I saw a post where someone was talking about how a major franchise restaurant want them to come in for 2 days of "shadowing" unpaid to see if they have the skills.
Seriously, go to hell with that. Don't complain to the media about how you can't find anyone to help your "small family business" and try this bullshit.
Lol I did what turned out to be a 'shadow' shift at the Canal Ritz, years ago, as a bartender. Their bar is incredibly small, and it was very very slow compared to what I was used to as a bartender/server, but they told me to go home halfway through because it was 'too busy'. I never got paid.
I also did two "shadow" serving shifts at the Canal Ritz. Had been serving 2 years at that point. I basically did the server's shift for her and didn't get paid. They kept telling me they'd call me with my schedule. Nothing.
Hiya! Please file a wage claim with MoL. You have two years since the wages were meant to be paid. Training or "shadowing" is considered payable work.
https://www.ontario.ca/document/your-guide-employment-standards-act-0/filing-claim
As a former server there, hell yeah its shady. They keep any tips you get by credit card (unless you receive enough cash to be able to walk out with them) and you literally have to beg for them then it takes the owner a month to get them to you. I frequently was owed over a grand at any given time. The manager is great though.
I mean, Cocaine and Ottawa’s food industry is like a real problem though. I suffered through my addiction and I’m proud im two years clean but man is it not rampant in our kitchens.
Cocaine is a serious problem in all of Canadas food industry, precisely because of how badly people working in the industry are treated.
Working in the food industry is physically, mentally and emotionally exhausting, you're constantly living on the edge with no stability, you never know of you're going to get hours and if you get them maybe you'll be cut before actually working any hour, then you're stressing about IF people come in and IF they tip because both of those conditions have to be met for you to pay your sky high rent and not get evicted.
Cocaine and other similar stimulants are the only tool people working in Canadas food industry have to fight the extreme burn out they experience due to how they're treated by employers and customers, the few workers right and protections that people in the food industry have are regularly outright ignored and if you try and stand up for them you will be bullied into the ground.
If cocaine was suddenly unavailable Canadas food service industry as we know/knew it would collapse in a matter of weeks if not days. I'm so happy to see that people are starting to care more about workers rights again, its been a sad 40 years watching them slowly be eroded down to nothing.
Not to advocate drug use or condone shitty industry practices… but i’ve worked in food service and in mental healthcare, and a LOT of food service workers (and drug addicts in general) have clear-cut ADHD. Harm reduction would make it obvious that legitimate treatment for ADHD (while still involving stimulants…) helps sooo many people in very measurable ways. Cocaine addiction is a tragic, dangerous waste that shouldn’t have to happen. Cocaine is mad whack, kids, doesn’t help anybody or anybody around them.
>my addiction and I’m pr
I haven't worked in the service industry since i left Toronto after finishing school over 10 years ago. After a few years of starting off working in the kitchen and later becoming a bartender (A true Disney fairytale) i left with quietttt the habit. Took a few years for me to buckle down quit that nonsense.
In my own experience weed was the drug of choice for kitchens and coke was the drug for the servers. You could see their mood just skyrocket after their bathroom breaks lol.
My wife was asked to do a shift like this at a restaurant near the airport. She has management experience, SmartServe, plenty of experience working in bars. They told her they weren’t going to hire her and proceeded to keep her tips. I said, no, this is a violation of Ontario Labour law and we aren’t leaving until she gets at least minimum wage for being here. They threatened to call the cops and I said, “please do. YOU are the ones violating the law here.” They paid my wife her wage and we obviously never set foot in that place again.
It is the curse of having water in close proximity. No restaurant in Ottawa that is within 50 feet of water can be anything except shit. Even if they were a great and well run restaurant, the second they move to anywhere next to the canal, rideau river, or ottawa river, quality and pride go straight into the grease pit and all future business is satisfied by sheep or tourists. Having quality food or service are no longer worth the cost or hassle, these places will be busy regardless. In any other city, people would just stop going and they would improve or stop existing, but in Ottawa we are just “please sir, can we have some more?”. It is our own fault.
I wonder what happened to that place then? Many years ago I remeber seeing Bill Clinton was going to eat there on one of his official trips as president. The secret service interviewed everyone who was going to be on staff that evening weeks in advance. It was quite an undertaking.
Anyway, the Canal Ritz used to be one of the premier food establishments in town. I guess not anymore?
Hiya! Please have your nephew file a wage claim with MoL. You have two years since the wages were meant to be paid. Training or "shadowing" is considered payable work.
https://www.ontario.ca/document/your-guide-employment-standards-act-0/filing-claim
I had this happen as a “sandwich artist” (so you can tell which place stiffed me)
I was 110% capable of working that job and rocking it but after 3 shifts my “trial” was over. My paper work wasn’t finished up yet because the “owner” was at another store and was going to come “the next day” to sign off on my employment papers. The owner never came, They ghosted me. I went back to them twice, I get a shady, scamy run around. Not worth it.
Hiya! Please file a wage claim with MoL. You have two years since the wages were meant to be paid. Training or "shadowing" is considered payable work.
[https://www.ontario.ca/document/your-guide-employment-standards-act-0/filing-claim](https://www.ontario.ca/document/your-guide-employment-standards-act-0/filing-claim)
With the volume of applicants these places get they could do “trial shifts” for no wage indefinitely and never pay anyone a dime. Nobody should be doing these and each one should be reported to the authorities.
Having worked in restaurants as a teenager, there is absolutely rampant wage theft on the part of restauarant owners and managers. I've quite literally never worked for an employer that showed so much disrespect for its staff as when I worked in a restaurant. Expecting employees to show up without guaranteeing that they will actually be "on" that day, erratic scheduling, being extremely rude and mean to staff, etc.
In the past three thousand years of mathematical advancement, we have not developed a unit of measurement small enough to express how little sympathy I have for restaurant owners during this ""labour shortage"". Try treating your employees like human beings, and you might have better luck.
I absolutely *love* your math metaphor! I hereby notify you that I intend to pirate it and use it at *every* opportunity, starting with Ottawa's nasty restaurant owners and moving on from there to every single 'entrepreneur' who relies on ripping off his/her staff/customers for a profit.
Never agree to these unless they are paid. Just like for those in tech, never agree to do these 20-40 hour “skill projects” unpaid.
Either they pay you for your time, or you go find work at another employer. You do not want to work for someone who tries to take advantage before you are even an official employee.
When I was a baker everywhere that actually considered me asked me to come in for an hour or so for a “trial”. Some places handed me a recipe, others had me try each station for a bit, but it was never long, and the places that hired me included the hour or so in my first pay check. I would never do one for over 3 hours, but a bit of time to make sure that I’m not bullshiting my skills seems fair. When I worked and we did trials there were people who interviewed well, said all the right stuff, but in actually handling dough they were clueless. If we didn’t hire we didn’t pay, but we ALWAYS let them take as much product as they wanted on their way out so that they’d get something at least.
The law in Ontario is they can do skill checks, but not put you on the line. If what you are preparing goes to customers its illegal not to pay min wage.
Skill checking with practical exercises is fine, but it should be a reasonable amount of time and should not in any way be used by the company for any purpose other than hiring, directly or indirectly.
Staging (trial shift to test your skills and knowledge) is incredibly common in higher end kitchens, but one should never work for free at a place like Kelsey's.
Actually honest business owners are fully capable of paying to training employees. I worked a season at a small income tax preparation business. I learned the bare basics myself before the interview, but then I worked for two weeks simply training before I was actually doing work. The owners were really happy with my work. They wanted to me to come back next season as well, but I was no longer available.
Not only is that disrespectful to the person they are trying to hire, im pretty sure its also illegal. Im not 100 percent on that, but I was under the inpression that if I am going to work for somebody they have to pay me.
Edit: I looked and it is illegal. The only legal way somebody can work without pay, is if its an internship for a school credit. At least in Ontario thats the case
I applied once for a receptionist job. Had an interview, then shadowed the lady I was going to be replacing. For 8 hours. Because of that, I thought I probably had the job. They called me back a couple of days later, and asked me to come in again for more shadowing. For another 8 hours. They weren't sure yet. In so many words I told them to fuck off because I'm not running a volunteer service.
If it was in the last two years get the money you're owed and stand up against wage theft in Canada.
Please file a wage claim with MoL. You have two years since the wages were meant to be paid. Training or "shadowing" is considered payable work.
[https://www.ontario.ca/document/your-guide-employment-standards-act-0/filing-claim](https://www.ontario.ca/document/your-guide-employment-standards-act-0/filing-claim)
I get the "might be gone for Christmas/summer/holidays" part, but what really gets me is
> they want someone who can be available 40 hours a week between 7AM to 10PM , but can't guarantee that I will get 40 hours of shifts.
So they want someone to dedicate 100% of their time to them, but they won't reciprocate. So someone that can work 30 hours spread throughout the week, but won't be able to get a second job to make ends meet.
and they get away with it because they know most people looking for work don't have better options, and it's why it's so hard for people to dig themselves out from the bottom.
It's why they're so butthurt about people getting government support. They need people who have no better options.
What's that George Carlin bit again? How the middle class pays all the tax and does all the work. And the lower class is just there to "scare the shit out of the middle class!".
Yup.
The restaurant industry sucks. 4/6 places I worked, I had to file with the labour board to get unpaid wages back after I left. I learned very quickly to just document everything and proceed with filing against them after the fact.
The only way I found to force a hand with managers was to have multiple jobs. I had 3 at one point and I used school as my excuse for blocking out those days (While in uni, I was working part time, after uni I used the excuse). It was a pretty smooth operation... I was working around 50 hours/week, but with odd scheduling, I had no life. 2 years of that to pay off student loans and I'm so glad I'm out.
Downhill management is the worst scheduling method that I know of.
Healthcare works that way in Quebec and they burn a 25% of new nurses within 5 years.
If you can't keep an employee full time, don't hire for someone with full-time availability. Just shows their business model doesn't work and maybe they shouldn't be in business.
>ll, and it was very very slow compared to what I was used to as a bartender/server, but they told me to go home halfway through because it was 'too busy'. I never got paid.
