Restaurant management is great if you like variety in what you do, you like to work really hard and you enjoy working with people, he says. It's a fairly easy field to enter without investing in an education; however, you can move faster and not start at the bottom if you have an education. Restaurant management can be very satisfying; managers deliver a tangible product and receive immediate feedback, hopefully positive. Restaurant managers have a variety of tasks every day, ample opportunities for promotion, and a job that is rarely boring.
However, as with any job, being a restaurant manager has disadvantages. In my experience, restaurant managers consistently work longer hours and earn much less than waiters who work underneath them. We have all seen managers do the same work as servers, hosts and buses during the service and, at the same time, they are the ones who take the most things from customers. In all aspects of restaurant operations, the restaurant manager is responsible for supervising, managing and directing the activities of kitchen and service staff.
Although most restaurant managers have a college degree, it's possible to become a single one with a high school degree or GED. Good restaurant managers are also in high demand right now and, therefore, you don't have to worry about losing your job, because even if this happens, you'll have many other restaurants where you can find a new job very soon. Another disadvantage of working as a restaurant manager is that you will have to be present at your workplace in person and you won't be able to work from home, making it difficult for you to manage your professional and private life at the same time compared to programmers or other people who can work from home on a regular basis and are much more flexible in this regard. Restaurant managers work extremely long hours, sometimes 12 to 15 hours a day, up to seven days a week, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics.
You should also know that many things you do as a restaurant manager are quite repetitive and therefore you may not be able to experience many new things in the long term. But as you know, receiving complaints is unavoidable and, honestly, crucial to the success of your restaurant. As a restaurant manager, you also have the privilege of working indoors, while scaffolding and many other people have to work outdoors in bad weather and, therefore, you can enjoy your working day much more in a fairly comfortable environment as a restaurant manager. I mean, if you become a restaurant manager, every day is basically like Liam Neeson in THAT scene from the movie Taken.
A typical restaurant manager's workweek revolves around monitoring inventory, creating work schedules, supervising subordinate staff, generating work reports, and addressing guest concerns when necessary. Due to the repetitive nature of the game, you may sooner or later get bored as a restaurant manager and eventually lose motivation for what you're doing. As a restaurant manager, it's also up to you to manage your employees and this gives you the opportunity to do things the way you want them to be, since not only will you be a normal employee, but you'll have the power to truly influence the success or failure of the restaurant you're responsible for.
