In short, when I see old episodes of “Hell's Kitchen,” there are a LOT of scenes where Gordon is asking a beleaguered owner of a failing restaurant how much they pay their head chef. Often, the answer will be $30k-$40k, and Ramsay will react the way one might if this number were 100-150% higher.
eg, “Apparently Bob makes thirty thousand dollars a year, so as far as I am concerned he had better damn well be phenomenal.”
Bob: “I graduated from culinary school near the top of my class before working junior level positions for three years in a highly regarded restaurant in a major city. Every morning at dawn, I washed, peeled, and chopped 2,000 lbs of various fresh produce for the day's prep work, spot cleaned the entire kitchen single-handedly, and had my genitals whipped with knotted ropes. I open and close 7 days most week, but I did have half a sick day when I had surgery a couple of months back. I haven't been paid in two months and I've been trying everything to turn this place around, but the owner won't listen to me.”
Gordon: “What the hell is that? Is that a microwave? Why aren't you more ashamed of yourself?”
What I don't understand is how the restaurant's highest ranking food worker is often making something like an improperly overtime-exempt minimum wage for whatever state they're in, and Gordon always plays this like they are commanding a higher than market salary. Is this representative of literal reality? I know restaurant workers earn a ridiculous fraction of what their work is worth, but I always thought that for most that meant minimum-ish wages for part time for lower ranking workers, minimum-ish wages plus a couple of quarters for higher ranking workers that mostly just got more paying hours, and that higher ranking managers and chefs were the only people who made closer to $20ish an hour even in small restaurants, and that escaping to a nicer restaurant was how they hoped to do better.
The way Gordon plays it, head chefs making $30k in the 1990s and 2000s were lordly figures taking home an amount of money for which they should feel accountable. What do professionals make of this? What was Gordon suggesting Bob should make? Is Bob working less than a full-time schedule? Why wouldn't Bob make more money in a Wendy's?