[sakabaro]

> Chefs / Pastry Chefs (Delightful): Lots of people love cooking or baking (including me!) and they think that means that it would be a good career. Unfortunately, based on the basic principles of supply and demand, this leads to more people wanting to be chefs than one would see if it didn’t look so fun. Too many cooks spoil the market for restaurant labor.

I am not sure if the author ever talked to a cook or a baker.

[moate]

Former chef turned tech dork here: Anyone who says "I want to own my own restaurant, it sounds like fun!" will immediately be destroyed. People who don't burn out of the restaurant industry (or get stuck in rehab/o.d.) typically love their craft and work like lunatics. It makes the tech sector work/life balance look like paradise. You stay in the field because you enjoy the lifestyle and get off on the adrenaline rush.

Restaurants don't pay anything because the learning curve is low enough that you can just train line cooks on the job. And chefs tend to just be smart dudes who could deal with lifestyle long enough to get into manager roles. Most normal, sane people don't work as cooks because they wouldn't be willing to put up with the physical/mental stress for so little pay. It's a refuge of maniacs and the desperate.

[bjterry]

You have a point (I'm the author). When I was young I had a few friends who were line cooks at Olive Garden, and they didn't believe they were going to have a great career staying in that kind of work. It was just a job that they were able to get at an entry-level without any training. But I also have multiple friends and family members who went to culinary school in hopes of becoming chefs at their own restaurants. Mostly this has not turned out very well financially for them. For the same amount of work if they had gone to trade school, any of them could have a job that pays well.

Note this does not mean they'd be happier.

[moate]

First mistake: going to culinary school with the hopes of being a chef at their own restaurant. I'm 3rd+ generation restaurant worker. Watch my mom go bankrupt twice opening her own places. Restaurants are a completely misunderstood industry because too many people forget it's a business first and "cooking with love" second.

Quick story: My best friend in culinary school already had a BA in education when she got into the field. She went the hotel route, got a masters in Hospitality and now manages food/bev at a large Boston hospital. She loves food and cooking, but she also realizes that it's a job first and that she can always do her fun stuff at home.

Working as a cook/chef can be a great career, but most people have no clue what the industry actually looks like when they start to gravitate towards it. I don't think this is unique to that industry, just something most career chefs recognize as part of what keeps the industry full of new bright eyed idiots to burn out after a few months and pay low wages.

[monodeldiablo]

Or a pilot, or anybody who works in television, or cancer researchers, or professors, or...