One more server thread.

How about we just expand this entire Forum to: How much is a Food Service Worker worth?

Since no one is limiting it to Servers any longer.

Tom Brady, completely different field and skill set. Tom Brady would probably starve if had to make a living serving.

t's comparable to me complaining that I don't make what Tom Brady makes, and he only works 5 months out of the year. Apples and oranges. The argument is ridiculous.-

Tom Brady, completely different field and skill set. Tom Brady would probably starve if had to make a living serving.

I have to disagree. I know Brady can multitask and I bet he washes his hands. I think with enough time Brady could be trained to ge a good server. I don't think a server can be trained to be a Hall of Fame NFL QB.

Damn, I just want a quarterback in Cleveland that can be trained to throw a touchdown once in a while !!
Sorry, obviously a topic for a different time

Welcome Gary S. You make some good points.

Maybe, maybe not. Not everyone has the aptitude and attitude to be a good server. I don't know why you assume everyone can do it.

I didn't say everyone; I said Brady. Maybe not the attitude, but certainly the aptitude. College grad with honors, I think someone could train him.

. . .

I don't see any cooks, chefs, bartenders, or hostess saying they should be making $75 an hour.

Justin, I'm a college grad and that has nothing to do with being able to be trained to be a competent server. I really believe it's a job that you truly have to love to do in order to be good at it. I tried it once a loooong time ago and it was not for me, training had nothing to do with it. I have much more respect for servers for having gone thru the experience. I believe that it IS the attitude that makes a good server. If your heart isn't in it you won't make a very good one IMHO. And it's probably those kind of servers who have a hard time with "no ice in my soft drink" requests. They're just trying to make some bucks to get through school and have no intention of it being their permanent profession. I've also been a hostess at a long-closed, fairly upscale restaurant and with the s*#t I had to deal with in that position from customers at times $75/hour would maybe have made up for it.

The truth is, you get what you pay for. Obviously, you're going to get better service at Jack Fry's than at Tumbleweed. What is not obvious is that this has nothing to do with the food, the ambience, the management or the ownership. It is directly related to the menu pricing and PPA. Good, professional servers go where the money is. Low dollar, casual dining concepts hire people with no experience and marginal skills. This seems like a no-brainer, but when I hear complaints about things like not being able to get a Coke with no ice, I'm betting that didn't happen at Seviche or Varanese.

I think your are oversimplifying here. There's a world of difference between lacking experience and possessing marginal skills. I can understand why casual dining places hire people with 1)no experience or 2)marginal skills or 3)no experience and marginal skills. But you've pretty must caste every non-fine dining server as having marginal skills, whether or not they have any experience.

Obviously I am taking this personally, because I served at a non-fine dining establishment with no experience and a lack of understanding of the skills needed to serve. That does not mean I had marginal skills. I merely needed to be thrown into the fire so that I could understand how to fine tune the skills I did have and acquire the ones I did not. This is also to say that it would be next to impossible to acquire certain server skills outside the context of actually serving (server discourse/language, use of POS system, table numbering systems, etc.)

It's clear your point was not meant to distinguish between different types of servers but, instead, to frame yourself as being better than certain servers. Who is the elitist now?

None of this accounts for the fact that no one rises to elitist server prick level without getting his feet wet somewhere first. Your post is unfortunate because, while it makes good points, it seems solely intended to piss people off. I'll skip the welcome and just say that I think you are a troll.

How about we just expand this entire Forum to: How much is a Food Service Worker worth?

Since no one is limiting it to Servers any longer.

My point is, why are servers the only people being viewed worth $75 per hour. It is a stupid argument to begin with. I don't think there is any server in Louisville making $150,000 per year or that there ever will be. It is insane for me to believe anyone truly believes that a server should be making $150,000 when teachers, cops, firemen, soldiers, and damn near every working stiff in Louisville isn't making half that number.

Justin, I'm a college grad and that has nothing to do with being able to be trained to be a competent server. I really believe it's a job that you truly have to love to do in order to be good at it. I tried it once a loooong time ago and it was not for me, training had nothing to do with it. I have much more respect for servers for having gone thru the experience. I believe that it IS the attitude that makes a good server. If your heart isn't in it you won't make a very good one IMHO. And it's probably those kind of servers who have a hard time with "no ice in my soft drink" requests. They're just trying to make some bucks to get through school and have no intention of it being their permanent profession. I've also been a hostess at a long-closed, fairly upscale restaurant and with the s*#t I had to deal with in that position from customers at times $75/hour would maybe have made up for it.

