MovieChat Forums > General Discussion > Have you ever worked at a restaurant?

Have you ever worked at a restaurant?

posted 3 years ago by enriquesingh (1812)
31 replies | jump to latest

A 16 year old cousin got a job at an Olive Garden, she begins in about a week.

She is going to be a dishwasher and will be making $3 more per hour than on her previous job.

She used to work selling cell phone cases and accessories sitting in a cart all day at the mall, would just ring people up and that's it, no lifting anything heavy, no leftover food-grease, no water splashing, etc.

I think she made a mistake and the extra $3 is not worth it... I wish her the best but even though I've never washed dishes at a restaurant I don't think it was a good decision.

So my question is how physically demanding is being a dishwasher at a 'restaurant volume'?

EDIT *Thanks for so many replies, vastly different experiences. Hopefully she will be able to manage it.

[–] LaraPeter (0) 2 years ago

[deleted]

[–] chilone (18333) 2 years ago

Very few people choose dish washing as a career. Sensible young people know that they have to start somewhere and work their way up. Hopefully this is her mindset.

[–] AnubisRaydeen (7897) 2 years ago

I worked at a Round Table Pizza for a few years when I was 17-18. We served alcohol so it was kinda in between restaurant and fast food. I was made to wash dishes at first but was so slow at it (I couldn't abide the levels of filth left over by the recommended techniques) that they moved me off the duty. I had a great time working that job. Stayed longer than I would have due to the access to alcohol and general happy-go-lucky fun/hijinx.

I have too many stories (period) from that job to tell. Even one about a guy with a shotgun.

[–] enriquesingh (1812) 2 years ago

lol you should share those stories on youtube or somewhere...

[–] SilenceByWolf (1868) 2 years ago

Ya when I was 15 at a Wendy's. I ended up getting fired. No loss AT ALL.

[–] BillHicksFan (10717) 2 years ago

Yes, I worked at a restaurant in middle school, then another one in high school, and a couple more in college. Dishwasher, food-prep, salads and deserts.

[–] db20db (17756) 2 years ago

Yup, lots of them, anything from fast food to a five-star rated eatery featured on the National Register of Historic Places. One of my most memorable experiences was working in the kitchen of the NCO Club on a military base in Hawaii. I had a wide variety of duties there, e.g., washing dishes, peeling potatoes, making pizza. It was good money for a teenager at the time and I always had access to all I wanted to eat, usually large plates of burgers and fries. The Polynesian waitresses would sometimes bring me vodka screwdrivers while I was cleaning the kitchen at the end of the night.😁

[–] OhJason (972) 2 years ago

Why yes I currently do. At Jason’s Deli.

[–] AmeriGirl26 (15124) 2 years ago

It's perfectly normal for teenagers to start at jobs like that. It will teach them the value of hard work, and how to appreciate understanding what it takes to move up in the world as they go along. Honestly, it's way less humiliating for a teenager to do it compared to a 20-30-year-old fresh out of college who needs way more than $3 an hour to be able to live anywhere that's larger than a cardboard box or a tent on the street.