without the subsidies. 

I'm still waiting for you to explain why workers shouldn't be subsidized but employers should be.

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Also what the fuck does any of this have to do with wolfgang puck and his restaurant?

You people are miserable. Can't you just make fun of this celebrity chef and his obvious blabbermouth and disconnect from reality of what people actually make? 

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17 minutes ago, wildcat09 said:

I'm still waiting for you to explain why workers shouldn't be subsidized but employers should be.

That’s the problem. It’s not the workers being subsidized. It’s the non-workers that think they are worth more than the free market says they are, that is letting the govt make up the slack.  So, in other words, I’m actually working, to pay taxes, that are being used to pay someone else to sit at home.   I don’t have a problem that they don’t want to go back to their shit job. I have a problem paying for them to feel that way.  

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1 hour ago, Eastwood said:

I was in the understaffed thread in the food forum talking about this. Lifers like your friend left the business and don't miss it, at all. It's a toxic environment that has a very negative impact on quality of life, but a lot of the people who kept coming back to it did so out of necessity and habit. Remove necessity and habit, and they very quickly found a better job and many took a pay cut to do it. My wife was, at one point, the youngest manager in the southwest region for her chain and she wouldn't go back for 120k. Doing so would mean she would never see her family. Weekends, holidays, nights, and Hallmark holidays like Mother's Day and Valentines would all be off limits. 120k can't buy back the time lost.

It’s a strange cycle. The service positions are best filled by part time workers because as you say it’s a shit job/hours, but can pay a shit load in a few hours in the right situation. 
 

The thing I always found odd was these PT employees wanting to do the same thing full time. They would inevitably burn out no matter how you warned them. 
 

ZERO part time employees are going back to work with 40hr/min wage from Uncle Sam plus state benefits. It’s $30+ an hour depending on how many they worked (PT) pre Covid. 

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1 hour ago, Neonmoon said:

Local businesses went out of business because they were less adept financially and structurally to survive the disruption event. The pandemic affected every restaurant the same for the most part, the ones that survived were better businesses. That is the free market working. I'm sorry your favorite restaurants went under, it sucks, but all businesses aren't successes. Huts wasn't crushing it pre-pandemic, same with Threadgills. I remember reading the threads and seeing people discuss how they'd fallen off, etc. Millions lost their jobs during the pandemic. The pandemic changed business, businesses models, employee attitudes towards employers, life goals, etc. Some people changed careers. Millions retired early. Some aren't going back to work until childcare is available, and yes the group of lazy fucks who don't want to work. This was the biggest disruption even on the planet in the past 100 years.  

I reject the premise flat out that it's unfair that restaurants can't just fire up the oven and pay their employees pre-pandemic wages, or expect the same amount of customers. If you think UI ending returns everything to normal, you are living in fantasyland. If Puck is having trouble finding 120K waiters, this was a bigger disruption than you think. Maybe people realized working in a shit job for shit pay wasn't worth, and decided a change is needed. I know a few people in this category, and they're not waiters and the pay was really fucking good. 

 

Not all restaurants work for take out, and the government saying you must close seems like some extraneous variables that should be considered before we get to “fuck off”

 

And Puck’s free marketing, that he is paying $120k and needs help, will work in his favor when the working class has to start paying rent again and the Covid bucks go away. 
 

Have the Covid bucks actually expired anywhere yet?  Still active in TX

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11 minutes ago, fattyflattie said:

That’s the problem. It’s not the workers being subsidized. It’s the non-workers that think they are worth more than the free market says they are, that is letting the govt make up the slack.  So, in other words, I’m actually working, to pay taxes, that are being used to pay someone else to sit at home.   I don’t have a problem that they don’t want to go back to their shit job. I have a problem paying for them to feel that way.  

Didn’t the PPP directly subsidize workers not owners?  80% or something had to be used for employee pay, before rent and bills?

Many quit anyway because the $2400 a month from the Gov + the $2k + from states unemployment benefits saw them get a raise. No one was denied benefits. 

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10 minutes ago, fattyflattie said:

That’s the problem. It’s not the workers being subsidized. It’s the non-workers that think they are worth more than the free market says they are, that is letting the govt make up the slack.  So, in other words, I’m actually working, to pay taxes, that are being used to pay someone else to sit at home.   I don’t have a problem that they don’t want to go back to their shit job. I have a problem paying for them to feel that way.  

Sorry, I was imprecise. You said you didn’t want government “meddling” to raise workers’ wages, but you implied that you support government meddling to make it harder for workers to leave a place of employment for better work. That seems incoherent.

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3 hours ago, DanRydell said:

Why shouldn't the restaurant go under if they can't figure how to turn a profit while paying market wages?

Because the market is being manipulated by unemployment/COVID dollars…I mean if you want to pay $9 for a Big Mac go ahead, most other people will just cook a better burger at home at half the cost.  It’s called price elasticity of demand, we covered it in ECO 304K IIRC.