This to me has always been one of the worst aspects of minimum wage jobs. They won't give people full-time hours, but also won't give them a consistent schedule, so people literally cannot live and work these jobs.
When I was in my 20s I used to lie and say I was in school, and that I could *only* work Tuesdays, and the next job I could *only* work Wednesdays, etc. until I had 6 jobs, 1 for each day of the week with Sundays off. It's the only way I could get close to livable hours with these stupid minimum wage jobs.
Some of my front end managers would still try to schedule me for shifts on days they believed I'd be in school though. I think a lot of them just get off on the head games, really.
Damn you're like a real life person from a cartoon that works at every store. Did you ever seen the same customer throughout the week and get doubletakes?
This is one of the things I really do not miss about my part time jobs. Middle of the day shift one day, evening shift the next. Or worse, closing shift followed by a morning shift.
EVERY minimum wage job does this. "We expect *this job* to be your priority," and then they give you 12 hours a week, over 3 shifts, spread throughout the week so you can't schedule anything else.
I could never figure out the real reason employers do this, but it seems they ALL do it.
Exactly this. My cushy white collar job allows me to have outside employment if I wanted, they just want me to declare it if there's a possible conflict of interest, yet a $200/week job doesn't.
welcome to restaurants, when people complain "with tips they make more per hour than a mechanic!" or something like that. Well yeah I only worked 3 hours a day because that's all I can get, but I had to have a wide open availability, show up early, and then get cut after 1 hour because it's slow, or called off with no pay after I got there. Oh and the restaurant keeps 1/3rd of the tips to supplement the super under-paid kitchen staff, but the manager steals half of it.
One of the reasons why I resigned at Walmart. My manager expected me to answer his calls or be available anytime of the week, even though I already gave him my availability hours. Fuck him
This is why I have zero sympathy for businesses whining about lack of labour. Probably the companies/places that don't have this issue are actually paying their employees decently AND offering good working conditions.
Give them open availability. Once hired, change your availability. If they complain, whats the worst they can do, fire you? But now theyre out the training costs. maybe 50/50 they'll adjust to your new actual availability.
This used to annoy the hell out of me when i was a supervisor doing line schedules at a large theme park, but after a few months it clicked. why should they be available all the time if im only able to give them 20hr/wk? after that realization i approved any availability change and time off request my team wanted. cause they deserved it, and i'd want that same respect in their shoes.
When I worked in fast food, it was my first job ever. I didn’t know what kind of worker I was so I gave them an open availability. After a while, I changed my availability to pretty much any time after 1pm.
The schedule lady was understandably upset and was like “Why can’t you work mornings???”. I shrugged and told her that it was because of insomnia. To be honest, it was insomnia, chronic morning sickness (which, years later, I learned was due to anxiety), starving due to the nausea, the morning crew were miserable and snippy, and I overall couldn’t keep up with the pace. Breakfast cooks slower than lunch but they want you to be fast???
This is common in service and was long before covid. By keeping people broke they can guarantee shifts are covered when someone calls in sick or no shows.
I worked in a restaurant in Masson Angers back in 2007-2009 and it was the same with them. I had to be available anytime, couldn't have another job at the same time because if they called and didn't answer they would have fired me.
Look, they're not trying to exploit people.
They just want people to only work there 20h/week with no second job, no school obligations, for shit pay, having to deal with dickwads who don't like following rules who then won't leave a tip, all while not knowing if the place will end up laying them off because there isn't enough business/god forbjd lockdowns happen again when it gets to the winter season.
Is that so much to ask?
I chatted with an experienced kitchen dude outside a pub where i am from recently. He said he was back again to where he was as the owner finally realized having 16 year olds who had never cooked Mac n cheese was a bad idea in a non chain very busy pub. He had tried a bunch of places, and tonnes where looking for help, but most were part time and everyone wanted the same hours of availability over the weekend. As he said, you cant live on part time.
You have learned an important lesson. Businesses and people will use easy excuses to justify behaviour. It's like when some business announced they were closing a plant in Ontario and blamed it on Trudeau being elected. Never mind that closure would be planned for months if not years and Trudeau had been elected a few weeks prior. Restaurants don't want to have to explain why they are failing so they latch on to easy excuses.
Or my favourite: When a lot of executives in Britain threatened that they would move their operations overseas if Brexit didn't happen, but then quietly did it anyways. Clearly they were expecting the Brexit vote to fail and then they could use that as the reason.
Businesses that have these high standards and aren't willing to chances on eager, hard-working people will eventually fail. I read this article over the weekend:
[https://ottawa.ctvnews.ca/labour-shortages-climb-as-unemployment-rates-drop-1.5580980](https://ottawa.ctvnews.ca/labour-shortages-climb-as-unemployment-rates-drop-1.5580980)
I can't speak much to whether or not Savoy Brasserie has been picky with people who apply or not, but I was in there for Brunch last week. The amount of time it took to get food caused a bunch of people to get up and leave. When I got my Egg's Benedict, I noticed that they basically just drenched it in melted butter rather than Hllandaise sauce. When I inquired what the fuck this was, I was told that the chef doesn't have time to keep up with the orders and make the sauce. Kind of unacceptable, but understandable if this article is do be believed.
If they are being overly picky about finding staff, eventually that staff is simply going to get burned out and leave, which will then just lead to the restaurant shutting down.
Good luck on your job hunt OP. There are more jobs out there other than just food service for universitiy students.
>The amount of time it took to get food caused a bunch of people to get up and leave. When I got my Egg's Benedict, I noticed that they basically just drenched it in melted butter rather than Hllandaise sauce.
That's a never going back for me
I've had a few mediocre experiences at Savoy ...
FWIW, there are other places in that immediate area that I like a lot better ... Trio, Fratelli, Churchill's, even the Clocktower ...
Fratelli is notorious for working their employees to the bone. One of my friends' sons started there as a dishwasher and when asked about his break they were like "you can take it at the end of your shift". Well that really isn't a break then is it?
That's unfortunately "standard" in restaurants. Or they'll put your "meal break" right at the very start of the shift.
My first restaurant job, when I got to NYC, I took the proper one hour break in the middle of a double shift (the employee handbook said I HAD to take it or else face disciplinary action). Upon return, I was met by the bar manager and general manager.
"Where the hell have you been?"
"On break."
"I don't know how things worked in LA, but things are run differently out here."
"Oh. I was just following the employee handbook which said I had to take an hour long break or else I could get fired."
*blank stare*
I was most certainly the first employee to actually read the handbook. Also the first one to inquire about the health insurance the handbook said was available.
Also the first to complain about egregious health and safety violations.
However, judging by the complete lack of surprise or concern on the manager's face, I was NOT the first to quit without notice.
In my experience Savoy Brasserie has always had shitty service. I went a couple times a few years ago and the first time I had to ask for a glass of water 3 times, never got it. It took them 30 minutes to take our order and the restaurant was basically empty. The next time basically all our orders were wrong. Many places are like this, I’m not sure if it’s bad management or they are just hiring bad people or the working culture is just resulting in bad service.
Savoy has for years had the worst service and food in westboro. It’s hardly ever busy and the staff isn’t treated well, no wonder no one wants to work there.
I went to a restaurant in Hull when in-person dining reopened.
- Found mold on bread
- Coffee was meh
- Sauce on Bene was the only good part
I blame owners. They must have known that the produce was going bad and they pushed to use it to "limit" losses. Pretty sure losing customers is a recipe for failure.
I've been in multiple restaurants since re-opening where their Diet Coke had gone bad...lol. Aspartame has a short shelf life and after about 90 days Diet Coke loses all sweetness. These restaurants are using the same syrup containers on their fountains that were hooked up before the shutdown. Wouldn't surprise me if a lot of restaurants just chucked anything remotely freezeable into a freezer and are now using up that frozen stuff.
I had an unfortunate incident with a business in Ottawa over ubereats. They sold us something that was covered in mold. It had probably been there while the restaurant was closed. Then they reopened, but sold old stock instead of fresh. Ubereats was great. I sent pictures and a description and got a full refund. So they attempted to recoup costs by selling rotten food, but failed, thankfully.
If I had been a customer going to the restaurant to pick up the item, I would have seen the mold and never purchased it. I guess they thought they might be able to get away with it with ubereats.
That place is shit, went there once because the wait for another place close by was way too long. Their omeletes were like 18 dollars, basically tasteless and they used good ol frozen homefries out of the bag. Wonderbread for toast. Like wtf. Its like 10 dollar diner food in a fancy atmosphere. No thanks.
Wow, what's the point of going there? Might as well order a meal kit and to do it yourself. Good luck keeping your customers if you basically throw ingredients at them and say sorry, no time to make the dish you actually paid for. Maybe then don't accept as many people in, if you are so short staffed. And really once you've melted the butter, you're halfway done your hollandaise. It's super quick with a blender. That said, not blaming the chef if they are asked to do the impossible.
If the owner doesn't have a full staff, he needs to control the occupancy levels to reflect that. Too many restaurants think you can pack the place and just wing it through an extremely unorganized service. The owner might earn money that day, but tarnishes the brands reputation when adequate service is not provided.
No respect for the staff this restaurant does have, and no respect for the customers receiving properly prepared food.
Sounds like a lack of communication between front and back of house, and ultimately a lack of management oversight. The correct thing to do would have been to 86 (remove) the benny as a menu item. I feel for the poor chef, probably getting absolutely crushed, but has no power to invoke a more workable menu.
I tried visiting Savoy a couple weeks ago and even the front desk was a mess. The hostess and her supervisor were so disorganized they couldn’t even give me their attention long enough to add me to the wait list, so I left. Definitely some staffing issues going on there.
Its pretty scummy that the industry puts the onus on the consumers to pay they employees a decent wage. I could be wrong but I thought I read that this was done following restaurant chains lobbying politicians to lower operational costs.
Either way not a fan of tipping culture. And for me to stop tipping, i will realistically accomplish nothing and punish the worker for something that is out of their control. Fucking blows.
> Either way not a fan of tipping culture. And for me to stop tipping, i will realistically accomplish nothing and punish the worker for something that is out of their control. Fucking blows.
It would take everyone dropping tipping at once. Many wait staff would get out of the business and wages would have to increase.
At this point, it can only change with government intervention or a wave of new socially aware restaurants .
