Management
just the tip of the iceberg
It’s an off-week, my allergies surged and this column comes to you as would an injured, exhausted marathoner stumbling over the finish line.
Yet here I am, and what’s more, I’m writing about management. It likely won’t be the last time.
I do not enjoy management. Again, this is based solely on my own experience in restaurants and bars, and so you are encouraged to take this with a grain, née pebble, of salt.
When I began this column, it was largely the result of working with the general public for years and noticing certain patterns. Human behavior is fascinating, and there’s no better place to study it than behind a bar or tableside.
And then, there’s restaurant management. Holy cow.
The inception of this column also sent me headfirst into rumination about how behavior often points directly to value.
Finally, in all of this reflecting, a pearl.
If we think about a restaurant as a series of layers, like an onion, we’d start with the outside layer. This is the host stand, where people enter and first begin interacting with the system. The second layer is the support staff, bussers and the like, who have little interaction with guests and who’s job is extremely helpful yet has little effect on service.
Third, cooks. Minimal interactions with guests, but can heavily sway a night’s rhythm.
Fourth, bartenders. This is almost dead center. Equal parts producing for the restaurant and affecting the flow of service.
Fifth, servers. The interfacers; the ones connecting the dots. The most guest interaction mixed with timely delivery of goods & services.
Sixth, management. This is where we’ll pause.
Managers often fill in where teams fall short. They answer to unruly or unhappy guests. They correct mistakes, oversee service from beginning to end and handle the inner workings of the system as a whole. If the kitchen runs out of lettuce, they run to the store. If so-and-so rips her pants, they find a patch or another pair of pants. If an item was left out of a to-go order, they drive said item to said guest’s house.
Managers are almost the center of the onion. They have to wait for all the other layers, including the actual center and seventh layer (the dishwasher), to finish their jobs and leave before they can go home.
Restaurant management is a hard job. I don’t know why other people do it, I can only write about why I did it. At the time, I thought it would get me somewhere new. And it did, but it was not somewhere I wanted to be. What’s more, my experience was directly perpendicular to my values.
As it relates to human behavior, when you accept a position in restaurant management, you put yourself in service not only to the outside world, but also to the inside one. I was sold the idea that my thoughts and opinions would be valued, and that I would get a seat at the table as a decision maker.
I was really more of a babysitter.
In management, you find yourself in service to guests and staff alike. You may, upon first entertaining the idea, feel that you will be in some kind of control; this is not untrue, but it is a small sliver of the picture of the job. It’s the one they often sell you.
In actuality, you are less in control than you are simply the glue.
You listen to everyone’s woes, their schedule requests, their comments on the rest of the staff. They call you when they are sick or have to take their car in or oversleep.
They come to work in wrinkled clothes and you have to gently (or not so gently) approach them about it. You wonder, is this parenting?
Restaurant management tests your sense of humor, patience and your ability to transform into the shape of any other position at any given moment.
It’s an important job, and having done it, I can’t help but wonder at some of the statistics I’ve read combined with industry standards. Managers are often (I would say usually, but I don’t want to overgeneralize; still, it’s widely known) paid much less than their staff. I suspect that this is due (in the USA) to tip culture, which is an increasingly hot topic.
I may dare to poke this bear, but not today. Suffice it to say that an average salary for a restaurant manager is a far cry from what the staff they manage is making.
Another discrepancy is hours. The salary creates room for the “higher-ups” to take advantage of a manager’s time, often promising a reasonable 45 hours weekly, which quickly turns into 60+ hours. I know some managers who have spent 12 hours, 7 days a week at work for months or longer. You do the math.
The industry as a whole needs good managers, but it cannot support them. They get burned out, and then even good managers become short, angry and begin to slip. Of course, there are exceptions to the rule. There are well paid managers, there are management teams that balance hours well, and there are restaurant owners who pitch in to make sure their managers get time off.
But the rule is that managers are overworked and underpaid. This is the overarching behavior of the entire industry, pointing to the fact that managers are not valued the way the title would suggest.
It’s no wonder the turnover rate is so high. Increasingly less people are willing to take management positions. I am this exact statistic. I managed for a year and a half, and I am unwilling to do it again.
Perhaps it’s time to rework the industry.