Trump Era Food Service Hiring Managers are Desperate

Restaurants are Scraping the Bottom of the Barrel Trying to Find Help

During my four week stretch of being unemployed that ended last month I applied for a bunch of food service jobs knowing full well that I have aged out of the industry. Did it as a requirement for receiving an unemployment check and in retrospect I should not have even bothered. The amazing thing is that I got callbacks for almost every job I applied for.

Stating the obvious: the hardest working most talented people in the food service industry are people from Mexico and Central America. Right now many of them are scared. While the best workers lay low, the most mediocre prospects for restaurant labor (like me) are suddenly in demand.

Here are some of my final experiences applying to work in the non-union world of cooking food for large groups of people:

Children’s Jail

I really wanted to see the kitchen facilities at Seattle’s youth detention facility. Yes - here in America we really do put kids in prison. I got through the first round of interviews but I guess someone there bothered to look up the fact that I am fully for defunding and then abolishing the police. And also for ending cash bail and releasing non-violent offenders. Oh well.

Gordon Ramsay’s Worst Nightmare

Applied to work for a catering company that is located in my neighborhood and has an interesting Asian fusion menu. Arrived early to the interview and went in the wrong door, where I wandered through a kitchen so dirty that the reality TV show Kitchen Nightmares would have rejected it for being too unrealistically grotesque. So I just walked away. The chef texted me and wondered where I had gone and I told her that “after accidentally seeing your facilities I decided that this place would not be a good fit for me.” She replied back by saying “good luck finding a job.” I felt privileged knowing that, unlike many job seekers, I had the freedom to say no to a shitty place.

Search King County restaurant safety ratings

Institutional Food Factories

The University of Washington and the YWCA wanted me to do phone chats. The interviews ended quickly when I told them that in between them scheduling me and the actual interviews I had found a job. “Looks like Trump’s immigration policies are making the job market so tight that any remaining qualified applicants are being hired instantly.” I hope telling them that made them sad.

Scammy Nonprofits

Operation Sack Lunch pays their CEO a quarter million dollars a year but it seems everybody working in the kitchen there, and the drivers, make somewhere around minimum wage. Got called for an interview but then ghosted them. Again, it is my privilege to do so and in a better world unionized workers everywhere would have the same freedom.

Look for a comprehensive whistle-blowing article about some of these corporations on this website, coming eventually.

Happy Labor Day.

Comfort Food

Made chocolate covered figs recently, and fried shrimp.

Chocolate is water soluble so when melting down chocolate dipping sauce just add … water! Not milk, or butter (I did this for decades). Just water.

My hobbies help me stay sane. The family doesn’t mind.

—Alex

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