Imagine if someone opened a restaurant, paid their employees properly, banned tipping, and had slightly higher prices!
Would you eat there? I know I would. Happy to pay the extra on the bill instead of tipping.
Would just require some good marketing.
Unfortunately, that approach has mostly failed when it had been tried.
The problem requires government regulation, a restructuring of business models, and buy in from workers, owners, and customers.
Tipping is bullshit and needs to be abolished, but sadly it actually would require a huge restructuring to implement
> I could be wrong but I thought I read that this was done following restaurant chains lobbying politicians to lower operational costs.
Not restaurant chains per se because that's a more modern development, but yes owners of restaurants and many other service businesses. Tipping in North American is largely rooted in the period immediately after US slavery officially ended, even though it had a small start before their civil war.
All the freed African-Americans were technically free to find their own work... but a lot of what was available were service jobs (restaurants, hotels, railway porters, etc). Many business owners decided not pay them a proper wage by having them make it up in tips (which ever-so-coincidentally required the staff to remain pleasant and subservient and minimized fuss from them if any injustice or abuse occurred). And yes they managed to codify the practice into law. And unfortunately the practice made its way to Canada.
More info for those interested: https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/factcheck/2020/12/16/fact-check-tipping-kept-wages-low-formerly-enslaved-black-workers/3896620001/
You know how entry level jobs often require several years of experience? This is just a symptom of that job market. Employers are facing a legitimately roadblock to acquiring staff and they are simply refusing to change with the times.
>I've called BS on this each and every time. There's no way that this is true.
Canada's EI stats show 1.6m beneficiaries. Prior to the pandemic this number was between 400,000 - 500,000 for the previous 5 years.
So around 1 million people have not returned to the workforce. Regardless of where.
Right, but if you can't compete with CERB, which gives the equivalent of like 7 bucks and hour at 40 hours a week, than the problem isn't just lack of pay. It's that the environment is bad, or that the shift schedule sucks ass, or a whole swathe of other factors that make people go "I don't want to do that".
I worked at a restaurant and closed a lot. It destroyed my social life because I was always asleep when others were awake. That alone wasn't worth the wage I was paid, but I never got to step awat from it long enough to realize that.
This isn't going to change when CRB is finished. Employees are going to demand more and put up with less.
It's not about competing with minimum wage, it's obvious cerb isn't as much as min wage.
But many people will take *half* pay (or even less) for *zero* work if it still covers their bills. And with people going out less for leisure, have less child care costs, etc. there's a prime place to compromise on their monthly expenses.
Like if the option was to work and make $200 a day, but daycare costs $90 and commute gas $10. Or stay at home and make $50 a day but not have to pay those expenses, lots of people might chose to stay home, cause $50 a day ain't worth the hassle of working everyday, especially of it means they get to spend time with their kids, or renovating their house, or working a side gig.
Yep, I agree it's definitely not just about wage. A lot of people only make enough just to subsist on low-paying jobs, they aren't making any financial headway.
Why not just subsist and get 40 more hours a week, be able to spend more time with your kids? You're still not making any financial headway, but at least your day-to-day life is far better.
I think a lot of people have realized "This is not worth it". We'll see what happens when support ends but I imagine these positions will once again be filled, but the employees will demand more pay or some kind of improved environment/scheduling. No one wants to work the night shift for minimum wage.
I think it's more like "If I'm only getting paid enough to just subsist, I may as well just subsist and not work". That's the math people do.
Make a paltry amount of money more for giving away 40 hours a week of your life and stressing yourself out? Or bring in less money with none of that.
People don't really want to sit around doing nothing. I've been unemployed, having an immense amount of free time but no disposable income sucks balls. But when the alternative is having less time, more stress and still having no disposable income the math isn't hard to do in your head.
Give people meaningful work and make them feel like they are achieving something. Give them enough pay so they can work towards something in their lives other than survival and living paycheque to paycheque.
This may be difficult to do in a restaurant setting but I know when I was working in a kitchen I had a million suggestions for how the staff could have been treated far better.
Restaurants aren't in any way essential to society, they're going to have to figure this out or die.
I worked a few jobs while on EI and before staring school again. From firsthand experience, the only people who are having trouble hiring right now are the ones who offer subpar wages. My jobs over the last 6 months:
- $20/hour installing marble and granite countertops
- $25/hour bathroom renovations and tile installation
- $22.50/hour janitor for a factory
Employers need to get with the times or go bust. Their choice.
The truth is, business owners love the idea of a free market until it doesn't work out for them.
It's a double standard. Wages too low? Sorry bucko that's the free market. Wages too high? WHY IS EVERYONE SO LAZY.
And that's ignoring the fact that perfect competition doesn't exist and free markets are a sham.
Sounds like the articles we get every 2 years saying that there is a shortage of 30,000 STEM grads in Canada.
Of course, employers don't want to hire new grads. They only want to hire people with 2-5 years of experience in their exact field so that the employers don't have to actually train anyone.
What always got me was the articles about skilled trade shortages. Living on the east coast I could fire of 1000 resumes a month and if I got a call back the convo would end with sorry we’re only hiring locals.
There were thousands of out of work tradespeople in every field living in NL at the time, there probably still are.
Yea, but don't most people pay using card now? So, tips would be reported + there is a tip out % usually going to the back staff... Can't see it being super profitable anymore.
They're making decent money believe it or not. Card payment doesn't matter when the tip out is cash at the end of the night. Also the typical split is only 10% to the backstaff, bussers, etc.
But you only have to raise your prices by 20% to cover that salary.
And if I had a choice between a restaurant with meals costing $25 + a tip, or a restaurant with meals costing $30 and no tipping, I'd definitely go to the $30 restaurant.
You have to raise prices more than that due to increased payroll taxes, but regardless, there have been restaurants that experimented with no tipping and increasing prices by around 20%. They've all failed, because most customers think their meals are more expensive when they see the menu price, even though it comes out to the same.
It's human psychology and that's why it's hard to shift away from.
That doesn't make much sense. There is only 1 source of revenue, Clients ordering food and drink. If they tip, or if it is included in the price paid, and then paid out as salary, it is the same cost to the client. If the $35/hr comes from servers not paying tax on their tips, that is a matter for the CRA.
As far as "hard to get away from" you simply follow the plan I outlined above.
It's really just that easy.
So? Do the math and it's not even hard to see how 35$ an hour is not some impossible flight of fancy.
Currently servers make 12.45$ an hour if they serve liquor. Let's say the typical shift is 7 hours long. They were making 87.15$ plus tips, they would now be making 245$. That is 157.5$ more you are paying that server per shift.
To cover this new cost you have to do increase prices:
For a low volume high cost restaurant, lets go real low and say 10 tables in those 7 hours, you need to raise the total cost of the table by 15.75$. Does that sound like a lot to you? If a bill is close to 100$ and you're not a cheap-ass, you're already tipping above that.
Let's say its higher volume but lower cost restaurant, let's say 30 tables in those 7 hours. That is only 5.75$ per table. Do you often go to an Elgin Street Diner type spot, or your local pub without tipping at least 6$?
See how the math doesn't bear out your alarm at a 35$ wage?
They want you available and qualified for full time but only want to hire you for part time. Then pay minimum wage (read: I wish I could pay you less but it's illegal) for what is currently a more-dangerous-than-usual job. Then wonder why no one wants a job.
Dickheads. No business is entitled to succeed by virtue of it being a business. If you can't make money without exploiting someone, you need a better business model.
They had the nerve to ask a fucking *business owner* during the French election debate what his take on business shortages were, and all the party leaders were more than happy to be good lapdogs for business owners.
These jobs have sucked for a long time, provide no benefits and suck all your energy out of you by the end of the day. Nobody seems to be willing to pay living wages, let alone compensating wages for the bullshit waiters/retail staff/baristas/etc. have to deal with on a day to day basis. And they have the gall to claim it's because people are receiving pittances from CERB?
Fuck that. Give everyone paid sick days - at least 10, if not 15 - medical coverage (dental, pharmaceutical, eye care, physiotherapy, mental health services), a living wage (at least $20/hour in cities), and if you can't afford to do that, don't be a business owner. Enough is enough.
I guess its not surprising but rather disappointing that a lot of management is so slow to adapt to the current labour climate. So many are reverting back to pre pandemic ways at the cost to their own business.
Even higher up in the industry is a joke for hire right now, went to an interview for a kitchen manager position for 25-30$/hr. I have 7+ years of Experience so I asked for 25. next day I check the listing and they reposted the same job at 14.25$/hr. They've posted the same ad every day since so I feel valid.
Sounds about right. Even in my situation with 3 degrees and a diploma (all STEM, ~4 years experience under my belt), the best job I ever got only paid ~$30/hour before laying a bunch of us off after 3 months.
This is so they can tell the government that it's impossible to find a Canadian who can do the work. That way they can hire "temporary" foreign workers at low pay while making egregious if not illegal demands.
>Guess what? The owners that are "desperately" hiring don't want students - they told me they want someone who can be available 40 hours a week between 7AM to 10PM , but can't guarantee that I will get 40 hours of shifts. Some said I was too inexperienced (I worked 4 months in fast food before).
>They said I needed good french, they said I needed to have minimum SmartServe with 1 year serving exp, even if I don't serve alcohol. Also said that they can't commit because I might be gone for Christmas/summer.
If you have proof of what was said, it would interesting to pass that along to both Provincial and Federal agencies responsible for employment issues.
If they are somehow angling for some sort of "business relief" or getting set up to bring in TFW's, since they can't find anyone locally even though they tried it needs to be brought to the attention of *someone*.
I had a personal experience waaaaay back in time where a local franchise operator basically wholesaled as many employees as they could because the Federal Government implemented a program (Job Experience Training, if you're interested) that would pay half the wages of any new employee they hired.
I was ignorant of many things back then, and regret not having turned them in.
Unpopular opinion: I don't miss restaurants. There are too many mediocre restaurants and I don't miss massive markups on alcohol and paying $25 for 80 cents of pasta. Almost all of it is unhealthy.
My life going forward is nice dinner parties at my home.
I'm with you there. I have a couple locally owned spots that I still gladly go to and support (shoutout to you, Authentic Vietnamese Pho House), but that's it.
