How The Worker-Awakening Is Affecting Business At One Local Restaurant

And why I won’t assume people just don’t want to work

The first thing I noticed before I opened the door was the sign about its changed hours. The Family Diner, like many businesses around the state, struggles to find workers.

I expected the restaurant to be empty. Sometimes, I see loads of people walking in, and other times it looks dead. Today, most of the seats were filled. Michigan restaurants are still running on limited capacity so I couldn’t sit where I felt like. I had to find one without a closed label on it.

I stood around for a minute when I first walked inside. Was it one where I had to wait for someone to seat me, or could I seat myself? Two road construction workers smirked and told me to sit down.

The restaurant had an interesting set-up. There is a deep love of bears and nature in this restaurant, with the occasional bear pun from the decorations hanging on the walls. Even the coffee mugs showed their love of nature while advertising the three cities you can find this restaurant.

There was one server, and she handled the restaurant well

I watched the woman handling every table in the restaurant. She didn’t stop moving, even for the slightest breather. I’d never seen anyone run a busy dining area the way she did. I didn’t realize she saw me walk in, and within five minutes, she put the menu in front of me.

Even though I knew what I wanted, I gave her time to take care of the other tables. A few of them finished eating and waiting on their bill when she gave me the menu.

I’m not a complicated customer. I like the simple things: chicken noodle soup and a grilled cheese sandwich. I listened to the waitress command the kitchen as order after order came up for her. I forgot about the mental gymnastics it takes in a restaurant to get all of the orders out at once.

Despite the lack of workers, the restaurant is always busy

After having a fantastic sandwich and soup, I walked up to the counter to pay my bill. With all the running around I saw the waitress do I thought I’d make it easier and come to her. That’s when I got a good look at her. She was sweating, but she didn’t make it obvious she might’ve been tired.

The restaurant is as busy as ever. No pandemic is stopping people from going out and having a meal prepared for them. The problem lately is that the place is struggling to find workers. As a result, the restaurant’s forced to close its doors every day at 2:00 p.m.

“Nobody wants to work, but I can’t blame them,” the waitress told me, “with all the changes we went through in the pandemic, so many people got out of the business. And you don’t get paid a lot either.”

She’s not wrong. When I was in college in 2009, I worked at Bob Evans. I got paid $7.25 an hour to go through orientation and training. I couldn’t be a full-blown waitress until I took a test memorizing the menu. Once I passed the test, I had to sign a form saying I’m cool with my pay getting dropped to $2.65 an hour.

Michigan law states that all restaurant workers need to claim 100% of their tips. At the Bob Evans I worked in Kalamazoo, the managers would get mad at you if you didn’t make enough to make minimum wage, even if the reason a customer didn’t tip had anything to do with you. No tip, it’s your fault. The slimier ones would try to make you claim more than what you made. Naturally, I didn’t listen to them and claimed what I made.

So with that in mind, she’s right. You can’t blame someone for not wanting to work in a restaurant with low pay and risking being forced to claim more than what you made. It doesn’t sound legal for an employer to force an employee to do that.

Conclusion

Despite the lack of work, The Family Diner is still doing well. The waitress was attentive and running the restaurant with ease. If I didn’t know better, I would’ve thought she owned the place.

It’s easy to blow off people as being lazy and not wanting to work. But when you think about what people have to do in the low-paying jobs, it’s easy to see why there aren’t many people leaping to these jobs.

Until then, we need patience and empathy. There is a reason people aren’t going after these jobs right now. Let the people explain themselves before you write them off as lazy.

Originally published at https://www.newsbreak.com on June 16, 2021.