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the great deceiver posted:yeah i know but if I didnt come in there would literally be no cooks in the kitchen. Whatever I'm gonna make bank this week then request a few vacation days next week How is that your problem?
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Jun 27, 2016 06:12
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Managers in any industry will lean hard on the good employees to cover for the bad so that they can take their sweet time figuring out how to fix the problem. The only way you can do anything about it is to let your manager know she's at the limit of what you are willing to give, and then stop giving. That will give her incentive to stop loving around and do something about the problem. Besides, she's a manager. It's literally in her job description to ensure adequate coverage, up to and including doing the job her own loving self. It's not in your job description, so stop doing it.
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Jun 28, 2016 10:47
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http://www.seriouseats.com/2016/06/clean-cooking-oil-with-gelatin-technique.html Interesting -- I've made gelatin clarified stock before, but never thought to do it with fry oil. Seven tablespoons of gelatin to clean 5Gal of fry oil? Not sure how much these things cost these days, but might be cost effective.
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Jun 28, 2016 15:11
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The General posted:How is that your problem? It's not and I know it's not. At first I didnt mind racking up all the extra hours but lately its becoming clear that the other cooks just dont feel like coming in most of the time so they call me because I'm reliable. Also we are so short-staffed on cooks right now I know that if I dont cover there probably wont be anyone running the line. Again, I know thats not technically my problem. I always took pride in never missing work, always covering shifts etc but this is ridiculous. I have today off for the first time in almost 2 weeks and Im not answering any work calls.
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Jun 28, 2016 18:52
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Working tons of hours def loving sucks but I just do it. I'm straight doubles throughout the week. Trust me it's no way to live life. But if I wasn't doing this I'd just be drinking and getting hosed up. Working, is the one thing that keeps me sober throughout the day. It's stupid and blah blah I could change. But whatever I make my money and I'm not a full blown alcoholic. Anyways that's my bad story.
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Jun 28, 2016 19:00
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i'm trying to sober up, incidentally. I'm on my 11th day dry and the first four days were roughest and Sunday a really cool relative died but so far I'm holding fast. It's more for my wallet than anything else; I don't think I'm quite alcoholic, but it was consuming most of my free time and I know I've had alcoholic grandparents, at the least, so I figure I'll just err on the side of caution.
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Jun 28, 2016 19:14
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Has anyone worked at a dinning center before? Does experience supervising a supermarket deli translate into managing a dining center? It's a university dining center, like a big cafeteria. I moved to a university town with my wife, who is going after her degree. I really need this job, I'm currently unemployed. I've found a posting for "Food Service General Manager" 4k/mo and would like some tips on how best to present myself on paper and in person. I've read the beginning of the resume / interview thread on ask/tell, but I wanted some advice from restaurant folks. I hope this is the right place to ask these questions, and if I've posted here in error I apologize. I worked at a supermarket deli for five years and made it to supervisor after three. It was pretty big, about 4 full time employees and 10 part timers. I ordered food and supplies, and wrote the schedule from time to time. I was being groomed for management by my boss and often sat in on interviews and conflict resolution meetings. I did a lot of catering and worked the grill outside three summers in a row. I was the number two guy when my boss wasn't around, and the boss when he wasn't. It was busy and stressful, moving on my feet all day, no leaning no stopping, ten minute breaks were frowned upon. We cooked a lot of real food (not just cisco pre frozen crap, although there was a lot of that too). Then I was promoted to marketing director. It didn't work out, and after six months I was kicked back downstairs into the deli, where I had a new manager. Things had sort of fallen apart without me. I made it clear I didn't want to be a supervisor again because I was basically doing the job of a manager at half the pay, so they put me in charge of specialty cheese. This turned out to be a pain since I was expected to manage my section and work in the deli. It ended up being a catch 22; if I put enough time into my specialty cheese my manager told me I wasn't doing enough work in the deli, if I was doing enough work in the deli my manager told me I wasn't doing enough specialty cheese. It was surreal. Nothing was good enough, and they wouldn't let me work overtime. I described my problems to my manager and his superiors, I tried delineating hours so neither aspect of my work suffered but it just turned into a cluster. Eventually I put in my two weeks. One good thing from the specialty cheese thing was that I got to go to food shows and learn how to make deals with vendors. What should I try to emphasize on my resume? How good a shot do you think I have? Should I drop in and try to catch the executive chef, who would be my boss if I got the job, or would that be unprofessional? Thank you all in advance for any advice.