College is not all about learning facts and figures; but learning how to learn, thinking for yourself, and mulitasking. Studying while drinking beer and watching tv is hard. I'm not saying that going to college makes you a good server, it just shows you are able to learn. Everyone is going to have a learning curve after college, even Dr's, and lawyers who specialize. College can't make anyone really prepared for a "real life" job.

College is not all about learning facts and figures; but learning how to learn, thinking for yourself, and mulitasking. [. . .] Studying while drinking beer and watching tv is hard. [. . .] Everyone is going to have a learning curve after college . . lawyers who specialize. College can't make anyone really prepared for a "real life" job.

While I've tried to remain largely out of this, I just wanted to reiterate that Justin's point is good. Law school did not teach me how to be a lawyer, it taught me how to THINK and ANALYZE in the manner necessary to be a lawyer. The rest I've learned on the job.

Also, I went to a top law school, took on $$$ in debt, and work for one of the best firms in town, and I don't make anywhere near $150,000. My wife is a teacher and makes far far less than me. I'm not going to judge one way or the other on whether a server should earn $150,000, but between us, my wife and I have 9 years of college and 5 years of graduate school, for 14 years of post-high school learning and (and debt), and our combined income is less than the proposed server value.

Again, no knock on servers, or any job on the planet for that matter, all of which I respect and are necessary, it's just than I'm not following the valuation here. . .

Welcome to the forum Gary S. A great deal of what you say is true, it's hard to graciously accept criticism from either side of the table. Hopefully the lines of discussion will stay open, everyone will have a chance to vent and maybe we'll walk away with at least a glimpse of the other person's POV and we'll learn. Right?

As far as the comparison of pay vs different fields of professions, I don't know... I can't help thinking about teachers or chefs or most any other profession that went to school and are carrying school loans in order to learn their profession. Servers do not have this expense. NO ONE goes to college, takes out a student loan and pays a tuition, to learn to be a food server . At least not around here. Perhaps in Europe. Here you start at some Tumbleweed-esque restaurant to learn the basics and then hone your skills as you work all the while earning some (if sometimes meager) income. You can become a skillful server, develope a nice portfolio history and never pay a dime. Instead you earn income the entire time, even if it isn't a great deal. Point is, you don't come out of college, take an entry position someplace earning entry level pay AND carry the burden of 10s of thousands of dollars in student loans.

I'm not sure if this is fair to food servers either. Say you deside to go into management with the restaurant you've been dilligently working in , the first thing they ask is "Where's your college?" Doesn't matter that you've come up through the ranks and know the FOH and BOH from experience, they want that sheepskin if you want to move up in the business. So I ask this... should we start asking for degrees in the foodservice industry for all aspects of the business? Just wondering.

Thanks for the welcomes guys. I think most of you got the point of my OP. The biggest issue seems to revolve around how much a server makes per year, or deserves to make rather. I have a friend who serves at the Four Seasons on the Big Island in Hawaii. She makes over $100,000 a year. Server jobs like this are few and far between, but to say she doesn't deserve to make that kind of money is ridiculous. People who complain about what people in other professions make just sound bitter. They use teachers and firefighters as the examples of underpaid professions, but secretly you know they are comparing the numbers to their own income and finding them outrageous. I'm not saying cops and social workers shouldn't be paid more, I'm just saying servers shouldn't be resented because they aren't.

Carla, There have always been two ways to work your way up the ladder in restaurants. A foodservice degree, or good old fashioned hard work. (actually, there are 3 if you count nepotism). Both get you to the same place but one gets you there faster. Why should anyone spend a fortune on a degree from Sullivan only to end up a $12 sous chef working at Macaroni Grill? In those 4 years, they probably could have gained the work experience needed to move into management, whereas the recent grad is now on the job hunt with no work experience and huge college debts.

I will also mention that when I was a KM I wouldn't hire Sullivan students. Not inexperienced ones anyway. They were too slow, focused too much on presentation, and had major superiority complexes that weren't conducive to line cooking.

Ugh, I would like to fine tune this post but I'm gonna be late for work.

Damn, I just want a quarterback in Cleveland that can be trained to throw a touchdown once in a while !!
Sorry, obviously a topic for a different time

Guy walks into a bar with his cat...They're both dressed up in their Cleveland Browns attire. The bar tender says "Hey, you can't bring that F-N cat in here". The guy says "Awwww come on. We always watch the game together and my TV is broken", he won't cause any problems". So the bartender gives in and the guy orders a beer for himself and a little saucer of milk for his cat. Well about halfway through the 3rd quarter the Browns (trailing miserably) kick a field goal. Well the cat goes freaking nuts...it starts running up and down the bar slapping "high fives" with all the customers. "Wow, that's pretty cool" said the bar keep, "What's he do when they score a touchdown" ?..."I dunno" said the man..."I've only had him 3 years".