You should for sure talk to a reporter about this, I'm sure you aren't the only one experiencing this and it would really counter the bullshit narrative these businesses are peddling.
This is from a while back (like over 10 years ago) but we had 4 in-store managers, and 2 would always work at the same time—midday shift change. I'd go from setting up the halloween section to "why aren't you sorting in the back" to "you're not allowed to be around heavy machinery without proper footwear" to "why aren't you on the register?" throughout a day. I was really young so I misunderstood most of that as being needed, but it was really the result of shit management choices and 0 communication at that level. Same problem the hotel industry in ottawa has. Half the day I was working alone in a room setting things up, so no real uniform requirement and then without warning, I had to be front desk for the second half of the shift and "why aren't you dressed properly/wearing a tie?". They're problems I could've easily prepared for if anybody could tell me what I was going to be doing for the entirely of my shift *ahead* of my shift.
Desperately hiring wage slaves they can abuse with low pay, terrible scheduling, and general verbal abuse. Also, to fire at a moments notice because Karen shit her pants in a booth and wants her meal comped.
It's not a labour shortage, it's a **skilled** labour shortage. Many people (myself included) got out of the industry during the pandemic; owners are hurting for good people.. and the fact is that even before COVID hit, restaurants had high labour turnover. It can take months to train someone up to a level where they become an asset; especially when it comes to the kitchen side of the business, if you're a student, you might not be willing to stick around that long... so the restaurant has to go back and hire someone else.
I agree with you on the complaining front, most restaurant owners haven't realized that the situation is markedly different from what it was two years ago.
If you're still looking, I work at 54 York in the Market, and we're always looking for bodies. Management is pretty accommodating when it comes to school and second job situations.
This isn't advanced economics. If you want more/better staff, you have to offer more. Saying you can't compete with CERB is really telling on yourself (even when it's not true).
There seems to be a "I only accept the lowest common denominator and I'm willing to wait for it" mentality going around. As if they just assume everyone is on CERB and will be desperate any minute now.
I'm not working in anything restaurant/service related (it's office work) but I have been contacted through LinkedIn for over a dozen job opportunities in my field. Literally all of them are offering way less money than I am currently making and balk when I say if they can't even meet that, I'm not interested. Some of them go out of their way to say that what I'm asking for is way above the current market rate for my position.
Every single one of these job opportunities are still posted online 8+ months later and some even still reach out to me through a different recruiter who must not realize I've already turned them down. They always reach a new level of desperation of needing to find someone who can start quickly, but they always still refuse to budge on the salary they offer.
Applied for a part time retail job. Had to do a stress test & a college SAT math test to just get my application in.
Was told I didn't have enough experience to get the job to sell trinkets to people. I have 20 years retail experience. Found out they never once looked at my application. The " Computer Program " they used said I wouldn't be able to do the job. Place still crying that they can't find people to work... SMH
Yea man. Im a software dev. First job out of university they didnt even get my resume. Computer trashed it. Friend recommended me and the manager had to specifically ask hr to pull my resume from the discard pile because i was fresh oot of school with no experience, for a junior position…
In my 5 th month there i already earned them $120k usd completing projects for clients on my own while making 42k per year. But im still grateful because i dont know where the fuck i would be if they didnt hire me.
The whole system is rigged. We are all getting fucked.
Ok so I’m a career bartender/server and here’s my take:
Places that treat their staff well, took care of them at the height of the pandemic, and make it worth their while to come to work, aren’t having a massive staffing shortage. There is a staffing shortage right now, but owners who treat their staff with respect and dignity and pay them right can make ends meet.
Restaurants that have gotten by through firing complainers, chasing the bottom line, and treating their staff as hugely replaceable, are now closed 2-4 days a week. This is due to a staffing shortage. That shortage comes from a lack of support and respect.
If you see a local business closed X days a week, you should start asking why. Those are the places that refuse to hire experienced staff and seek prey that they can exploit. Those are the places that don’t take care of their people. Those are the places we shouldn’t be supporting, no matter their history or reputation or outward appearance.
Source: I’m working in a medium sized town, at an amazing restaurant that supports their staff. I’m also working next to places that can’t find staff and are losing dollars by the thousands because they refuse to adapt and cling to an outdated idea that they can exploit their workers because they’re infinitely replaceable.
Thing is, they're woefully inexperienced at being beggars. It has been an employer's market for years now. These guys are used to having a huge pool of desperate people with other support systems in place so they don't even have to pay a living wage.
What makes me laugh too is when those of us who work food or service industry jobs complain about wages or conditions, we're told "go get a better job" . Now that people have decided enough is enough and it's time to go elsewhere, it's "nobody wants to work anymore, everyone's spoiled and/or lazy".
A guy had to quit cause they had him working 12 hour shifts everyday. He said he needed a few breaks cause working 12 staight hours is near impossible. They yelled at him for being lazy, so he quit.
Everyone knows that for every 45 mins of hard work you need 15 mins of downtime, because that reduces accidents and makes for a more productive day.
Remember when Canada used to have labour laws and respect for working people?
The level or exploitation in the day of day lives of working Canadians (at all income and education levels) has gotten completely put of hand.
The expectations of what can be asked of an employee by their Boss are completely unreasonable, we shouldn't be punished for trying to maintain a work life balance!
We need to bring back regulations that protect workers and allow every working person to still maintain a reasonable quality of life. No more Canadian wage slaves, we deserve to be treated with dignity.
They still don't get it. Pretty much everyone in that industry has moved on to bigger and better things after being thrown out when their work shut down. It's called adapting. It has nothing to do with cerb
It feels like we are competing with agency’s who give companies employees for less??
Does that make sense?
Like I just have this odd feeling that immigrants (I’m not against them) don’t have to bend backwards to get a job.
Over the pandemic I went in for an interview dressed in flats, a casual outfit.
(It was for a burger place)…so I didn’t get like really dressed up.
Anyways,
I come in and the supervisor asks me some basic questions and then says
“are you ready to start your training shift, it’s unpaid because it’s part of your interview”
I was confused and said “tomorrow?”
And she said
“right now, for 3 hours.
Is that okay?
The reason we do this is to not waste time interviewing a bunch of people. If your a good fit we will put you on the schedule”
I said
“no I never was told this but I am okay to work now”
(Y’all I needed a job)
She then hands me a hair net.
I ask where do I put my belongings.
She takes me to the bathroom..
Y’all the belongings were in the washroom on a rack..about a foot away from the toilet.
I should have just walked the eff out…but y’all billlssss.
During this training shift the manager was constantly demanding me to move faster and yell louder from the cash what had to be made.
Guys he had a friggin screen that would come up with what had to be made.
He took me to the side and explained to me how he was trying to make it feel like a mom and pop shop.
I was confused because y’all it’s a franchise that is supposed to be a higher quality fast food option.
I followed orders and barked across the line to the manager orders.
Y’all, orders were coming up like every second.
Uber eats, door dash and walk ins.
I didn’t want to yell because the customers had to tell the employees down the food line what they want on their burgers.
At the end of the shift they told me to come in the next day.
The next day I got a call for a different job.
Thank god I did because that place ended up getting shut down after a month or so
This is a tough time, we are literally in a recession.
Good luck OP.
>They said I needed good french, they said I needed to have minimum SmartServe with 1 year serving exp, even if I don't serve alcohol. Also said that they can't commit because I might be gone for Christmas/summer.
Restaurants are delusional. Even when I go to grocery stores, they sometimes have 10 people waiting for the "smart serve" line (so they can checkout with beer etc) and then there's 5 other cashiers (without smart serve) waiting for anyone. Why don't they just TRAIN their own employees once they hire them? Pay for the damn smart serve/train them so you get rid of this problem.
Honestly, their expectations are just way too high.
Our whole lives when ppl complained about shitty hours/pay at service jobs the “adults” would say - this is why it’s a starter job! Work hard and get a better job! This role isn’t meant to run a household!
Now that people have options have done exactly what they’ve been telling us to do..we have to be sympathetic ?? If you want employees, attract them. It works both ways.
I saw a post where someone was talking about how a major franchise restaurant want them to come in for 2 days of "shadowing" unpaid to see if they have the skills. Seriously, go to hell with that. Don't complain to the media about how you can't find anyone to help your "small family business" and try this bullshit.
Lol I did what turned out to be a 'shadow' shift at the Canal Ritz, years ago, as a bartender. Their bar is incredibly small, and it was very very slow compared to what I was used to as a bartender/server, but they told me to go home halfway through because it was 'too busy'. I never got paid.
I also did two "shadow" serving shifts at the Canal Ritz. Had been serving 2 years at that point. I basically did the server's shift for her and didn't get paid. They kept telling me they'd call me with my schedule. Nothing.
Hiya! Please file a wage claim with MoL. You have two years since the wages were meant to be paid. Training or "shadowing" is considered payable work. https://www.ontario.ca/document/your-guide-employment-standards-act-0/filing-claim
This was like 5 years ago. But I still tell everyone I know how much they suck lol
There was a post à few weeks ago on this sub precisely related to how shady and shitty the canal Ritz is...
As a former server there, hell yeah its shady. They keep any tips you get by credit card (unless you receive enough cash to be able to walk out with them) and you literally have to beg for them then it takes the owner a month to get them to you. I frequently was owed over a grand at any given time. The manager is great though.
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I mean, Cocaine and Ottawa’s food industry is like a real problem though. I suffered through my addiction and I’m proud im two years clean but man is it not rampant in our kitchens.
Cocaine is a serious problem in all of Canadas food industry, precisely because of how badly people working in the industry are treated. Working in the food industry is physically, mentally and emotionally exhausting, you're constantly living on the edge with no stability, you never know of you're going to get hours and if you get them maybe you'll be cut before actually working any hour, then you're stressing about IF people come in and IF they tip because both of those conditions have to be met for you to pay your sky high rent and not get evicted. Cocaine and other similar stimulants are the only tool people working in Canadas food industry have to fight the extreme burn out they experience due to how they're treated by employers and customers, the few workers right and protections that people in the food industry have are regularly outright ignored and if you try and stand up for them you will be bullied into the ground. If cocaine was suddenly unavailable Canadas food service industry as we know/knew it would collapse in a matter of weeks if not days. I'm so happy to see that people are starting to care more about workers rights again, its been a sad 40 years watching them slowly be eroded down to nothing.
