Employees do not owe their employers a profitable business.
But a business has to be profitable to pay employees.
The business also has to be profitable to pay all other suppliers/ vendors including employees. Why should the supplier/ vendor named “employee” not get full value for value given?
If a company can’t pay its suppliers/ vendors, it’s time for the company to die.
A serious quandary for all, no employees, no business, no decent wage, no employees…
In the end we all lose…
Nope, that business fails, and some other business moves into the market. The new business is little better prepared, maybe better capitalized, or more knowledgeable having seen the first company fail. Lots of ways to do better.
Last time I got takeout from my formerly good local cheap Chinese joint, I added shrimp egg fu yung for next day’s breakfast to my order, as usual. The price and size of container was the same, but it was 1/3 rice instead of all egg fu yung. So breakfast for 2 instead of 3. A year or 2 ago they stopped putting ground pork and fermented black beans in their shrimp w/lobster sauce. Which sort of made it shrimp in extra-thick egg drop soup–and fewer shrimp at that. And they added peas & carrots(?!). The spare ribs are still good, though. Fried wings have gone downhill (not sure what’s different, but I decided to make my own fried wings recently. It’s been decades since I fried chicken myself–I’d forgotten how much better home-fried chicken is than restaurant fried chicken. Even better than I remembered…maybe it was the gluten-free flour mix and avocado oil. My husband’s aide had some leftover for lunch with us and was impressed–and she’s a born & bred Southerner. I think it shocked her that a NYer could make delicious fried chicken 
I’ve been eating at restaurants less and less often. And now getting takeout less often, too. I’d do it more often if my local awesome Thai place still served lunch. And the local Tex-Mex fave hadn’t gone downhill (how can you mess up a bison burger? I guess it’s mostly beef now–and they no longer serve it with melted jack cheese and chopped chillies–just the cheese). That’s OK. I also picked up a few lbs of ground bison on sale recently.
I bought ribeye steak and mushrooms on sale a few days ago and plan to fix beef stroganoff for dinner today. I’ve eaten all the chicken in my freezer and need to start hunting for chicken on sale…
Folger’s and Maxwell House taste like swill when I make it at home in my coffee maker. However, at my former gym(RIP died December 2020-COVID casualty), they had a Bunn coffee maker with direct line to water and that thing made it taste okay. The secret is the hot temperature in the brewing.
I take the medium roast at SBUX or WaWa when I have gone there.
Heck, I remember when stopping by a 7-11 for coffee was a treat.
McDonald’s give you endless refills on Senior coffee but that means you have to sit there, not leave and come back in. Forgettaboutit!
To each their own about the coffee.
But back to restaurants, they go out of business pretty quickly as a rule. A well managed company of any sort has to keep a close eye on costs and expenses. If the bottom line is in red, it’s a goner. Plus the fact that personnel is unpredictable, no shows, layabouts, headaches. Ugh!
Lucky Dog, glad I wasn’t in the restaurant business
But back to restaurants, they go out of business pretty quickly as a rule. A well managed company of any sort has to keep a close eye on costs and expenses. If the bottom line is in red, it’s a goner. Plus the fact that personnel is unpredictable, no shows, layabouts, headaches. Ugh!
Lucky Dog, glad I wasn’t in the restaurant business
IIRC, the sector has the highest percentage of BK’s of all businesses, start ups but also up and running.
A reputation for good quality and service can take years to build, then mere weeks to lose.
Bakeries are similar. Tough biz; takes a sharp management to make it to the finish line. Daily.
When I was a kid (I am now 62), restaurants were somewhat of a luxury. We did eat out, but it was for a special occasion. I suspect that restaurant dining will go back in that direction, but not entirely. Similar to German cars. BMWs and Mercedes were available in the 1970s, but dealers only stocked a few and they were way more expensive than American cars. The current state of the world (pandemic, war, inflation) will make restaurants and German cars less “everyday”. The good news is that our lives have improved in other ways to make up for this. But overall, inflation reduces our standard of living in the short to intermediate term.
I’ve always preferred casual the little bit I do eat out.
Went out last Saturday to causal local pub, she had a burger, fries, and 1 draft beer, I had a rueben,
chips, and 1 beer. $60 tab with tip. And it was nothing special, food wise. But it did have a good
view of the snow falling on the Bay, and had a nice fireplace kicking out some warmth, so it
was a pleasant way to enjoy a meal.
“When I was a kid (I am now 62), restaurants were somewhat of a luxury. We did eat out, but it was for a special occasion. I suspect that restaurant dining will go back in that direction, but not entirely. Similar to German cars. BMWs and Mercedes were available in the 1970s, but dealers only stocked a few and they were way more expensive than American cars. The current state of the world (pandemic, war, inflation) will make restaurants and German cars less “everyday”. The good news is that our lives have improved in other ways to make up for this. But overall, inflation reduces our standard of living in the short to intermediate term.”
When I was a kid - (now 75) - the family SELDOM ate out. Restaurant? Forget it. The only time we ‘ate out’ was on vacation travel - before we got to camping location - and maybe HoJos for a meal or two in a two week trip. Otherwise, mom and dad would cook every dinner over the camp stove, lunch was a sandwich, breakfast cold cereal. My sister got a special treat for her 16th birthday - her present - a meal in a local ‘french’ restaurant. There weren’t a whole lot of restaurants around either.
