Is working at Restaurants as a server a low stress job?
Working at Restaurants
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 Rodri |
Working at Restaurants |
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Posts: 27 (07/02/09 07:07:26) |
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TheGoodLife |
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Posts: 322 (07/02/09 10:23:12) |
I wish I'd gone into that, far better money than engineering. I think it depends on the person. I know it's very challenging, you have to get the
orders right, deal with some jerks, you're on your feet all day etc etc. However I think once you get skilled at it, it is indeed low stress. I'd
highly recommend trying it out.
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Rodri |
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Posts: 28 (07/02/09 12:23:41) |
what do you mean better money than engineering? I thought engineering was high-paying career, like $50,000.
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diozent |
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Posts: 69 (07/02/09 13:48:25) |
Delivering pizzas is fairly low stress. You are mostly away from the store and on the road without much supervision. Tips can be decent too depending on the
location of the store.
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zombans |
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Posts: 723 (07/02/09 16:07:54) Moderator |
I worked as a waitress at a pool hall in a tiny rural town. It was one of the best jobs I've ever had, and fairly well paying as I averaged about $8 an
hour. I worked some horribly sucky restaurant gigs, such as a cook at Pizza Hut. One of my first jobs was a waitress in a podunk diner, where business was
terribly slow. The owner would give me $5 to "help me out", put his arm around me, and grope. That was awful.
Like any job, whether it's good or not depends on the special circumstances of the place--the boss, coworkers, customers, work environment and purpose. carey |
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phadraigin |
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Posts: 121 (07/02/09 16:55:10) |
i second zombans--depends on the establishment, the boss, the co-workers, and the patrons. it can be very high stress, or not so much.
and yes, engineering would generally pay better, but how much of your pay-check goes off the top to pay the school loans for that degree, for how many years? what else must you buy to maintain the right image? what are the hours/week? |
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chip |
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Posts: 51 (07/02/09 22:01:13) |
My experience working at restaurants -- years of it -- is that it depends on the people. I personally didn't mind most of the work: chopping salads, making
biscuits (a skill that has earned me much praise in ordinary life over the years), frying stuff. And back in the kitchen, as long as the supervisor is laid
back, it can be relaxed.
One thing I would add is that it's usually easy to get a restaurant job, so why not give it a try? And if you don't like one place, just quit and go somewhere else. Getting hired as an engineer or whatever is a long process with lots of qualifications etc. But a restaurant usually just requires four limbs and a reasonably functional brain to keep you from getting too much workman's compensation. |
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TheGoodLife |
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Posts: 330 (07/03/09 10:17:57) |
Rodri - I thought that too, which is why I went for that. OK so you're out on your own at 18, no college fund, no parental support of any kind, etc. The
first rule is: Survive. As a minority (Haole in hawaii) whole sectors of employment are not open to you, you take what you can get. It takes you about 3 years
of just surviving on min. wage, taking a class or two at a time, to get to something like full time college attendance. You do that for 3 years. You've
living on next to nothing, grants go for the tuition and books and the loans you have to pay back. So, 3 years of min. wage of $3.35 and 3 more years on less
than that, since you're borrowing to live and be able to attend classes. I think my total loans before I burned out and left were $10k, which I paid back
BTW. You finally, through a miracle since Haoles do'nt get this kind of job, get hired at $5 an hour as a tech for Veri-Fone, and in a year get offered the
opportunity to leave Hawaii - you jump at it. Now you're working as a repair tech and although you thought this would finance the completion of your
engineering degree, that recedes further and further from your reach as living in California is a lot more expensive, you're paying off those loans, and
college costs have continued their exponential growth. So, chalk up several more years at $9.50, $9.75, $10.00, $10.25, $10.50, ..... blah you can get an idea
of the miniscule raises. And hours going up up up, not voluntary you WILL work the overtime. Yes I tended to drown my sorrows in restaurant food, motorcycles,
etc.
