This Ridiculous Café Job Ad Has People Talking
Can you carry three plates at once, or a tray full of glasses with one hand? Then a restaurant or café job opportunity in Melbourne, Australia posted to Reddit might be for you. Are you a student or actor, looking to make some decent cash at a restaurant until you can get your career started? You certainly wouldn't be alone in the restaurant industry. But the person who runs that Melbourne restaurant wants nothing to do with you.
"I am tired of people that think hospitality is a playground for incompetent kids and easy cash cows," the restaurant help wanted ad says. "Hospitality is career path and not temporary cash on hand. No students from other sectors will be considered."
The person who wrote this job ad put a lot of energy into weeding out potential problem employees before they even apply. It wasn't a help wanted ad so much as a rant about things some employees could do that would upset this particular boss. The ad goes on to rant about other behaviors: Staff that chats amongst themselves, staff that demands more shifts but refuses to take extra work when asked, and staff that doesn't like to be told what to do. This boss sounds like they might be a real Gordon Ramsay type, a taskmaster who demands constant focus and maybe even bullies their workers.
Was the café job ad too demanding?
The Australian restaurant boss who posted the job opening that found its way on Reddit clearly is considering serious applicants only. If they display the desired characteristics — and can carry those plates and glasses — then the boss will pay $32 an hour or $80,000 a year. (That's in Australian dollars, so people in the U.S. should read that as $24 an hour or $60K a year.)
"80K to wait tables? Is that normal?" one Redditor asked in the comments. "I went to uni to get 80K. What an idiot I am." Other Redditors did the math and decided that annual salary at that hourly wage implied much more than a 40-hour workweek. Opinions were divided over whether this demanding boss was paying a fair wage. "Good luck finding people who want to stay in hospitality forever," a Redditor commented.
Redditors also couldn't agree on whether this was a good boss or a bad boss — someone who just wants everyone to work hard, or someone who is far too demanding. "I've worked for some bad bosses for $25 an hour in hospitality. I would have happily taken an extra $7 an hour for similar conditions," Reddit user M00rus wrote. VanillaIcedTea, meanwhile, wasn't having it: "My sanity ... is worth significantly more than what this marvelous example of a human being is paying."