Started back in kitchens recently (had left to do IT for a bit and then had to stay home with new twins for a couple years)
Appreciating the new top pay (19/hr for my decade+ experience as a cook compared to 11/hr at my last position) but other than that, nothing has changed. Management is better about keeping to my availability and request offs than I remember in the industry but other than that, things are still split among gender lines. I’m still expected to be “cool” in the kitchen to keep my hours. It’s still mostly men in the kitchen and women as servers with a few outliers like myself. I still even have women, younger than me, asking “why the kitchen?” just because I’m a woman. I still had my boss ask me “what my husband did” in my interview and feel the need to mention “well we do have a couple girls in the kitchen” (these “girls” ended up being two women aged 30-45). I still have had multiple fellow male cooks feel the need to mention “we don’t see a lot of girls in the kitchen..” prompting for an explanation. I live in the Midwest US but damn, I guess I just heard the workplace was supposed to be getting better.
I happen to like the kitchen, and as annoying as they can be with the gender shit, I happen to not mind working with mostly male staff. I guess I was just hoping the culture looked better after all this time.
At least I have not been sexually harassed yet 🤦️ It’s only been a month though!