Brrrrrrrruph.

College is not all about learning facts and figures; but learning how to learn, thinking for yourself, and mulitasking. Studying while drinking beer and watching tv is hard. I'm not saying that going to college makes you a good server, it just shows you are able to learn. Everyone is going to have a learning curve after college, even Dr's, and lawyers who specialize. College can't make anyone really prepared for a "real life" job.

College is not all about learning facts and figures; but learning how to learn, thinking for yourself, and mulitasking. [. . .] Studying while drinking beer and watching tv is hard. [. . .] Everyone is going to have a learning curve after college . . lawyers who specialize. College can't make anyone really prepared for a "real life" job.

While I've tried to remain largely out of this, I just wanted to reiterate that Justin's point is good. Law school did not teach me how to be a lawyer, it taught me how to THINK and ANALYZE in the manner necessary to be a lawyer. The rest I've learned on the job.

Also, I went to a top law school, took on $$$ in debt, and work for one of the best firms in town, and I don't make anywhere near $150,000. My wife is a teacher and makes far far less than me. I'm not going to judge one way or the other on whether a server should earn $150,000, but between us, my wife and I have 9 years of college and 5 years of graduate school, for 14 years of post-high school learning and (and debt), and our combined income is less than the proposed server value.

Again, no knock on servers, or any job on the planet for that matter, all of which I respect and are necessary, it's just than I'm not following the valuation here. . .

College shows you are able to learn in certain contexts, for certain purposes, and through certain methods. Learning is highly contextualized, based mostly in activity theories, and does not transfer all that well. Even the "learning" that is transferable has to be recontextualized - often with difficulty - in new environments. That's why "competent" people often struggle when thrown in new arenas.

So Brad has a point. Law school taught him how to do that which a lawyer does (an activity system of thinking and analyzing pertinent to a lawyer). Yet, the only thing that could make him a lawyer was jumping in and being a lawyer, which explains the need for and requirement of internships, clerkships, medical residency, etc. I take issue with Justin's larger point that going to college shows that you are able to learn. That statement's too broad for me. And it effaces all the other ways people learn outside of college or, everything they have learned and the processes they used to learn this information, that occurred before college.

I don't think those who go to college think better or learn better than those who don't go to college. Merely those who go to college and move into certain fields perform within fields that are more highly valued in a capitalistic, information-generating society. I don't know whether teachers think better or learn better than servers. All I know is neither is all that valued in our society. This gets us back to (from an earlier thread) the point of multi-tasking. It's not who multi-tasks the most, it's who's multi-tasking is the most valued. Or, who is most valued, regardless of the amount of work they do.

I might take offense that only crappy servers work at Tumbleweed and elsewhere. The only saving grace of our first time to Rocky's sub-par I mean pub, was the server. He was genuine, not interfering, and did his job well. I hope he enjoys where he works, because he is very good at it. If only he had warned us not to order the food!
I personally have worked in every level from the ground up, and have tried on other jobs. I am made for the service industry, and I believe that I'd better darn well make sure that my customers appreciate that about me.
Although it makes it difficult to teach your child conventional eating habits....like breakfast, lunch and dinner, and sitting down while eating. Or eating food warm... After all, you are feeding others during those times.

I take issue with Justin's larger point that going to college shows that you are able to learn.

You right, college grads don't know how to learn.

I have a friend who serves at the Four Seasons on the Big Island in Hawaii. She makes over $100,000 a year. Server jobs like this are few and far between, but to say she doesn't deserve to make that kind of money is ridiculous.

$100,000 in Hawaii is maybe $60,000 in KY

http://cgi.money.cnn.com/tools/costofli ... iving.html

I take issue with Justin's larger point that going to college shows that you are able to learn.

You right, college grads don't know how to learn.

I'm clearly in the wrong here. I'm taking issue with a statement that is impossible to take issue with. It's so broad, it's next to worthless.

You said, "college is [...] learning how to learn, thinking for yourself, and mulitasking." I agree with you on the most broad level. We just need to be careful to not sell the grand narrative that such outcomes are impossible outside of college. Most of the freshman I encounter - if not all - already have these ideas covered to a large extent. If they're paying the big bucks to learn this, then they should ask for a refund.

I might take offense that only crappy servers work at Tumbleweed and elsewhere.

I made a reference to Tumbleweed in an earlier post but was only using it as a reference to a specific price point in menus and not as a slam to anyone's skills. If I offended anyone I do apologize. That was not my intent.