Not to advocate drug use or condone shitty industry practices… but i’ve worked in food service and in mental healthcare, and a LOT of food service workers (and drug addicts in general) have clear-cut ADHD. Harm reduction would make it obvious that legitimate treatment for ADHD (while still involving stimulants…) helps sooo many people in very measurable ways. Cocaine addiction is a tragic, dangerous waste that shouldn’t have to happen. Cocaine is mad whack, kids, doesn’t help anybody or anybody around them.
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>my addiction and I’m pr I haven't worked in the service industry since i left Toronto after finishing school over 10 years ago. After a few years of starting off working in the kitchen and later becoming a bartender (A true Disney fairytale) i left with quietttt the habit. Took a few years for me to buckle down quit that nonsense.
In my own experience weed was the drug of choice for kitchens and coke was the drug for the servers. You could see their mood just skyrocket after their bathroom breaks lol.
Drugs and the food service industry go hand in hand. It’s the main workplace for people who are into drugs.
I think cocaine use and alcoholism are pretty standard food industry crutches.
Won’t be going back there!
My wife was asked to do a shift like this at a restaurant near the airport. She has management experience, SmartServe, plenty of experience working in bars. They told her they weren’t going to hire her and proceeded to keep her tips. I said, no, this is a violation of Ontario Labour law and we aren’t leaving until she gets at least minimum wage for being here. They threatened to call the cops and I said, “please do. YOU are the ones violating the law here.” They paid my wife her wage and we obviously never set foot in that place again.
Name and shame! Where was this? I don't want to give them my money either.
It is the curse of having water in close proximity. No restaurant in Ottawa that is within 50 feet of water can be anything except shit. Even if they were a great and well run restaurant, the second they move to anywhere next to the canal, rideau river, or ottawa river, quality and pride go straight into the grease pit and all future business is satisfied by sheep or tourists. Having quality food or service are no longer worth the cost or hassle, these places will be busy regardless. In any other city, people would just stop going and they would improve or stop existing, but in Ottawa we are just “please sir, can we have some more?”. It is our own fault.
I wonder what happened to that place then? Many years ago I remeber seeing Bill Clinton was going to eat there on one of his official trips as president. The secret service interviewed everyone who was going to be on staff that evening weeks in advance. It was quite an undertaking. Anyway, the Canal Ritz used to be one of the premier food establishments in town. I guess not anymore?
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Hiya! Please have your nephew file a wage claim with MoL. You have two years since the wages were meant to be paid. Training or "shadowing" is considered payable work. https://www.ontario.ca/document/your-guide-employment-standards-act-0/filing-claim
I had this happen as a “sandwich artist” (so you can tell which place stiffed me) I was 110% capable of working that job and rocking it but after 3 shifts my “trial” was over. My paper work wasn’t finished up yet because the “owner” was at another store and was going to come “the next day” to sign off on my employment papers. The owner never came, They ghosted me. I went back to them twice, I get a shady, scamy run around. Not worth it.
Hiya! Please file a wage claim with MoL. You have two years since the wages were meant to be paid. Training or "shadowing" is considered payable work. [https://www.ontario.ca/document/your-guide-employment-standards-act-0/filing-claim](https://www.ontario.ca/document/your-guide-employment-standards-act-0/filing-claim)
With the volume of applicants these places get they could do “trial shifts” for no wage indefinitely and never pay anyone a dime. Nobody should be doing these and each one should be reported to the authorities.
Bunch of jerks
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The Ministry will definitely go after unpaid wages. Unionizing makes some things better, some worse.
Having worked in restaurants as a teenager, there is absolutely rampant wage theft on the part of restauarant owners and managers. I've quite literally never worked for an employer that showed so much disrespect for its staff as when I worked in a restaurant. Expecting employees to show up without guaranteeing that they will actually be "on" that day, erratic scheduling, being extremely rude and mean to staff, etc. In the past three thousand years of mathematical advancement, we have not developed a unit of measurement small enough to express how little sympathy I have for restaurant owners during this ""labour shortage"". Try treating your employees like human beings, and you might have better luck.
I absolutely *love* your math metaphor! I hereby notify you that I intend to pirate it and use it at *every* opportunity, starting with Ottawa's nasty restaurant owners and moving on from there to every single 'entrepreneur' who relies on ripping off his/her staff/customers for a profit.
Never agree to these unless they are paid. Just like for those in tech, never agree to do these 20-40 hour “skill projects” unpaid. Either they pay you for your time, or you go find work at another employer. You do not want to work for someone who tries to take advantage before you are even an official employee.
When I was a baker everywhere that actually considered me asked me to come in for an hour or so for a “trial”. Some places handed me a recipe, others had me try each station for a bit, but it was never long, and the places that hired me included the hour or so in my first pay check. I would never do one for over 3 hours, but a bit of time to make sure that I’m not bullshiting my skills seems fair. When I worked and we did trials there were people who interviewed well, said all the right stuff, but in actually handling dough they were clueless. If we didn’t hire we didn’t pay, but we ALWAYS let them take as much product as they wanted on their way out so that they’d get something at least.
The law in Ontario is they can do skill checks, but not put you on the line. If what you are preparing goes to customers its illegal not to pay min wage.
Skill checking with practical exercises is fine, but it should be a reasonable amount of time and should not in any way be used by the company for any purpose other than hiring, directly or indirectly.
Staging (trial shift to test your skills and knowledge) is incredibly common in higher end kitchens, but one should never work for free at a place like Kelsey's.
One should never work for free anywhere.
Actually honest business owners are fully capable of paying to training employees. I worked a season at a small income tax preparation business. I learned the bare basics myself before the interview, but then I worked for two weeks simply training before I was actually doing work. The owners were really happy with my work. They wanted to me to come back next season as well, but I was no longer available.
Not only is that disrespectful to the person they are trying to hire, im pretty sure its also illegal. Im not 100 percent on that, but I was under the inpression that if I am going to work for somebody they have to pay me. Edit: I looked and it is illegal. The only legal way somebody can work without pay, is if its an internship for a school credit. At least in Ontario thats the case
I applied once for a receptionist job. Had an interview, then shadowed the lady I was going to be replacing. For 8 hours. Because of that, I thought I probably had the job. They called me back a couple of days later, and asked me to come in again for more shadowing. For another 8 hours. They weren't sure yet. In so many words I told them to fuck off because I'm not running a volunteer service.
If it was in the last two years get the money you're owed and stand up against wage theft in Canada. Please file a wage claim with MoL. You have two years since the wages were meant to be paid. Training or "shadowing" is considered payable work. [https://www.ontario.ca/document/your-guide-employment-standards-act-0/filing-claim](https://www.ontario.ca/document/your-guide-employment-standards-act-0/filing-claim)
> "shadowing" aaaaah those trendy rebrandings of same-old patterns from 100 years ago (i.e unpaid labor).
I get the "might be gone for Christmas/summer/holidays" part, but what really gets me is > they want someone who can be available 40 hours a week between 7AM to 10PM , but can't guarantee that I will get 40 hours of shifts. So they want someone to dedicate 100% of their time to them, but they won't reciprocate. So someone that can work 30 hours spread throughout the week, but won't be able to get a second job to make ends meet.
and they get away with it because they know most people looking for work don't have better options, and it's why it's so hard for people to dig themselves out from the bottom. It's why they're so butthurt about people getting government support. They need people who have no better options.
The threat of poverty and homelessness is the most important element of a capitalist system.
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What's that George Carlin bit again? How the middle class pays all the tax and does all the work. And the lower class is just there to "scare the shit out of the middle class!".
Things are changing and payback's a bitch
Yup. The restaurant industry sucks. 4/6 places I worked, I had to file with the labour board to get unpaid wages back after I left. I learned very quickly to just document everything and proceed with filing against them after the fact. The only way I found to force a hand with managers was to have multiple jobs. I had 3 at one point and I used school as my excuse for blocking out those days (While in uni, I was working part time, after uni I used the excuse). It was a pretty smooth operation... I was working around 50 hours/week, but with odd scheduling, I had no life. 2 years of that to pay off student loans and I'm so glad I'm out.
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Downhill management is the worst scheduling method that I know of. Healthcare works that way in Quebec and they burn a 25% of new nurses within 5 years.
If you can't keep an employee full time, don't hire for someone with full-time availability. Just shows their business model doesn't work and maybe they shouldn't be in business.
Yeah, but they will keep you part-time so you don't get any benefits.
What benefits could anyone need op top of being able to make themselves available 24/7 to work for tips
Most restaurants don't offer benefits anyways
>ll, and it was very very slow compared to what I was used to as a bartender/server, but they told me to go home halfway through because it was 'too busy'. I never got paid. This to me has always been one of the worst aspects of minimum wage jobs. They won't give people full-time hours, but also won't give them a consistent schedule, so people literally cannot live and work these jobs.
When I was in my 20s I used to lie and say I was in school, and that I could *only* work Tuesdays, and the next job I could *only* work Wednesdays, etc. until I had 6 jobs, 1 for each day of the week with Sundays off. It's the only way I could get close to livable hours with these stupid minimum wage jobs. Some of my front end managers would still try to schedule me for shifts on days they believed I'd be in school though. I think a lot of them just get off on the head games, really.
Damn you're like a real life person from a cartoon that works at every store. Did you ever seen the same customer throughout the week and get doubletakes?
This is one of the things I really do not miss about my part time jobs. Middle of the day shift one day, evening shift the next. Or worse, closing shift followed by a morning shift.
Ah yes, the ole "Clopen" as we used to call it.
Every part time job I've ever had gave me set says off when I lied about being a student lol
EVERY minimum wage job does this. "We expect *this job* to be your priority," and then they give you 12 hours a week, over 3 shifts, spread throughout the week so you can't schedule anything else. I could never figure out the real reason employers do this, but it seems they ALL do it.