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Jun 28, 2016 19:18
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Trebuchet King posted:i'm trying to sober up, incidentally. I'm on my 11th day dry and the first four days were roughest and Sunday a really cool relative died but so far I'm holding fast. A general feature of addiction is that you become very good at denying the belief that you have a problem- it's part of how the addicted individual rationalizes giving themselves access. (It's also why it's the first part of most multistep programs). If you've got a family history of alcoholism, you're absolutely making the right choice, whatever your reasons. Way to go!
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Jun 28, 2016 21:13
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Hey thread, quick question: What are some of the hidden costs in operating a restaurant that keep profit margins thin? My wife and mother-in-law were doing some bar napkin math in comparing profit margins in China versus the US for restaurants. MiL owns two restaurants in China and says her profit margins are as low as 15%, high as 30% depending on the year and how much business she does, and according to her she can make back the startup cost for opening a new restaurant in two years max, normally in just a year. So they were thinking of US costs excluding startup, took an $8/hour wage for a small place (so I'm thinking 4-5 staff?), took average rent for Atlanta (where we're thinking of getting into the business), did some trawling for food prices from Costco and a couple other places and were getting decent profit margins. However this obviously isn't a realistic scenario, so either they did the math wrong (likely) or are missing some pieces in their costs (also likely). My overview of their math is vague because my wife just blurted this all at me as I was trying to fall asleep last night.
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Jun 28, 2016 21:53
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What type of restaurant, and are they going to have a liquor license? Also: you should pay more than $8/hour - preferably for everyone, but at the very least to BoH.
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Jun 28, 2016 22:09
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Quick glance rough my balance sheets from last year lease Utilities Water Insurance Point of sale system Card processing fees Inspections Equipment malfunction Disposables (napkins/takeout contaners) Food loss (waste/ spoilage) Accounting Grease trap cleaning Pest control Fire suppression maintenance Linen service Replacing mops and poo poo Cleaning supplies I can keep going if you want.
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Jun 28, 2016 22:13
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JawKnee posted:What type of restaurant, and are they going to have a liquor license? I think in their minds it's similar to MiL's restaurants, which is a "cheap food for regulars coming in from their jobs, made with decent to good ingredients and nothing fussy." But the idea of comparing restaurants between the two countries just makes my head hurt, from the course vs. family eating style to the regulation differences and cheap labor... Also, I totally agree to more than $8/hour. They may have factored in $8 for cooks, no FoH and higher for a head cook/chef...? Again, my wife thinks me falling asleep at 11:00 is the perfect time to talk at me about these things.  Errant Gin Monks posted:Quick glance rough my balance sheets from last year At the risk of spamming the thread with this sort of thing, sure. Seeing as how we're reasonably sure this is a thing we'll be getting into, and both of us are inexperienced young fools, I'll take whatever knowledge dump you're willing to type out.
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Jun 28, 2016 22:22
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Experienced fools should not open restaurants, let alone inexperienced fools.
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Jun 28, 2016 22:38
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Chef De Cuisinart posted:Experienced fools should not open restaurants, let alone inexperienced fools. He is correct. Amergin posted:At the risk of spamming the thread with this sort of thing, sure. Seeing as how we're reasonably sure this is a thing we'll be getting into, and both of us are inexperienced young fools, I'll take whatever knowledge dump you're willing to type out. Okay so monthly included Lease, utilities, water, sewage, grease/oil removal, insurance, alarm system, merchant services account, quick books online, linen service, payroll (don't forget the 6% payroll taxes, the cost per check from the payroll company, the unemployment insurance etc), equipment lease (fridge, freezer, ice machine) Weekly/daily included Food, disposables, and cleaning supplies, loss to credit processing companies (different cards cost different amounts) Quarterly included Fire suppression maintenance and inspection, pest control, sales tax (I kept this in another account), grease trap cleaning, replacing broken dishes and lost silverware. As needed Equipment repairs, small equipment replacement, accountant, purchasing new fire extinguisher, etc
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Jun 28, 2016 22:52
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EDIT ^ Thanks for the info!Chef De Cuisinart posted:Experienced fools should not open restaurants, let alone inexperienced fools. From my lazy lurking of this thread, I get the impression that nobody who is clinically sane should choose, of their own volition, to get into the restaurant business. Especially if there are other options with less stress and probably higher pay. But we're feeling the call of the void something fierce, have a good and willing (so far) support system and will be working with the MiL as she opens a new restaurant as a sort of "training wheels." We'll probably still fail, maybe even spectacularly, but so long as we don't kill anyone and don't die ourselves... 