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1 hour ago, Pescado_Rojo said:

Yea, she used to post a ton of service industry type memes on her FB. I told her once I'd never worked food service, but I'd worked retail for almost a decade and it was probably pretty similar. She told me to take the worst retail customer I'd ever had and imagine that person hangry. 

Would have to agree with the lady.  I purposefully avoided food service jobs because I didn’t want to deal with not just assholes, but hungry ones.  I’ve worked in the retail/ supplier side virtually my entire career. We have to deal with our share of douchebags, but it doesn’t remotely compare to food service industry.

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1 minute ago, Orale said:

Exactly. I don't understand how someone can call someone seeking higher pay and/or a higher quality of life Marxism. Isn't that the free market at work?

And there's a lot of elitist snobbery in this thread with folks saying that a waiter or cook is inherently only worth $2.55 an hour plus tips. The market says you're fucking wrong. And yes I'd pay $9 for a fastfood meal if I knew the employees were making a living wage with benefits.

The idea that low skill workers should be content with effective slavery in the wealthiest country in the world is disgusting.

Same.  Happily.

 

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1 hour ago, fattyflattie said:

They should.  But in the same vain, if a waiters value is 2.13/hr plus tips, no amount of your feels changes that. People are worth what someone is willing to pay you for it.  Can’t live in the city you’d prefer on that? Well, I guess hope the govt starts to support you again or find another line of work.  This is pretty simple stuff without the subsidies. 

Do you get this mad at the absurd amount of tax payer dollars that goes to corporate welfare and bailouts? And that many of those corporations pay little to no tax plus have their low wage labor force subsidized?

Edited by lmao
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17 minutes ago, CooterBrown said:

Every other first world country has figured out how to pay restaurant workers a living wage without the industry collapsing.

And here we are int America standing around like a bunch of retards in a circle jerk complaining that a 35 cent increase in the cost of a $9 burrito infringes on our god given right to pay as little as possible.

I have no idea, but are restaurants around the world paying $120k annually?  They share the same COL as Santa Monica where the rent avg is $3500? 
 

Ex. Free rent- Aprox $2500/m

$1200 uncle same/m

$2400 CA UE benefits/m

$6100/4wks = $79,300

Oh, and your spouse can be fully employed 

$79,300 + $30?50?$60?k

Why can’t the diner just pay more?

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3 minutes ago, ChickenSandwich said:

I have no idea, but are restaurants around the world paying $120k annually?  They share the same COL as Santa Monica where the rent avg is $3500? 

LOL, what's with your focus on the 120k and the city of Santa Monica when asked about America at large? Should we cite average rent in River Oaks when discussing Texas housing policy?

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The $120k waiter is as much a myth as the "just learn some coding and start making $90k" deal. Yes I am sure some do, but all of those live in cities where that equates to $70k normal dollars, and those are the very elite of the profession. In a second-tier big city like Houston or Dallas I doubt waiters even at the top restaurants make much more than $50k, and that's the elite of the elite. 

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23 minutes ago, CooterBrown said:

Every other first world country has figured out how to pay restaurant workers a living wage without the industry collapsing.

And here we are int America standing around like a bunch of retards in a circle jerk complaining that a 35 cent increase in the cost of a $9 burrito infringes on our god given right to pay as little as possible.

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43 minutes ago, CooterBrown said:

Every other first world country has figured out how to pay restaurant workers a living wage without the industry collapsing.

And here we are int America standing around like a bunch of retards in a circle jerk complaining that a 35 cent increase in the cost of a $9 burrito infringes on our god given right to pay as little as possible.

That $9 burrito used to cost 15 cents.

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51 minutes ago, Orale said:

Isn't that the free market at work?

It would be, if the government wasn’t paying people not to work.  That govt intervention establishes a winner and loser, so no, it is currently not a free market. 
 

1 hour ago, TKthunder2 said:

Because the market is being manipulated by unemployment/COVID dollars…

Exactly

54 minutes ago, Orale said:

And yes I'd pay $9 for a fastfood meal if I knew the employees were making a living wage with benefits.

You can always tip them. You know, toss them a $5 to help with their shitty job. But I’m going to assume you don’t because off the message board you don’t gaf.  Ironic thing is that’s where the poor eat. So raising prices on them is fucking their own. Circle of life. 
 

50 minutes ago, lmao said:

Do you get this mad at the absurd amount of tax payer dollars that goes to corporate welfare and bailouts? And that many of those corporations pay little to no tax plus have their low wage labor force subsidized?

I don’t like it at all. But at least I can sleep knowing they provide for thousands of employees.  Provide vs take. Simple concept. 

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1 hour ago, Orale said:



The idea that low skill workers should be content with effective slavery in the wealthiest country in the world is disgusting.

The idea is that the jobs being discussed are mostly entry level jobs which require no skills training and offer a decent amount of flexibility with schedules. 

If we want to talk markets and the unemployment benefits don't matter, then end them tomorrow.  They don't make a difference, so stop wasting the money.

It also isn't remotely slavery.  You work and develop other skills and take on more responsibility to increase your wages.  You don't just sit there at the start and wonder why you aren't rich.  The class envy in this thread is fucking hilarious, if only people weren't so fucking eaten up with it, for lack of a better term.