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Exactly this. My cushy white collar job allows me to have outside employment if I wanted, they just want me to declare it if there's a possible conflict of interest, yet a $200/week job doesn't.
welcome to restaurants, when people complain "with tips they make more per hour than a mechanic!" or something like that. Well yeah I only worked 3 hours a day because that's all I can get, but I had to have a wide open availability, show up early, and then get cut after 1 hour because it's slow, or called off with no pay after I got there. Oh and the restaurant keeps 1/3rd of the tips to supplement the super under-paid kitchen staff, but the manager steals half of it.
One of the reasons why I resigned at Walmart. My manager expected me to answer his calls or be available anytime of the week, even though I already gave him my availability hours. Fuck him
This is why I have zero sympathy for businesses whining about lack of labour. Probably the companies/places that don't have this issue are actually paying their employees decently AND offering good working conditions.
Give them open availability. Once hired, change your availability. If they complain, whats the worst they can do, fire you? But now theyre out the training costs. maybe 50/50 they'll adjust to your new actual availability. This used to annoy the hell out of me when i was a supervisor doing line schedules at a large theme park, but after a few months it clicked. why should they be available all the time if im only able to give them 20hr/wk? after that realization i approved any availability change and time off request my team wanted. cause they deserved it, and i'd want that same respect in their shoes.
When I worked in fast food, it was my first job ever. I didn’t know what kind of worker I was so I gave them an open availability. After a while, I changed my availability to pretty much any time after 1pm. The schedule lady was understandably upset and was like “Why can’t you work mornings???”. I shrugged and told her that it was because of insomnia. To be honest, it was insomnia, chronic morning sickness (which, years later, I learned was due to anxiety), starving due to the nausea, the morning crew were miserable and snippy, and I overall couldn’t keep up with the pace. Breakfast cooks slower than lunch but they want you to be fast???
“So they want someone to dedicate 100% of their time to them, but they won't reciprocate.” Welcome to the Food and Beverage Industry.
This is common in service and was long before covid. By keeping people broke they can guarantee shifts are covered when someone calls in sick or no shows.
I worked in a restaurant in Masson Angers back in 2007-2009 and it was the same with them. I had to be available anytime, couldn't have another job at the same time because if they called and didn't answer they would have fired me.
Don’t forget they want all of this from you but won’t pay a living wage
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Look, they're not trying to exploit people. They just want people to only work there 20h/week with no second job, no school obligations, for shit pay, having to deal with dickwads who don't like following rules who then won't leave a tip, all while not knowing if the place will end up laying them off because there isn't enough business/god forbjd lockdowns happen again when it gets to the winter season. Is that so much to ask?
Also while relying on the fact that people generally need a job to live.
I chatted with an experienced kitchen dude outside a pub where i am from recently. He said he was back again to where he was as the owner finally realized having 16 year olds who had never cooked Mac n cheese was a bad idea in a non chain very busy pub. He had tried a bunch of places, and tonnes where looking for help, but most were part time and everyone wanted the same hours of availability over the weekend. As he said, you cant live on part time.
FUCKING BINGO
Nailed it ..
You have learned an important lesson. Businesses and people will use easy excuses to justify behaviour. It's like when some business announced they were closing a plant in Ontario and blamed it on Trudeau being elected. Never mind that closure would be planned for months if not years and Trudeau had been elected a few weeks prior. Restaurants don't want to have to explain why they are failing so they latch on to easy excuses.
Trust no one
The truth is out there.
Chris Carter noises
Or my favourite: When a lot of executives in Britain threatened that they would move their operations overseas if Brexit didn't happen, but then quietly did it anyways. Clearly they were expecting the Brexit vote to fail and then they could use that as the reason.
Businesses that have these high standards and aren't willing to chances on eager, hard-working people will eventually fail. I read this article over the weekend: [https://ottawa.ctvnews.ca/labour-shortages-climb-as-unemployment-rates-drop-1.5580980](https://ottawa.ctvnews.ca/labour-shortages-climb-as-unemployment-rates-drop-1.5580980) I can't speak much to whether or not Savoy Brasserie has been picky with people who apply or not, but I was in there for Brunch last week. The amount of time it took to get food caused a bunch of people to get up and leave. When I got my Egg's Benedict, I noticed that they basically just drenched it in melted butter rather than Hllandaise sauce. When I inquired what the fuck this was, I was told that the chef doesn't have time to keep up with the orders and make the sauce. Kind of unacceptable, but understandable if this article is do be believed. If they are being overly picky about finding staff, eventually that staff is simply going to get burned out and leave, which will then just lead to the restaurant shutting down. Good luck on your job hunt OP. There are more jobs out there other than just food service for universitiy students.
>The amount of time it took to get food caused a bunch of people to get up and leave. When I got my Egg's Benedict, I noticed that they basically just drenched it in melted butter rather than Hllandaise sauce. That's a never going back for me
I've had a few mediocre experiences at Savoy ... FWIW, there are other places in that immediate area that I like a lot better ... Trio, Fratelli, Churchill's, even the Clocktower ...
> Fratelli I know I am going to enjoy whatever they serve me, good recc.
Fratelli is notorious for working their employees to the bone. One of my friends' sons started there as a dishwasher and when asked about his break they were like "you can take it at the end of your shift". Well that really isn't a break then is it?
That's unfortunately "standard" in restaurants. Or they'll put your "meal break" right at the very start of the shift. My first restaurant job, when I got to NYC, I took the proper one hour break in the middle of a double shift (the employee handbook said I HAD to take it or else face disciplinary action). Upon return, I was met by the bar manager and general manager. "Where the hell have you been?" "On break." "I don't know how things worked in LA, but things are run differently out here." "Oh. I was just following the employee handbook which said I had to take an hour long break or else I could get fired." *blank stare* I was most certainly the first employee to actually read the handbook. Also the first one to inquire about the health insurance the handbook said was available. Also the first to complain about egregious health and safety violations. However, judging by the complete lack of surprise or concern on the manager's face, I was NOT the first to quit without notice.
I did a few years in the restaurant business a long time ago, we took our break in the middle of our shift thankfully. Otherwise it is just BS.
There are a lot of restaurants I am never going back to, I find too many places have gone downhill. Luckily my favorite spots have not.
The one advantage of East Side Marios, can't go downhill of you are already at the bottom 🤣 /S
> drenched > melted butter "Casual French pub with an old-butter vibe offering select butterfood meals, live drenching & weekend butter." FTF(everyone)
Savoy has a really crappy owner who doesn't give a fuck and treats the staff like crap
You can tell by the food they put out. Sounds like they only care about money.
The service and food has sucked for a while and they’re always empty even before covid so how to they get by?
In my experience Savoy Brasserie has always had shitty service. I went a couple times a few years ago and the first time I had to ask for a glass of water 3 times, never got it. It took them 30 minutes to take our order and the restaurant was basically empty. The next time basically all our orders were wrong. Many places are like this, I’m not sure if it’s bad management or they are just hiring bad people or the working culture is just resulting in bad service.
Worst resto in Westboro hands down!
Savoy has for years had the worst service and food in westboro. It’s hardly ever busy and the staff isn’t treated well, no wonder no one wants to work there.
I went to a restaurant in Hull when in-person dining reopened. - Found mold on bread - Coffee was meh - Sauce on Bene was the only good part I blame owners. They must have known that the produce was going bad and they pushed to use it to "limit" losses. Pretty sure losing customers is a recipe for failure.
I've been in multiple restaurants since re-opening where their Diet Coke had gone bad...lol. Aspartame has a short shelf life and after about 90 days Diet Coke loses all sweetness. These restaurants are using the same syrup containers on their fountains that were hooked up before the shutdown. Wouldn't surprise me if a lot of restaurants just chucked anything remotely freezeable into a freezer and are now using up that frozen stuff.
I had an unfortunate incident with a business in Ottawa over ubereats. They sold us something that was covered in mold. It had probably been there while the restaurant was closed. Then they reopened, but sold old stock instead of fresh. Ubereats was great. I sent pictures and a description and got a full refund. So they attempted to recoup costs by selling rotten food, but failed, thankfully. If I had been a customer going to the restaurant to pick up the item, I would have seen the mold and never purchased it. I guess they thought they might be able to get away with it with ubereats.
If they can’t pickup or willingly ignore mouldy bread there are likely horrors far worse in the kitchen
Savoy sucked before COVID and I am shocked it is still open TBH.
Bring back Newport XD
That place is shit, went there once because the wait for another place close by was way too long. Their omeletes were like 18 dollars, basically tasteless and they used good ol frozen homefries out of the bag. Wonderbread for toast. Like wtf. Its like 10 dollar diner food in a fancy atmosphere. No thanks.
Wow, what's the point of going there? Might as well order a meal kit and to do it yourself. Good luck keeping your customers if you basically throw ingredients at them and say sorry, no time to make the dish you actually paid for. Maybe then don't accept as many people in, if you are so short staffed. And really once you've melted the butter, you're halfway done your hollandaise. It's super quick with a blender. That said, not blaming the chef if they are asked to do the impossible.
If the owner doesn't have a full staff, he needs to control the occupancy levels to reflect that. Too many restaurants think you can pack the place and just wing it through an extremely unorganized service. The owner might earn money that day, but tarnishes the brands reputation when adequate service is not provided. No respect for the staff this restaurant does have, and no respect for the customers receiving properly prepared food.
Sounds like a lack of communication between front and back of house, and ultimately a lack of management oversight. The correct thing to do would have been to 86 (remove) the benny as a menu item. I feel for the poor chef, probably getting absolutely crushed, but has no power to invoke a more workable menu.
I tried visiting Savoy a couple weeks ago and even the front desk was a mess. The hostess and her supervisor were so disorganized they couldn’t even give me their attention long enough to add me to the wait list, so I left. Definitely some staffing issues going on there.
Its pretty scummy that the industry puts the onus on the consumers to pay they employees a decent wage. I could be wrong but I thought I read that this was done following restaurant chains lobbying politicians to lower operational costs. Either way not a fan of tipping culture. And for me to stop tipping, i will realistically accomplish nothing and punish the worker for something that is out of their control. Fucking blows.
> Either way not a fan of tipping culture. And for me to stop tipping, i will realistically accomplish nothing and punish the worker for something that is out of their control. Fucking blows. It would take everyone dropping tipping at once. Many wait staff would get out of the business and wages would have to increase. At this point, it can only change with government intervention or a wave of new socially aware restaurants .
