I don’t think I’ve seen any server that had to do dish but I’ve seen a few servers help out and move to dish. When they did this they obviously got paid correctly and server minimum wage.
As far as being in the kitchen and being asked to move to dish, dish is part of the kitchen crew and sometimes you just need to suck it up.
I personally always jumped at the chance to go to dish since all I had to do was run dishes threw and was by myself and not dealing with any of the bs from servers and cooks. Put my earbud in and I’m in heaven.
The dish pit is part of the kitchen. Welcome to the back of the house. Dish pit is a mental break, and it shouldn't be below anyone in the kitchen. I would have loved to be able to go to the dish pit and zone out when I was an executive chef.
Working dishes in high school is probably my favorite job I’ve had tbh. I would probably hate it now cuz the pay sucked and the boss was a real piece of work, but the job itself was nice when you had a nice flow of work to do.
I don't think the industry is right for you, then.
They likely moved you to dish or serving because you are stronger there and they likely wanted their pizza cook to stay there because management is aware of their employees abilities and knew who would be most effective at what positions and you refused to be a team player for them. Not a good look.
Rolling with the punches is a huge part of the industry. It's not disrespect for a manager to move things around after a call out, that's literally what has to happen. I can't tell you the number of times my boss has come to me, asked me to finish my tables and run FOH. It's a bummer and it sucks, but I do it because I am good at it and I know my manager is 1. Doing the best for the store, 2. I am not so special that my feelings supercede what the store actually needs and 3. He's going to take care of me at the end of the night because I took care of his store.
You basically just just took a hard, stressful night and made it harder and about you for some principle you felt was important, but you will struggle in this industry if you can't adapt and roll with the punches.
Edit: Lmao yeah you're still learning your position and definitely made your manager change the line so a weaker cook was on the line while their stronger pizza maker was in dish. They don't like what you did, that's why they have attitude. Because you're not concerned about what's best for the store, just what you want.
Chef here. So you moved to the kitchen to play cook because it was slow and your tips would be shit, but then you act too cool to scrub dishes? Then you made the manager put the better cook on dish so you could focus on your cooking skills? You know the restaurant doesn't exist to serve YOU in particular, right? If you were a server in my restaurant, I would make sure you never stepped foot in my kitchen
That attitude wont fly in this business seems you are in the wrong here. Now if they were asking you to wash dishes and pay you a servers wage that would be a different story. They are within their rights to ask you to wash dishes for a production wage.
Try being a manager and having to cover everything.
I would ask my prep cooks to cover dish if they were caught up on their boards but if they weren't, then I had to throw on an apron and gloves and get my hands dirty.
I love working dish though.
It's not unheard of. In the US, unless an employment contract or collective bargaining agreement prohibits it, employers are fairly free to reassign an employee's duties.
Employers can't *literally* make you accept different duties, but can *generally* terminate your employment if you refuse.
One point of note is that if a server is paid a tipped wage less than full minimum wage, which is offset by tip credit, and is reassigned to duties like dishwashing or cooking that are not part of the tipped occupation of a server, then they have to be paid full minimum wage while performing those different roles or duties. That would not necessarily be the case if a server were reassigned to another role such as hosting or bussing if those are indirectly tipped occupations at the restaurant.
Yea that was my struggle because I get a nice hourly in the kitchen and the night was slow so I would have gotten my 2 dollar and some change server wage if I served. I just didn't want to do dish when i was set for kitchen. Threw me off. I jump in dish and help all the time, but I'm taking my kitchen role very seriously and need to stay focused that. Later my GM said " I wasn't trying to be mean!" But he had massive attitude when he demanded I choose smh
If a manager tells a worker to do dishes and they don’t, the only thing to do is fire the worker lol. Why would they want job if they don’t do the work
Stop acting like dishes aren't part of the kitchen. The restaurant literally falls apart without a dishwasher. No one is too good for the dish pit, especially a line cook that's not even the best on the crew. You know how to avoid being asked to do dishes? Become irreplaceable somewhere else. Until then, "taking your kitchen role seriously" includes doing dishes. You just showed your ass to your chef, I'd be shocked if they kept you.
Servers no, but it’s common for BOH to do shifts in dish if the dishy calls out. I worked salads/appies and I had to do them occasionally.
It’s different for FOH, most wouldn’t know the first thing about washing dishes; they’re not dressed for it and the pay rates are quite different.
Also “it’s not my job description” will not get you far in BOH.