Amergin fucked around with this message at 22:59 on Jun 28, 2016 |
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Jun 28, 2016 22:53
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does uspol know you have a Chinese wife? it clashes with your gimmickAmergin posted:But we're feeling the call of the void something fierce, have a good and willing (so far) support system and will be working with the MiL as she opens a new restaurant as a sort of "training wheels." We'll probably still fail, maybe even spectacularly, but so long as we don't kill anyone and don't die ourselves... ...you'll be stuck paying off the loans you took for startup capital for years to decades
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Jun 29, 2016 01:41
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Yeah this is sounding like don't do it man...
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Jun 29, 2016 02:14
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Trebuchet King posted:i'm trying to sober up, incidentally. I'm on my 11th day dry and the first four days were roughest and Sunday a really cool relative died but so far I'm holding fast. You work in a restaurant, you're almost certainly an alcoholic, but congratulations on staying sober.
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Jun 29, 2016 03:39
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Amergin posted:EDIT ^ Thanks for the info! I don't know poo poo about restaurants in China, but at the very least their money is artificially deflated compared to the dollar so your MiL might not understand that just because something costs X in China you can't just throw that number into calculator with the exchange rate and get an accurate number for what it's gonna cost you.
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Jun 29, 2016 03:50
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GhostofJohnMuir posted:does uspol know you have a Chinese wife? it clashes with your gimmick I think I've mentioned it before but most people focus on yelling at my gimmick or yelling at the people yelling at my gimmick. In terms of loans though, the idea is that we're going to go help MiL modernize her restaurants (implement a POS, create a payroll system, organize the employee structure, integrate a third party delivery service, clean up the menu), first of which will be the new one she's setting up. We'll use that as a guinea pig for these modernizations while keeping MiL's accounting and procurement systems intact. The hope is that this restaurant is as successful as the other two, we extend the modernization to the other restaurants, the third restaurant's profit accumulates for a couple years, then we come back and invade the US. That's probably the key thing I forgot to mention, we wouldn't be trying to take on the US for another couple years, with the goal being we wouldn't need to take out loans (or at least keep them minimal) by using capital accumulated from China. Skwirl posted:I don't know poo poo about restaurants in China, but at the very least their money is artificially deflated compared to the dollar so your MiL might not understand that just because something costs X in China you can't just throw that number into calculator with the exchange rate and get an accurate number for what it's gonna cost you. From what I gathered they didn't try to directly "translate" anything over, they simply looked at some quick costs for food, rent and employees and couldn't figure out why the margins are so thin. I went over Gin Monk's list with my wife last night so hopefully that'll help enlighten them.
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Jun 29, 2016 16:26
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Amergin posted:I think I've mentioned it before but most people focus on yelling at my gimmick or yelling at the people yelling at my gimmick. This is a good plan. Just make sure you speak to an accountant and brush up on the food laws and licensing in the city/county/state you decide to open a place. Good luck man.
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Jun 29, 2016 17:17
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Errant Gin Monks posted:This is a good plan. Just make sure you speak to an accountant and brush up on the food laws and licensing in the city/county/state you decide to open a place. Good luck man. I appreciate it, thanks! We will definitely do a bunch of research on local laws before making the switch. Right now we have a few places in mind, Atlanta being at the top due to proximity to family. Once we get closer to the switch (assuming we still think it's feasible) we'll whittle it down and dig into that info. I also appreciate y'all trying to talk me out of it, even if I'm just an random Internet stranger goon. In all likelihood I'm too much of a pussy white biscuit bitch for this industry but I'll be damned if I don't at least bang my head against the wall a bit first!
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Jun 29, 2016 18:38
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gooble gobble gooble gobble one of us one of us
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Jun 29, 2016 19:08
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Just make sure you stay a functioning alcoholic. 
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Jun 29, 2016 22:18
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im on 5 days sober now, its the longest ive ever gone while working in the industry. chef keeps making fun of me for trying to go 7 days without drinking.
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Jun 30, 2016 01:08
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Liquid Communism posted:Just make sure you stay a functioning alcoholic. no such thing, there's just functional storytellers
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Jun 30, 2016 01:11
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Slaapaav posted:im on 5 days sober now, its the longest ive ever gone while working in the industry. chef keeps making fun of me for trying to go 7 days without drinking. you can do it chef can stuff it
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Jun 30, 2016 01:30
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Slaapaav posted:im on 5 days sober now, its the longest ive ever gone while working in the industry. chef keeps making fun of me for trying to go 7 days without drinking. no joke I just went 2 weeks without for the first time in... years probably. I honestly don't recall. I lost 5 lbs.