 

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1 minute ago, Foosters said:

The fact that you are like a kid on Christmas waiting for the poor to experience additional hardship is really telling, man.

 

The fact that many on here don't think their fellow man can help themselves is also, um, very telling.

 

No bootstraps ever though.  It's such an offense to our dream.

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10 minutes ago, fattyflattie said:

It would be, if the government wasn’t paying people not to work.  That govt intervention establishes a winner and loser, so no, it is currently not a free market. 
 

Exactly

You can always tip them. You know, toss them a $5 to help with their shitty job. But I’m going to assume you don’t because off the message board you don’t gaf.  Ironic thing is that’s where the poor eat. So raising prices on them is fucking their own. Circle of life. 
 

I don’t like it at all. But at least I can sleep knowing they provide for thousands of employees.  Provide vs take. Simple concept. 

You sound like real big dumb asshole.

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Just now, Foosters said:

The fact that you are like a kid on Christmas waiting for the poor to experience additional hardship is really telling, man.

 

No, it shouldn’t tell you anything. If you want to give people money, give it to everyone.  The fact some fucking GED can sit at home and pull in 100k for the family while the rest of us are traveling, putting in 12+ hour days, and generally contributing to society is bullshit.  I’d love to be at home with my kids, too. But some of us got to work to pay the ones that decide they can’t, I guess.  

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2 hours ago, wildcat09 said:

The people who never worked in the industry can't understand what an absolute fucking beating dealing with people like them as customers is.

A lot of them are posting on this very thread. Assholes who constantly bitch and then tip 10 percent at best.

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1 minute ago, fattyflattie said:

No, it shouldn’t tell you anything. If you want to give people money, give it to everyone.  The fact some fucking GED can sit at home and pull in 100k for the family while the rest of us are traveling, putting in 12+ hour days, and generally contributing to society is bullshit.  I’d love to be at home with my kids, too. But some of us got to work to pay the ones that decide they can’t, I guess.  

This is the Wolfgang puck thread. Maybe you should start a whataburger or wal mart thread. 

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1 hour ago, TKthunder2 said:

Because the market is being manipulated by unemployment/COVID dollars…I mean if you want to pay $9 for a Big Mac go ahead, most other people will just cook a better burger at home at half the cost.  It’s called price elasticity of demand, we covered it in ECO 304K IIRC.

Yeah all those waiters who supposedly could be making 120k a year are sitting at home because of unemployment checks. 
 

You guys never make any sense and just spout out talking points.
 

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1 hour ago, Orale said:

Exactly. I don't understand how someone can call someone seeking higher pay and/or a higher quality of life Marxism. Isn't that the free market at work?

And there's a lot of elitist snobbery in this thread with folks saying that a waiter or cook is inherently only worth $2.55 an hour plus tips. The market says you're fucking wrong. And yes I'd pay $9 for a fastfood meal if I knew the employees were making a living wage with benefits.

The idea that low skill workers should be content with effective slavery in the wealthiest country in the world is disgusting.

Just raise prices to pay entry level waiters more…

Prices go up, more experienced people can’t afford as much…

Those people, for example say an AT&T technician start demanding more money for their work.

AT&T raises prices on internet/wireless plans in order to pay for higher salaries for their technicians.

Now Mr. Waiter has a higher phone/internet bill that comes out of his now higher pay, and his rent also increases (land lord isn’t going to have less spending power either), and his utilities, and services like his barber or mechanic all get their cut and now his spending power is basically the same from before they got their ‘living wage’ and all that happened is the value of the dollar has been decreased….I think we might have a word for this.

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31 minutes ago, slorch said:

The idea is that the jobs being discussed are mostly entry level jobs which require no skills training and offer a decent amount of flexibility with schedules. 

If we want to talk markets and the unemployment benefits don't matter, then end them tomorrow.  They don't make a difference, so stop wasting the money.

It also isn't remotely slavery.  You work and develop other skills and take on more responsibility to increase your wages.  You don't just sit there at the start and wonder why you aren't rich.  The class envy in this thread is fucking hilarious, if only people weren't so fucking eaten up with it, for lack of a better term.

 

When you talk about flexibility with schedules, what you really mean is that their employers purposefully avoid giving them enough hours so that they can't accrue healthcare and other benefits. Big fucking corporate employers making billions. And many of these employees are adults with limited skills that don't have the ability to work in higher skill industries that will give them full time jobs and benefits. You say fuck them it's them own fault, free markets, Darwinism, etc... You probably call yourself a Christian and then rejoice when big corporations fuck these people out of healthcare and basic human rights to maximize corporate profits. What a fucking asshole. 

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49 minutes ago, fattyflattie said:

You can always tip them. You know, toss them a $5 to help with their shitty job. But I’m going to assume you don’t because off the message board you don’t gaf.

Lulz at thinking that, if you tip $5 on your burrito, the cook and the cashier are getting even 50 cents of that.

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