I was a lead server at my last restaurant job . In hindsight I should of never left .
I decided that I needed to try to get to the next level of fine dining. So I left my old job for this new restaurant that was pretty much the most expensive place in town. At least double the prices of my old job and a lot more in sales.
I saved up before I left my previous job in case things didn’t work out. Gladly I did.
I knew my pay would be less because I would have to start off as a back waiter. Essentially a glorified busser but also have to assist the servers. Some of the servers were making what I made in a week in a night or even some making double what I made.
I should have never taken the job when they told me the hourly was 2.13, but it was plus 4.5% of sales . I figured from what I heard that sales would make up for hourly being so low. In context my old job paid bussers $8.25 plus 2% of sales . Less work involved with that job too.
The sales obviously did not make up for it. We always worked late 8 hour shifts were bare minimum . Usually closer to 9 or even 10 hours some nights. The avg hourly came out to like 15hr depending on the sales for the week. Which isn’t the worst I’ve seen but considering this place was on the level of high end places in like New york, Los Angeles. And most of back waiters had years of restaurant experience. The hourly is way too low. Plus we are held to a higher standard and have to do more work than just buss tables.
Final straw or straws really was the GM talking about sales every damn pre-shift meeting. Exposing his massive ego, “I need to see more sales” “I this, I that” etc This is restaurant already has hit over 3 million in sales in just short few months, sales in 6 figures every week . But they are about to raise their prices and the GM said it would be like a “raise” to us lol They even promised a Christmas party and cash prize contest for whoever sells the most gift cards. Which is rigged from get go when certain servers get customers who own entire companies . They are doing everything but increase base pay, they want the customers to pay for all the labor lol.
It’s all about making the profit margin as large as possible. After all the bull shit they say about creating great moments for customers blah blah blah. Last thing they said before I walked out was basically “Hey even though we have multi million in sales already , we can only raise wages through more sales and if you need us to explain to how business works. Then come talk to us. Treating anyone who has issues with pay like we are children and don’t know how a business works.