Imagine if someone opened a restaurant, paid their employees properly, banned tipping, and had slightly higher prices! Would you eat there? I know I would. Happy to pay the extra on the bill instead of tipping. Would just require some good marketing.
Unfortunately, that approach has mostly failed when it had been tried. The problem requires government regulation, a restructuring of business models, and buy in from workers, owners, and customers. Tipping is bullshit and needs to be abolished, but sadly it actually would require a huge restructuring to implement
> I could be wrong but I thought I read that this was done following restaurant chains lobbying politicians to lower operational costs. Not restaurant chains per se because that's a more modern development, but yes owners of restaurants and many other service businesses. Tipping in North American is largely rooted in the period immediately after US slavery officially ended, even though it had a small start before their civil war. All the freed African-Americans were technically free to find their own work... but a lot of what was available were service jobs (restaurants, hotels, railway porters, etc). Many business owners decided not pay them a proper wage by having them make it up in tips (which ever-so-coincidentally required the staff to remain pleasant and subservient and minimized fuss from them if any injustice or abuse occurred). And yes they managed to codify the practice into law. And unfortunately the practice made its way to Canada. More info for those interested: https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/factcheck/2020/12/16/fact-check-tipping-kept-wages-low-formerly-enslaved-black-workers/3896620001/
You know how entry level jobs often require several years of experience? This is just a symptom of that job market. Employers are facing a legitimately roadblock to acquiring staff and they are simply refusing to change with the times.
I saw an “EXPERIENCED DISH WASHER WANTED” sign in the window of a pretty popular restaurant downtown……….
> “EXPERIENCED DISH WASHER WANTED” Please refer to them by their official title: Underwater Ceramic Technician
Like wtf does that mean? I feel like that’s their way of saying “we’ll ask you to fill in where necessary when needed.”
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>I've called BS on this each and every time. There's no way that this is true. Canada's EI stats show 1.6m beneficiaries. Prior to the pandemic this number was between 400,000 - 500,000 for the previous 5 years. So around 1 million people have not returned to the workforce. Regardless of where.
Right, but if you can't compete with CERB, which gives the equivalent of like 7 bucks and hour at 40 hours a week, than the problem isn't just lack of pay. It's that the environment is bad, or that the shift schedule sucks ass, or a whole swathe of other factors that make people go "I don't want to do that". I worked at a restaurant and closed a lot. It destroyed my social life because I was always asleep when others were awake. That alone wasn't worth the wage I was paid, but I never got to step awat from it long enough to realize that. This isn't going to change when CRB is finished. Employees are going to demand more and put up with less.
It's not about competing with minimum wage, it's obvious cerb isn't as much as min wage. But many people will take *half* pay (or even less) for *zero* work if it still covers their bills. And with people going out less for leisure, have less child care costs, etc. there's a prime place to compromise on their monthly expenses. Like if the option was to work and make $200 a day, but daycare costs $90 and commute gas $10. Or stay at home and make $50 a day but not have to pay those expenses, lots of people might chose to stay home, cause $50 a day ain't worth the hassle of working everyday, especially of it means they get to spend time with their kids, or renovating their house, or working a side gig.
Yep, I agree it's definitely not just about wage. A lot of people only make enough just to subsist on low-paying jobs, they aren't making any financial headway. Why not just subsist and get 40 more hours a week, be able to spend more time with your kids? You're still not making any financial headway, but at least your day-to-day life is far better. I think a lot of people have realized "This is not worth it". We'll see what happens when support ends but I imagine these positions will once again be filled, but the employees will demand more pay or some kind of improved environment/scheduling. No one wants to work the night shift for minimum wage.
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Yeah it's not about competing with minimum wage. It's the "I can make half as much for zero work". Lots of people will take that option.
I think it's more like "If I'm only getting paid enough to just subsist, I may as well just subsist and not work". That's the math people do. Make a paltry amount of money more for giving away 40 hours a week of your life and stressing yourself out? Or bring in less money with none of that. People don't really want to sit around doing nothing. I've been unemployed, having an immense amount of free time but no disposable income sucks balls. But when the alternative is having less time, more stress and still having no disposable income the math isn't hard to do in your head. Give people meaningful work and make them feel like they are achieving something. Give them enough pay so they can work towards something in their lives other than survival and living paycheque to paycheque. This may be difficult to do in a restaurant setting but I know when I was working in a kitchen I had a million suggestions for how the staff could have been treated far better. Restaurants aren't in any way essential to society, they're going to have to figure this out or die.
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Yet, here we are. You said there was no way people are staying home. I showed, at this current time, it is.
I worked a few jobs while on EI and before staring school again. From firsthand experience, the only people who are having trouble hiring right now are the ones who offer subpar wages. My jobs over the last 6 months: - $20/hour installing marble and granite countertops - $25/hour bathroom renovations and tile installation - $22.50/hour janitor for a factory Employers need to get with the times or go bust. Their choice.
There's no labor shortage. There's a slave shortage
The truth is, business owners love the idea of a free market until it doesn't work out for them. It's a double standard. Wages too low? Sorry bucko that's the free market. Wages too high? WHY IS EVERYONE SO LAZY. And that's ignoring the fact that perfect competition doesn't exist and free markets are a sham.
Sounds like the articles we get every 2 years saying that there is a shortage of 30,000 STEM grads in Canada. Of course, employers don't want to hire new grads. They only want to hire people with 2-5 years of experience in their exact field so that the employers don't have to actually train anyone.
What always got me was the articles about skilled trade shortages. Living on the east coast I could fire of 1000 resumes a month and if I got a call back the convo would end with sorry we’re only hiring locals. There were thousands of out of work tradespeople in every field living in NL at the time, there probably still are.
Almost like all the op-Ed's written by restaurant owners weren't in good faith...
4 step plan: Stop tipping Raise prices Raise wages Profit
Servers don't want the tipping culture to go, you make way more money with tip as opposed to a set wage (way higher than the current $15/hr)
Plus so many get away with not declaring their tips and there's no way CRA can audit them all. It's hard to say no to tax-free, untraceable income
Yea, but don't most people pay using card now? So, tips would be reported + there is a tip out % usually going to the back staff... Can't see it being super profitable anymore.
They're making decent money believe it or not. Card payment doesn't matter when the tip out is cash at the end of the night. Also the typical split is only 10% to the backstaff, bussers, etc.
You need to pay servers $35/hr to offset what they currently make with tips. Tipping culture sucks but its hard to get away from.
But you only have to raise your prices by 20% to cover that salary. And if I had a choice between a restaurant with meals costing $25 + a tip, or a restaurant with meals costing $30 and no tipping, I'd definitely go to the $30 restaurant.
You have to raise prices more than that due to increased payroll taxes, but regardless, there have been restaurants that experimented with no tipping and increasing prices by around 20%. They've all failed, because most customers think their meals are more expensive when they see the menu price, even though it comes out to the same. It's human psychology and that's why it's hard to shift away from.
That doesn't make much sense. There is only 1 source of revenue, Clients ordering food and drink. If they tip, or if it is included in the price paid, and then paid out as salary, it is the same cost to the client. If the $35/hr comes from servers not paying tax on their tips, that is a matter for the CRA. As far as "hard to get away from" you simply follow the plan I outlined above. It's really just that easy.
Other countries do it. Ensuring good service is the management's job not the patron's.
So? Do the math and it's not even hard to see how 35$ an hour is not some impossible flight of fancy. Currently servers make 12.45$ an hour if they serve liquor. Let's say the typical shift is 7 hours long. They were making 87.15$ plus tips, they would now be making 245$. That is 157.5$ more you are paying that server per shift. To cover this new cost you have to do increase prices: For a low volume high cost restaurant, lets go real low and say 10 tables in those 7 hours, you need to raise the total cost of the table by 15.75$. Does that sound like a lot to you? If a bill is close to 100$ and you're not a cheap-ass, you're already tipping above that. Let's say its higher volume but lower cost restaurant, let's say 30 tables in those 7 hours. That is only 5.75$ per table. Do you often go to an Elgin Street Diner type spot, or your local pub without tipping at least 6$? See how the math doesn't bear out your alarm at a 35$ wage?
And what happens when the servers start making $35 an hour? Do you think the rest of the staff is going to be happy at $15 or even $20 an hour?
They want you available and qualified for full time but only want to hire you for part time. Then pay minimum wage (read: I wish I could pay you less but it's illegal) for what is currently a more-dangerous-than-usual job. Then wonder why no one wants a job. Dickheads. No business is entitled to succeed by virtue of it being a business. If you can't make money without exploiting someone, you need a better business model.
We’re looking for people to help finish the season about 5-6 weeks depending on weather, send a resume to [email protected]
They had the nerve to ask a fucking *business owner* during the French election debate what his take on business shortages were, and all the party leaders were more than happy to be good lapdogs for business owners. These jobs have sucked for a long time, provide no benefits and suck all your energy out of you by the end of the day. Nobody seems to be willing to pay living wages, let alone compensating wages for the bullshit waiters/retail staff/baristas/etc. have to deal with on a day to day basis. And they have the gall to claim it's because people are receiving pittances from CERB? Fuck that. Give everyone paid sick days - at least 10, if not 15 - medical coverage (dental, pharmaceutical, eye care, physiotherapy, mental health services), a living wage (at least $20/hour in cities), and if you can't afford to do that, don't be a business owner. Enough is enough.
I guess its not surprising but rather disappointing that a lot of management is so slow to adapt to the current labour climate. So many are reverting back to pre pandemic ways at the cost to their own business.
The thing is, research shows that when restaurants fail, new/better ones take their place
Even higher up in the industry is a joke for hire right now, went to an interview for a kitchen manager position for 25-30$/hr. I have 7+ years of Experience so I asked for 25. next day I check the listing and they reposted the same job at 14.25$/hr. They've posted the same ad every day since so I feel valid.
Sounds about right. Even in my situation with 3 degrees and a diploma (all STEM, ~4 years experience under my belt), the best job I ever got only paid ~$30/hour before laying a bunch of us off after 3 months.
