[chefandy]

Unrelated blathering because a lot of folks in tech don't have much exposure to this stuff and I always enjoy seeing a slice of someone else's life: In general a lot of people are understandably perplexed by seemingly simple, avoidable problems that they encounter in restaurants-- you can chalk almost all of them up to misinformation, or deliberately obfuscated factors. Firstly, there's a ton of inaccurate folk knowledge about the way restaurants work... (most infuriatingly to me is the food safety stuff. Look up the incubation time for most foodborne illnesses and consider how many people blame some lower GI symptoms the meal that met their stomach lining 3 hours earlier.) Also, a big part of the restaurant mystique is making it all seem sort of easy, uncomplicated, and fun, even for regulars and the 'friends and family' crowd; underneath that thin veneer, it's absolute insanity. I've worked in tech and the restaurant business extensively. Most days, the pressure level is "we just discovered a possible active intruder in our production systems" for at least a few hours. It's exhausting, and one of the reasons drug and alcohol addiction is so prevalent. Knowing that an entire staff is breaking their back so you can have a fun cozy bite to eat makes the experience palpably worse, but it's true. That's why you'll usually find people who've worked in the service industry are serious over-tippers. You have to give up a lot of your humanity to do that work, and a lot of people you encounter respect you less instead of more for having made that sacrifice.

I've proudly convinced so many people to not go into that business, though I've also convinced a few people to give it a shot. It's not a good choice for most people, but some people can't really do much else and be happy. In many ways, its especially tolerant to neurodivergent folks with different skillsets being downright useful in different roles. It's hard as hell though. There's a good reason that CIA (the school, not the spies) requires 6 months of full-time back-of-the-house restaurant work to get admitted to their degree program.