I'm a bartender for a chain restaurant, and have been with the company in total for nearly 6 years (bartending for 4). I love my job, and for the most part I have been very well taken care of by immediate management as well as the higher-ups. I had a new manager start this past week who is 23 and recently graduated university with a hospitality management degree.
A couple of days ago was inventory day, and I was helping this new manager with his questions about stock and just general questions about how we run things. As I'm giving him the run down he's getting visibly frustrated at things that we've run out of. For the record, we are a totally from scratch restaurant, even the drinks on our menu use hand squeezed juices and all fresh ingredients. So running out of things is just part of the business, unless you want a lot of spoiled products on your hands.
He starts to make small talk and asks me about my history with the company. When I told him I moved locations recently he asked me why so. I told him that I needed a shorter commute and better pay, both of which this location offered. I mentioned that I had never received a proper raise at the old location, and my hourly rate here was much better. He asked my hourly rate and I told him (6.85, old position was 2.13) at which point he exclaimed, “What the fuck?! Why?!? I've never heard of someone making that much hourly in the whole chain!”
It really rubbed me the wrong way to hear this, especially from someone who just started and barely knew me at all. Much less someone I was going out of my way to help show the ropes. I had no hesitation and just popped off saying, “Well maybe it's because I carry this place on my back and show the managers how to do their jobs.”
Neither one of us said anything else. I closed early and dipped, without getting my usual once-over from a manager. Idk if he was able to figure out the rest of the inventory, but that's not my problem I reckon.
Ps. I'm 27 and have been offered management positions here numerous times, from my direct managers all the way to the vp. I just don't have the time to commit to running a restaurant, and am more than happy working my 3 day weekend shifts. I'm assuming his exclamation had to do with his own student debt and such, so I'm not writing him off entirely as a bad person. But this experience definitely makes me wary of him going forward.