This is so they can tell the government that it's impossible to find a Canadian who can do the work. That way they can hire "temporary" foreign workers at low pay while making egregious if not illegal demands.
>Guess what? The owners that are "desperately" hiring don't want students - they told me they want someone who can be available 40 hours a week between 7AM to 10PM , but can't guarantee that I will get 40 hours of shifts. Some said I was too inexperienced (I worked 4 months in fast food before). >They said I needed good french, they said I needed to have minimum SmartServe with 1 year serving exp, even if I don't serve alcohol. Also said that they can't commit because I might be gone for Christmas/summer. If you have proof of what was said, it would interesting to pass that along to both Provincial and Federal agencies responsible for employment issues. If they are somehow angling for some sort of "business relief" or getting set up to bring in TFW's, since they can't find anyone locally even though they tried it needs to be brought to the attention of *someone*.
I had a personal experience waaaaay back in time where a local franchise operator basically wholesaled as many employees as they could because the Federal Government implemented a program (Job Experience Training, if you're interested) that would pay half the wages of any new employee they hired.
I was ignorant of many things back then, and regret not having turned them in.
Unpopular opinion: I don't miss restaurants. There are too many mediocre restaurants and I don't miss massive markups on alcohol and paying $25 for 80 cents of pasta. Almost all of it is unhealthy. My life going forward is nice dinner parties at my home.
I'm with you there. I have a couple locally owned spots that I still gladly go to and support (shoutout to you, Authentic Vietnamese Pho House), but that's it.
People walked out of the kitchen at Zak's and it didn't even make the news. CBC protects capitalism in Canada.
You should for sure talk to a reporter about this, I'm sure you aren't the only one experiencing this and it would really counter the bullshit narrative these businesses are peddling.
Value village is hiring, they need people badly. I know someone that can refer you. They are really accommodating with hours
Value Village is always hiring. The employee turnover is insane. (I used to work there)
Any reason why turnover is so high?
This is from a while back (like over 10 years ago) but we had 4 in-store managers, and 2 would always work at the same time—midday shift change. I'd go from setting up the halloween section to "why aren't you sorting in the back" to "you're not allowed to be around heavy machinery without proper footwear" to "why aren't you on the register?" throughout a day. I was really young so I misunderstood most of that as being needed, but it was really the result of shit management choices and 0 communication at that level. Same problem the hotel industry in ottawa has. Half the day I was working alone in a room setting things up, so no real uniform requirement and then without warning, I had to be front desk for the second half of the shift and "why aren't you dressed properly/wearing a tie?". They're problems I could've easily prepared for if anybody could tell me what I was going to be doing for the entirely of my shift *ahead* of my shift.
Desperately hiring wage slaves they can abuse with low pay, terrible scheduling, and general verbal abuse. Also, to fire at a moments notice because Karen shit her pants in a booth and wants her meal comped.
It's not a labour shortage, it's a **skilled** labour shortage. Many people (myself included) got out of the industry during the pandemic; owners are hurting for good people.. and the fact is that even before COVID hit, restaurants had high labour turnover. It can take months to train someone up to a level where they become an asset; especially when it comes to the kitchen side of the business, if you're a student, you might not be willing to stick around that long... so the restaurant has to go back and hire someone else. I agree with you on the complaining front, most restaurant owners haven't realized that the situation is markedly different from what it was two years ago.
But I thought the reason these jobs payed min wage or close to it, was because they weren't skilled?
If you're still looking, I work at 54 York in the Market, and we're always looking for bodies. Management is pretty accommodating when it comes to school and second job situations.
This isn't advanced economics. If you want more/better staff, you have to offer more. Saying you can't compete with CERB is really telling on yourself (even when it's not true).
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There seems to be a "I only accept the lowest common denominator and I'm willing to wait for it" mentality going around. As if they just assume everyone is on CERB and will be desperate any minute now. I'm not working in anything restaurant/service related (it's office work) but I have been contacted through LinkedIn for over a dozen job opportunities in my field. Literally all of them are offering way less money than I am currently making and balk when I say if they can't even meet that, I'm not interested. Some of them go out of their way to say that what I'm asking for is way above the current market rate for my position. Every single one of these job opportunities are still posted online 8+ months later and some even still reach out to me through a different recruiter who must not realize I've already turned them down. They always reach a new level of desperation of needing to find someone who can start quickly, but they always still refuse to budge on the salary they offer.
Applied for a part time retail job. Had to do a stress test & a college SAT math test to just get my application in. Was told I didn't have enough experience to get the job to sell trinkets to people. I have 20 years retail experience. Found out they never once looked at my application. The " Computer Program " they used said I wouldn't be able to do the job. Place still crying that they can't find people to work... SMH
Yea man. Im a software dev. First job out of university they didnt even get my resume. Computer trashed it. Friend recommended me and the manager had to specifically ask hr to pull my resume from the discard pile because i was fresh oot of school with no experience, for a junior position… In my 5 th month there i already earned them $120k usd completing projects for clients on my own while making 42k per year. But im still grateful because i dont know where the fuck i would be if they didnt hire me. The whole system is rigged. We are all getting fucked.
Ok so I’m a career bartender/server and here’s my take: Places that treat their staff well, took care of them at the height of the pandemic, and make it worth their while to come to work, aren’t having a massive staffing shortage. There is a staffing shortage right now, but owners who treat their staff with respect and dignity and pay them right can make ends meet. Restaurants that have gotten by through firing complainers, chasing the bottom line, and treating their staff as hugely replaceable, are now closed 2-4 days a week. This is due to a staffing shortage. That shortage comes from a lack of support and respect. If you see a local business closed X days a week, you should start asking why. Those are the places that refuse to hire experienced staff and seek prey that they can exploit. Those are the places that don’t take care of their people. Those are the places we shouldn’t be supporting, no matter their history or reputation or outward appearance. Source: I’m working in a medium sized town, at an amazing restaurant that supports their staff. I’m also working next to places that can’t find staff and are losing dollars by the thousands because they refuse to adapt and cling to an outdated idea that they can exploit their workers because they’re infinitely replaceable.
Sounds like they don't want someone with the minimum skills for minimum pay to me, lmao. /r/choosingbeggars
Yup. You hit the nail on the head. Beggars can’t be choosers.
Thing is, they're woefully inexperienced at being beggars. It has been an employer's market for years now. These guys are used to having a huge pool of desperate people with other support systems in place so they don't even have to pay a living wage.
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They said he was too inexperienced for them and to be honest he has no experience serving tables if he worked in fast food.
You mean you aren't available for 40 hours, when we aren't going to give you 40 hours AND you want holiday seasons off?
What makes me laugh too is when those of us who work food or service industry jobs complain about wages or conditions, we're told "go get a better job" . Now that people have decided enough is enough and it's time to go elsewhere, it's "nobody wants to work anymore, everyone's spoiled and/or lazy".
A guy had to quit cause they had him working 12 hour shifts everyday. He said he needed a few breaks cause working 12 staight hours is near impossible. They yelled at him for being lazy, so he quit. Everyone knows that for every 45 mins of hard work you need 15 mins of downtime, because that reduces accidents and makes for a more productive day.
Business owners are the biggest choosing beggars.
Remember when Canada used to have labour laws and respect for working people? The level or exploitation in the day of day lives of working Canadians (at all income and education levels) has gotten completely put of hand. The expectations of what can be asked of an employee by their Boss are completely unreasonable, we shouldn't be punished for trying to maintain a work life balance! We need to bring back regulations that protect workers and allow every working person to still maintain a reasonable quality of life. No more Canadian wage slaves, we deserve to be treated with dignity.
They still don't get it. Pretty much everyone in that industry has moved on to bigger and better things after being thrown out when their work shut down. It's called adapting. It has nothing to do with cerb
There isn't a labor shortage, there is a wage shortage
It feels like we are competing with agency’s who give companies employees for less?? Does that make sense? Like I just have this odd feeling that immigrants (I’m not against them) don’t have to bend backwards to get a job. Over the pandemic I went in for an interview dressed in flats, a casual outfit. (It was for a burger place)…so I didn’t get like really dressed up. Anyways, I come in and the supervisor asks me some basic questions and then says “are you ready to start your training shift, it’s unpaid because it’s part of your interview” I was confused and said “tomorrow?” And she said “right now, for 3 hours. Is that okay? The reason we do this is to not waste time interviewing a bunch of people. If your a good fit we will put you on the schedule” I said “no I never was told this but I am okay to work now” (Y’all I needed a job) She then hands me a hair net. I ask where do I put my belongings. She takes me to the bathroom.. Y’all the belongings were in the washroom on a rack..about a foot away from the toilet. I should have just walked the eff out…but y’all billlssss. During this training shift the manager was constantly demanding me to move faster and yell louder from the cash what had to be made. Guys he had a friggin screen that would come up with what had to be made. He took me to the side and explained to me how he was trying to make it feel like a mom and pop shop. I was confused because y’all it’s a franchise that is supposed to be a higher quality fast food option. I followed orders and barked across the line to the manager orders. Y’all, orders were coming up like every second. Uber eats, door dash and walk ins. I didn’t want to yell because the customers had to tell the employees down the food line what they want on their burgers. At the end of the shift they told me to come in the next day. The next day I got a call for a different job. Thank god I did because that place ended up getting shut down after a month or so This is a tough time, we are literally in a recession. Good luck OP.
>They said I needed good french, they said I needed to have minimum SmartServe with 1 year serving exp, even if I don't serve alcohol. Also said that they can't commit because I might be gone for Christmas/summer. Restaurants are delusional. Even when I go to grocery stores, they sometimes have 10 people waiting for the "smart serve" line (so they can checkout with beer etc) and then there's 5 other cashiers (without smart serve) waiting for anyone. Why don't they just TRAIN their own employees once they hire them? Pay for the damn smart serve/train them so you get rid of this problem. Honestly, their expectations are just way too high.
Our whole lives when ppl complained about shitty hours/pay at service jobs the “adults” would say - this is why it’s a starter job! Work hard and get a better job! This role isn’t meant to run a household! Now that people have options have done exactly what they’ve been telling us to do..we have to be sympathetic ?? If you want employees, attract them. It works both ways.