Giving credence to what your judgmental parents and every one of the shittiest people you know has ever said about working in restaurants, Boston's hospitality industry workers are poor, uneducated simpletons. So says a recent study by the Boston Redevelopment Authority (more or less).
According to the study (Eater Boston via the North End Patch) "The largest occupations in the accommodation and food services industry in Boston include waiters and waitresses; combined food preparation and serving workers; restaurant cooks; and bartenders."
The top ten jobs in the industry, making up about 76% of the jobs in the overall field, are listed as the following:
Waiters and Waitresses 9,592
Combined Food Preparation and Serving Workers, Including Fast Food 8,580
Cooks, Restaurant 3,225
Counter Attendants, Cafeteria, Food Concession, and Coffee Shop 3,016
Bartenders 2,631
First-Line Supervisors/Managers of Food Preparation and Serving Workers 2,486
Dishwashers 2,452
Food Preparation Workers 1,958
Maids and Housekeeping Cleaners 1,701
Hosts and Hostesses, Restaurant, Lounge, and Coffee Shop 1,522
Source: Labor Market Assessment Tool 2.0, (BRA) Research Division Analysis.
There are about 50,000 people employed in the city making your fucking sandwiches and cleaning up after you splash shit all over the walls in hotels or whatever it is you do when no one is looking you weirdo. Overall, those people are, how do you say it, uneducated.
"More than 95% of accommodation and food services jobs require 'some college or less,'" the report finds. Only 58% of jobs in the city in general require some college or less. "In general, the average wages for jobs in accommodation and food services are lower."
As the Patch points out (and you can see the full report document there), "About 45 percent of the city’s food and hotel workers have yet to attain a high school diploma, and they earn about 88 percent of the average for workers with similar education levels. Workers with some college or an associates degree earned about 65 percent as the average person of their education level."
To make matters worse, once a person gets their degree, they are unlikely to stay in the industry, as less than 6% of the workers in the overall field have a degree past high school.
This is certainly contrary to my anecdotal experience over the years, where nearly everyone I've known in front of the house positions, 12,000 servers and bartenders were counted in this study, are typically working their way through college or grad school. But on the plus side, this should give the city's collective asshole demographic (500,000 or so by one study done by me in my brain), yet another reason to think that they can treat people like pieces of shit.
UPDATE: Great point brought up in comments by Patrick K, which I didn't get into in the original post, about the comparative education levels of front of house vs back of house employees bringing down the numbers here. As I say below, most back of the house workers I've ever worked with were all English as second language, or illegal, but, as Patrick brings up, some of the hardest workers you'll ever see, often times holding down two full time restaurant jobs.
UPDATE: Great point brought up in comments by Patrick K, which I didn't get into in the original post, about the comparative education levels of front of house vs back of house employees bringing down the numbers here. As I say below, most back of the house workers I've ever worked with were all English as second language, or illegal, but, as Patrick brings up, some of the hardest workers you'll ever see, often times holding down two full time restaurant jobs.
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12 comments:
There's usually a split between front-of-house and the kitchen. During my time at uni I worked in a Japanese restaurant doing the washing up. I was the only native English speaker in the kitchen - everyone else was Portuguese, Brazilian, Sri Lankan or Polish. Most of these dudes had no education but a few of them were architects or computer programmers in their native countries. Crucially though none of them had solid English-language skills. On the other hand, they could work their arses off for three to four years and return home with enough to build a house without a mortgage. The serving staff were almost uniformly native English speaking undergraduates and even more uniformly pampered, lazy poppets. It doesn't surprise me that service industry staff are generally not that educated. Restaurant work is stressful and low-paid so why would you stay in it once you had other options?
Agreed, and a good point that I was thinking as well but neglected to put into words. Most back of the house workers I've ever worked with were all ESL or illegal, but, as you say, super hard workers, who often did two full time restaurant jobs at once compared to the servers who couldn't string together 6 hours of work without whining. Then again, many of the servers I've known over the years were also going to school or working another day job, so it's probably not fair to stereotype too much.
Honestly, I'd actually rather work hard in a kitchen than have to pretend to give a shit that some dickhead's ravioli is too limp or their coffee hasn't arrived yet even though they asked for it five minutes ago and they're actually in a bit of a hurry. (Why would you go for a restaurant meal if you were in a hurry?)
Not that I didn't get on with the FOH people, just that it was funny hearing them complain about getting paid more money (via tips) to do less work than the kitchen bods. Also I think barwork in the US is more difficult innit? Because you get tipped I think you're expected to know more about drinks and talk to customers and such?
Yeah, it's a lot more work here, especially now that the craft beer and cocktail things have become so prevalent. In order to be a top bartender here now you practically have to have a degree in spirits and brewing and such.
The amount of money you make as a server or bartender compares to what you make in the back of the house is laughable, however. Something like $8 an hour here for dishwashers busting their fucking balls all night, where a server at a busy place could easily make $2-300.
$200-300 an hour?!? Mama mia. But then, dealing with the masses does deserve some extra money I think. If you're in the kitchen you work with the same people all the time and that's all you have to put up with. Being a server/bartender means you have to constantly cram little slices of your soul down the gaping maws of your customers. It takes a lot out of you and when a customer is an asshole for no good reason it can really be upsetting. I'd rather deal with Julio the porn maniac from Curitiba and Siva the silent former Tamil Tiger (both real cooks I worked with).
(A rampaging stone age warlord probably wouldn't find it "really upsetting" when a restaurant customer is a douche so don't tell anyone I said that after the oil crash.)
No no no, per night. Probably more like $15-20 an hour.
Haha, your secret is safe.
Another reason FOH staff get paid more: attractiveness. The servers at the Japanese place were mostly really pretty girls with a few man-hunks thrown in. The kitchen crew were generally monobrowed apemen like myself. Pretty girl waitresses make more tips, it's just life. But as I said, we throwback cave dwellers will come into our own once society collapses.
Prep cooks and dish dogs will generally be the least paid grunts. Plenty of students being servers except for the creepy 40 year old waiter that eats scrap food. There's always one. I always liked fucking with the new bartenders telling them I needed pitchers for beer batter. Ha ha dumb new guy the kitchen is drunk! Staff would usually keep us lubed after getting slammed if shit ran smooth. That's how I became an alcoholic at 19.
well, that story certainly took a turn
A turn for the awesome!
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