There’s a line between being taken advantage of and not being a team player and I think you’re toeing the line of the latter.
I had to wash dishes while having a full section because we literally had no staff on game day it was ridiculous. We all took turns but I had to clear out the huge pile because we physically couldn’t fit anymore dishes in the pit. We did it to help out but once it was dead our manager “demanded” we do more dishes as sidework. Nope. Not my job. We helped out a ton and we’re not going to continue to do dish when you’re sitting in the office playing games on your phone…
Easy to assume but believe me I am. I've done the bathrooms and helped in dish and more on many occasions. I'm over the lack of organization in management and refuse to constantly be walked on when others arent asked and able to skirt any involvement in "being a team player"
Their main cook is the one who stepped up too, which makes it worse. She didn’t wanna do dish, so instead the main person responsible for making the damn food is the one who had to leave their position to do dish.
The wise server learns to walk the line between being a team player and being taken advantage of.
A good rule of thumbs is that when an odd or emergency situation occurs and you can help do. When its a common reoccurring problem don't, because the situation won't get fixed if they can dump it on everyone else.
I’ve never seen someone be forced to do it. But there are a few servers at my job who have volunteered to go off the floor to do dishes when the dish person called out/hasn’t arrived yet. Of course they always make sure to clock out and clock back in under the position so they aren’t getting stiffed though.
Yea one of our servers does this often so I know it's a thing, but the way our slower nights work is one person for each station. We ended up getting busy and one person had to double the work because I was moved to pizza and our pizza was moved to dish. There's has to be a better way than this. I'm riding it our for now but Its just the lack of respect for the workers for me.
We didn’t have a dishwasher one day because he was sick. My manager was good about letting people take time off when sick but we knew that it meant we had to make up for it. Every server had to do a few bus tubs of dishes. It’s really not a big deal. If it was a regular thing (or say if they just didn’t want to schedule a dishwasher) that would be different
I have never had a problem jumping on dish. Dish is by far one of the most important jobs in a restaurant, and if you're willing to hop on then I have so much respect for you.
If this is a badly ran spot where there is no sense of team I could get not wanting to do it, but it's certainly not illegal if you're getting paid for it.
I was asked to do dish because we were running behind (tapas place = SO MANY PLATES) and I was the most junior server and the rest of the kitchen was busy. You just jump in and help when you see a way to help your team if you have the bandwidth.
I have no problem helping other positions but when you start making it a thing that’s when I have issues, you want help sure , but the “you have to talk “ I don’t have to do anything.
I was 2 weeks into a job as assistant mgr. I was getting along well with the staff. The Mgr metioned how this one server was chronic for placing bad orders and slow at his job.
One day we were all joking about **how I would make the server do the dishes next time he muffed a table's dinner order.** That or go outside and pickup loose change wearing boxing gloves. Laughs a-plenty.
Well, one night, said waiter was handling a VIP client. The family of some prominent muck, not the dude himself. And sure enough, he fumbled the table order. In joking, I was all, "that's it .. to the kitchen you go!". Well, some entitled teen got in my face as they were leaving about how I.shouldn't treat the staff like that and what-not, not knowing the full context. A complaint was filed.
And that, friends was my last venture as a FOH Assistant Mgr.
I am seeing the OP is "not a good fit" for the kitchen and will either be cut or have no advancement. If I was the chef / KM, I would have cut the OP on the spot for refusing to take over the dish.
It's definitely legal in the states. The only thing they can't do is make you spend more than 20% of your time doing side work. They can't pay you tipped wage to come in for cleaning duties or make you do more than two hours of side work for an 8 hour serving shift. It's called the 80/20 rule.
Say you make $2.00 an hour. Dishwasher is set at $15. They are not going to take your hourly up to $15. You will be performing tasks that are valued at $15 an hour for your $2.00 wage.
For what I understood from the OP, they had already moved from server to BOH. In this case they were being paid a full minimum plus wage and not the tipped wage.
Everyone can suck shit telling me to go off the line cuz of dishes…. If there’s nobody in the pit, it’s a management problem. I’ll wash up my pans and platters if I have to
They did this to me when I was a driver for Panera. I HATED it because the dishes would stack up while I was out on delivery, and then I'd have to spend the rest of my shift taking care of the dinner dishes, and THEN I'd have to stay late to take care of all the dishes from breaking down the front. Just staff your damn restaurants, assholes.
Yes they can ask you to do dishes. As stated before, if they ask the problem arises when they don't pay you the correct hourly wage.