If you graph this you'll find a greatly depresses earning level for a friggin decade. Plus electronics being such a dead-end, after my Veri-Fone job I was never to work in 'tronics again, engineering degree completion now a faint dream, and Why anyway, there are no jobs. I spend long periods unemployed, get into a sport I"m very good at, make about $10k a year on it but lots is paid for so it's pretty damn good. Although, this amounts to more years of depressed earnings. I eventually get my own biz going adn while I eventually get up to GROSSING $70-80k, the net is a bit less than half that. I end up living on, what the average engineer lives on since I'm not buying a house, supporting a wife and kiddies, etc. Long hours, again, but I am actually for a few years living La Vida Engineer. So, how is La Vida Engineer? At best it's LONG hours, bosses that suk, co-workers that suk, and constantly job-searching. There is very little social capital in hi-tech. In my years in it, I've met burnouts, psychos, and actual loonies, people who thought rays were being sent into their beds at night (they wanted my advice on how to block them out ) and other strange beliefs. All engineers. The only other place I've seen this much mental pathology is among the homeless. Now let's compare and contrast food service. |
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TheGoodLife |
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Posts: 331 (07/03/09 10:29:36) |
OK, let's say that first out on my own, I'd found a place, anyplace, to be a waitress. Now, I am a really hardcore female-to-male transsexual, and the
idea of prancing around in a little dress repulsed me, but let's imagine here. I had a hot, if a bit skinny, bod! And a strong, capable bod. Haoles are
actually allowed, in some places preferred, in waiter/waitress jobs where I was, go figure. I'd have been making min. wage of course, but the tips would
effectively double that. I'd have been making $7 an hour, right off! That was huge wages! At some places, waitresses were making $100 a night no problem,
back then in the early 80s. Waitresses now tell me they make hundreds, if they're working at some of the popular places like along Castro in Mountain View,
and unlike Hewlett-Packard, even popular restaurants are always hiring.
There's comeraderie. In terms of the people it's a very "warm" profession, co-workers and the public alike become one's family, maybe a dysfunctional one at times, but it's a night-and-day difference from tech. Without college in the way, I'd have been earing union-carpenter-trainee wages right off, then up from there. I'd have learned a smattering of languages and maybe a few cute tableside tricks (those are good for stopping kids crying) and have been making a steadily climbing wage with no job security worries since a good waitress can ALWAYS get hired. $50k is peanuts these days, sure I live on 1/10th that but still. A decent waitress at a decent place earns right up there with an engineer, always has, always will. OK so really, I'm a flaming "morphodyke", would this seriously have worked for me? I venture to say, Yes. Even if most places would not have hired me, I'd still have had a large pool of employers. I'd have to work on "passing" as male and pick up a waiter job, but waiters make big bux too. Instead of a life of poverty fear and worry, I"d have had a pretty excellent working life I can only compare in financial terms the decision to go into high tech the equivalent of choosing to go into heroin or meth addiction. While I still have my teeth and no track marks, the effect on my wallet has been as devastating. This is why I heartily recommend food service as a career and really would not advise anyone I like to go into high-tech. |
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Ran |
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Posts: 249 (07/03/09 18:03:52) Administrator |
GoodLife, great stuff about tech jobs! If you ever want to write that up and post it somewhere, people will love it.
About working in restaurants, the advice I've heard is that if you like to take stimulants, you should be a waiter, and if you like to smoke pot, you should work in the kitchen. |
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cavanaugh |
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Posts: 17 (07/04/09 13:54:14) |
That's interesting, Ran... my experience in Florida was that a significant number, maybe even a majority, of cooks were coke users. Kitchen work is fast,
and apparently the coke helped. A friend of mine who was a cook was simply manic, and it worked about as well for him.
I think different personalities of people are more or less likely to find food service a low-stress job. For one thing, it helps to be able to easily remain cheerful while people treat you as a food procurement machine. I suspect it would be a fairly high-stress job for me...but nowhere near as high-stress as the engineering experience you've described, GL. I can relate to your regret about having chosen an expensive, stressful path rather than one that is less stressful or costly. |
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TheGoodLife |
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Posts: 335 (07/05/09 09:15:06) |
Ran - I have, just now.