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Jun 30, 2016 01:33
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yeah, the weight loss thing is part of it for me too. i'm pretty sure i was drinking at least half my calories. now if i can just dial back on the coca-cola...
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Jun 30, 2016 02:08
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Big ups to everyone else who got hosed tonight - be it day crew making GBS threads the bed on prep, an unexpectedly gigantic Wednesday, a short staffed team, absentee KM, or in my case all 4 - I feel you. I am you. I don't know why I picked this week to stop getting high before work. Really poor planning, that.
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Jun 30, 2016 03:08
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Trebuchet King posted:yeah, the weight loss thing is part of it for me too. i'm pretty sure i was drinking at least half my calories. now if i can just dial back on the coca-cola... Go to diet rather than trying to cut out caffeine and alcohol at once. If you don't like the taste, try other brands or noncaloric sweeteners-differences tend to come from the bottler.
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Jun 30, 2016 03:36
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Oh, I'm not nixing both at once--and I've been cooking for myself a lot more so diet's improving too. I figure after a month or two dry, once it's taken (as much as it can, I guess?) then it's time to try switching to unsweetened iced tea.
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Jun 30, 2016 04:01
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I don't smoke weed, I rarely drink and even more rarely to the point of being drunk, and my only real vice is nicotine. I am a statistical anomaly. I'm not bragging, either; there are times I really, really wish I could smoke/enjoy weed. I used to drink a LOT of pop and while I never had weight issues, I did notice a considerable improvement in overall health within a few weeks of cutting it cold turkey. I mostly drink plain water now but those flavored water enhancers helped me a ton when I first cut pop out so you might try those.
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Jun 30, 2016 05:50
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SHUPS 4 DETH posted:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VmW-ScmGRMA
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Jun 30, 2016 05:58
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Trebuchet King posted:I figure after a month or two dry, once it's taken (as much as it can, I guess?) then it's time to try switching to unsweetened iced tea. This is actually what I've been drinking instead of booze whenever I want a beer. I didn't go cold-turkey though, I've tried that a few times before and always ended up drinking again a few days later. This time I decided that, as all I wanted to do was lose some weight and be more productive in the mornings, I should stop doing one thing: drinking whenever I'm by myself. So now I only let myself drink when I'm hanging out with other people who are drinking (which isn't often anymore).
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Jun 30, 2016 06:02
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 When I switched to diet soda hrngrmngr years ago I dropped 30 lbs In a month. Now all I have to do is hear from everyone and their cat about how my kids' kids are going to be born with webbed hands or how I'm giving myself diabetes and ruining my metabolism or blah blah what the gently caress ever. I hear more about it than I do about smoking these days.
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Jun 30, 2016 06:22
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It's all bullshit. Any of the mainstream non-caloric sweeteners are fine to consume unless you've got one of a couple very rare conditions, in which case you'd know or be dead already.
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Jun 30, 2016 06:41
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Trebuchet King posted:yeah, the weight loss thing is part of it for me too. i'm pretty sure i was drinking at least half my calories. now if i can just dial back on the coca-cola... Assuming beer at home cola at work, switch to soda water with a wedge of lemon and/lime. I start with one, and after 3 or so cups add the second.
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Jun 30, 2016 06:46
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mindphlux posted:hey everyone can we rewind the thread to the point where mr. dog calls retirement savings 'wealth and luxury' because lol A Man and his dog posted:Working tons of hours def loving sucks but I just do it. don't use your alcoholism as a crutch for not making good money. alcoholism is a crutch in of itself so much already, it doesn't need any help from you to prop it up. if you can hold down a job anywhere as an alcoholic, (and are skilled and/or not completely worthless) you can make money. for fucks sake our founding fathers were mostly terrible drunks
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Jun 30, 2016 09:17
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I don't really endorse suggesting functional alcoholism is okay. Dog, if working literally keeps you sober then you should also find other things that keep you sober. There's no such thing as a "full-blown" alcoholic - either your body has a neurochemical configuration for alcoholism or it doesn't. And it's progressive - your body's response/tolerance for alcohol will only get stronger as you continue drinking. psa: party culture, imo, is a reason why restaurant culture sucks. It keeps us from moving forward.
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