In college, I was on the dining plan, and no Sat nite dinner - so we ordered a large pizza and split it 2 or 3 or 4 ways for dinner - delivery in a college down. Later years might head downtown and eat at an Italian restaurant that catered to college kids - and we split a pizza there…cheap.
Up until I moved to TX…I rarely ate out…except on travel trips - or business trips paid for by company.
Then when I moved to TX in 1990 - lots of inexpensive places to eat. Boston Market dinner - some local hole in the wall places. Ate out more.
Now, that I’m retired - eat out five dinners a week. Sometimes breakfast. I can ‘afford it’.
Places reasonable. Chinese buffet - (with sushi bar, Mongolian grill, 50 items from fish, chicken, pork, veggies, etc) - for $10.81 plus a tip if you want ‘early bird’ until 5:30pm M-TH. Otherwise about $12.50.
Local ‘steak house’ - six oz steak and 8 grilled shrimp. 3 sides ( maybe salad, broccoli, sweet potato) - $19.95 plus tax/tip. Out the door for $26 or so.
Lasagna at Joe’s? with salad - $13.50 out the door.
Delicious Monterrey Chicken at Norma’s? With salad and two veggies - $13 plus tax/tip.
Now you add in a beer or two - and that adds $10 to your meal. I don’t need booze with meals.
Big difference. My parents ate out near zero times a year. When they retired, I guess they did a weekly ‘early bird’ special in FL and that was about it…
Sat night was ‘outdoor cookouts’ - hot dogs, hamburgers all through my younger years as a kid.
Yeah did lots of ‘tent camping’ as a kid. No RVs or trailers like today.
And if you want cheap - head to Cici’s Pizza. All you can eat pizza and small salad bar for $6. More if you want a ‘softdrink’. I drink water.
t
Eating out.
Thirty years ago i was a Junior Achievement advisor. When we did a year end awards banquet we learned that some of our high school students had never eaten at a sit down restaurant. It wss a new experience.
How do employees expect to be paid if the business isn’t profitable?
If the employees have done the work, then the business is both legally and morally obligated to pay them.
It’s up to the business owner to figure out how to make a profit in a way that doesn’t hurt the employee.
Ribeye and beef stroganoff.
My solution is I just stocked my freezer with a hind quarter of beef. 185 lb hanging wt at $4.49/lb yielded 95 lb of steaks and roast, 30 lb ground beef, and 10 lb of soup bones. I calculate $7/lb of meat or $8/lb of steaks and roasts.
I see this as an inflation hedge. Meat prices seem likely to rise from here. Plus more beef and less chicken and pork in my diet.
If the employees have done the work, then the business is both legally and morally obligated to pay them.
Agreed
It’s up to the business owner to figure out how to make a profit in a way that doesn’t hurt the employee.
Not profitable, the business will quickly close.
Unions have killed many businesses. Forcing a business to pay unsustainable wages and benefits is a loss for employees and not just the owners.
Unions are a very small part of the employment force and are generally pretty powerless. They just make a convienent excuse for business owners to blame instead of their own incompentence.
They just make a convienent excuse for business owners to blame instead of their own incompentence.
Why so demeaning of business owners? Your anger is obvious.
Unions are a very small part of the employment force and are generally pretty powerless.
Powerless because of the businesses they have destroyed. Also, the male management have chosen that women mostly weren’t worth representing. The union my in-law was forced to be a union member specifically enacted rules that left women in lower paid jobs with no access to management.
Why so demeaning of business owners?
Because so many of them refuse to take responsibility for their own failures. They blame everyone else. But, if they succeed, then they take 100% of the credit. Like Jeff Bezos is actually packing boxes in the warehouse.
Forcing a business to pay unsustainable wages and benefits is a loss …
Lets not forget about all the crappy unions that get decent wages for a few senior workers while the bulk of the staff still only get part time hours and minimum wage.
Grocery stores around here come to mind.
Pete
“Lets not forget about all the crappy unions that get decent wages for a few senior workers while the bulk of the staff still only get part time hours and minimum wage.”
Nearly every restaurant job, every fast food job around here is limited to 28 hours a week. You won’t get more. After 30 hours/week you become, by fed law put in place by ObamaKare, a 'full time employee, and the employer is required to provide employer health care, maternity leave, gov’t controlled ‘sick leave’ , etc.
It also provides incentives for ‘union shops’ to try and outsource part of their work to subcontractors - who may or may not have the union shops, or now a days, be located overseas.
or to highly automated facilities elsewhere.
t.
Like Jeff Bezos is actually packing boxes in the warehouse.
Bezos and his wife started Amazon inventorying, packing and shipping books from their garage.
so many business owners refuse to take responsibility for their own failures. They blame everyone else.
Let’s not forget that in the current situation of sharply rising costs and customers squeezed for cash, business like restaurants need to be creative to survive. If employees co-operate it can be easier. If not the business closes and everyone loses.
Fortunately these days the employee can walk across the street and easily get another job. Meanwhile, the owner loses his business, income, and investment.