All - Look at the figures, going into high tech may have made sense up until say at the latest, the mid-70s. After that it's been an exceedingly poor life choice, as damaging as entering a life of crime or drug use. |
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Tuco The Ugly |
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Posts: 1 (07/05/09 10:18:32) |
I usually just lurk around here, but as someone who has worked the restaurant scene for a short time now [and hopefully for longer], I'll be willing to
state that the jobs OUTSIDE the kitchen can be quite low-stress. Even when it's very busy, if you're not clumsy and you have a vague idea of what you
need to do next, it isn't too taxing. Tips can be wild, too- you can make more than your regular wages with tips some nights. Of course, that's only if
you're cute. Unfortunately, your potential income as a waitress is kind of dependant on how you look. I've seen some people barely pull in anything on
the same nights that the head waitress brings her 12 year old daughter in to help out...That little girl made more than I make in a weekend off tips alone that
night. Do this if you're attractive and are apprehensive about stripping [Kidding...I think]. Yeah, sometimes you'll come in feeling like shit and
you'll have to force a smile and make small talk with some lonely sad-sack staring at your ass, but the good outweighs the bad.
Working in the kitchen is highly dependant on what you're doing, however. Actually cooking? It can be really fun, but it's not just cook -> cook -> cook -> slack off. You're spending your shift either working through a rush period like lunch or dinner or you're preparing the kitchen for the next rush. Six day work weeks can grind away at your soul after a while, too, and you'll probably get pretty sore from being hunched over a counter/stove/deep fryer/whatever for hours a day. Still, I find it to be enjoyable simply because the job consists of many different tasks while still allowing you to concentrate on one job at a time. You've gotta stay aware of all of the other things that need doing, but you've really gotta force yourself to concentrate on the task at hand and it's really helped build my attention span back up after years of public education beat it down to nothing. Do this if you're less into people. The atmosphere in a restaurant is usually a friendly one though, although some chain restaurants have really horrible staff. There's something oddly peaceful about desperately trying to assemble a dish during the 6:00 rush though, it's very meditative and your mind just sort of hones in on one thing. For a guy like me, that's beautiful. Dishwashing is miserable work, however. You're constantly working to reduce a constantly increasing pile of mess before it overwhelms you. You will get through a mountain of plates only to realize that said mountain has somehow become HIGHER since you last checked on it three minutes ago. You'll probably get soaking wet from the equipment. Being in soaking clothes for hours a day gave me a pretty nasty infection that I'm still feeling the consequences of, the pay is terrible and the work is highly unenjoyable. Don't do this unless you really have to, and even then, ask yourself "Do I really have to?" before you take the plunge. Just my experiences. I know you asked specifically about server jobs, but I got kinda carried away. Heh. |
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tonyisnt |
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Posts: 54 (07/05/09 17:10:10) |
Huh. Most of the people I know who work in restaurants work constantly, barely get their rent and bills paid, and spend the majority of their funds on American
Spirits and Pabst Blue Ribbon.
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TheGoodLife |
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Posts: 341 (07/06/09 13:53:06) |
Tony - high tech is still a sure way to the tent city and MD 20/20 or Thunderbird. Pabt is a high-class drink!
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freecookies |
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Posts: 82 (07/07/09 09:51:10) |
If you do manage to get a job in the computer industry, save your money, don't spend it. Eventually, you'll be shoveled out the door and won't be
able to get hired again.
As far as restaurants go, the trend I see is towards less eating out, more home cooking. I personally try to cook most meals from as many raw materials as I can. If you do see me in a restaurant, it's a special occasion with friends and family. |
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MarcusORLYus |
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Posts: 18 (07/11/09 13:31:53) |
I tried several times to work food & bev, but it was just too stressful for me. Yet, in a tourist town where I lived I had a lot of friends with
well-paying restaurant jobs (IE: high tipping patrons). Many did end up wasting it on beer & bills, though... It really all depends on the person. As
others have said it's worth a shot.
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