Hi all
It doesn't happen very often but today I feel kinda good about myself.
I am working at a finance department for an organisation that has its own canteen, and I am supporting the Head of the canteen to keep track on his finances.
He is a good bloke and we have good conversations about life. He is getting paid extremely well for what he does (he delegates most of his work and hasn't been cooking at work for years) but started living in a bubble that I had to burst.
He started talking about staff shortages and how difficult it is to find chefs, everyone he knows is trying to find staff, nobody wants to work and went on how the entire hospitality industry is doomed etc.
I was like, all hospitality workers are totally underpaid and working hours are ridiculous, why would anyone would want to work in hospitality?
He was surprised about my view and was like but but but we didn't have those issues pre covid.
I told him that many hospitality workers lost their job and found a better job outside the industry with either better pay or less working hours and that many people realised exactly that. The only way to attract people to come back to hospitality is to increase salaries and have better working conditions.
He looked at me in disbelief but didn't have any counter arguments.
My father was a chef for his whole life working ridiculous hours. He is over 70 years old now and his whole body is destroyed, knees, wrists, spine etc and cannot even walk for 5 minutes without being in serious pain.
Nobody should end up overworked and underpaid just to be semi crippling at an older age. This one was for you dad.