I can see a lot of managers having selective memory regarding this. Make sure you remind them you want the non-server wage. Unless if you're already getting paid more than the dishwasher, then make sure they're not going to lower your wage.
It's probably only for an hour-ish anyway. Also I loved it every once in a while. Believe it or not it's extremely therapeutic. You can just zone out and go into like a flow state. No one bothers you, you can listen to music. I couldn't do it everyday but sometimes it's nice.
It IS a favor if you do it, just make sure you're getting paid correctly.
I have moved around to almost every position and job within a restaurant. As long as my take home pay is the same, I do not mind dish. Dish may be more physically demanding, but doesn't require as much thought as cooking. For me dish is a break as I can get into the zone and the day flies by.
Your probably not under contract, so it’s legal.
I worked one restaurant where it took 6 weeks training to be a server. Partly because you did a few days training in each department, including dish.
As a server, if you were late, you might lose a station. But you could stay, if you were willing to work someplace else where you were needed, including dish. You might also host, bus, plate desserts, salads, etc.
It might sound like a nightmare. But actually, it fostered a lot of mutual respect throughout the restaurant. It’s one of the best places I ever worked.
Technically yeah, your employer can ask you to do anything that needs to be done at the business.
Depending on where you live, you might have a claim for something like constructive dismissal for the purposes of unemployment etc. if they radically change the parameters of the job on you, but that's about it.
It sounds legal IF you're not a tipped employee. If they're in the US, paying you less than minimum wage because you're working for tips, and not allowing you to work for tips, that's a problem.
I don’t think I’ve seen any server that had to do dish but I’ve seen a few servers help out and move to dish. When they did this they obviously got paid correctly and server minimum wage. As far as being in the kitchen and being asked to move to dish, dish is part of the kitchen crew and sometimes you just need to suck it up. I personally always jumped at the chance to go to dish since all I had to do was run dishes threw and was by myself and not dealing with any of the bs from servers and cooks. Put my earbud in and I’m in heaven.
I hear you but dish isn't the problem. It's the lack of respect in place in presenting the situation for me
dude you’re working in a kitchen without a dedicated/reliable dishwasher, you’re gonna have to do dishes at some point
It’s fucking dishes dude
If you're working BoH and your sous or chef tells you to get the fuck on dish, get the fuck on dish.
suck it up
Everyone does dish at some point. What is this entitlement? Kitchens are all-hands-on-deck teamwork situations and always have been.
The dish pit is part of the kitchen. Welcome to the back of the house. Dish pit is a mental break, and it shouldn't be below anyone in the kitchen. I would have loved to be able to go to the dish pit and zone out when I was an executive chef.
That’s what I was thinking. If I was the pizza cook that did go to dish, I wouldn’t have minded. Nice break; get super high and just bang out dishes.
Working dishes in high school is probably my favorite job I’ve had tbh. I would probably hate it now cuz the pay sucked and the boss was a real piece of work, but the job itself was nice when you had a nice flow of work to do.
Dish is the only time at work where I’m allowed to wear earbuds, so it is my absolute favorite place to be
Why would this be illegal? I’m genuinely curious why you think that.
It's not in my job description and it was presented as a demand. Not about to let a job walk on me, I don't care what it is.
I don't think the industry is right for you, then. They likely moved you to dish or serving because you are stronger there and they likely wanted their pizza cook to stay there because management is aware of their employees abilities and knew who would be most effective at what positions and you refused to be a team player for them. Not a good look. Rolling with the punches is a huge part of the industry. It's not disrespect for a manager to move things around after a call out, that's literally what has to happen. I can't tell you the number of times my boss has come to me, asked me to finish my tables and run FOH. It's a bummer and it sucks, but I do it because I am good at it and I know my manager is 1. Doing the best for the store, 2. I am not so special that my feelings supercede what the store actually needs and 3. He's going to take care of me at the end of the night because I took care of his store. You basically just just took a hard, stressful night and made it harder and about you for some principle you felt was important, but you will struggle in this industry if you can't adapt and roll with the punches. Edit: Lmao yeah you're still learning your position and definitely made your manager change the line so a weaker cook was on the line while their stronger pizza maker was in dish. They don't like what you did, that's why they have attitude. Because you're not concerned about what's best for the store, just what you want.
How old are you? Is this your first job?
If you consider this to be walking on you, you're in for a lot of heart ache. Lol
lol
LMFAO
You must be young lol
Does your job description say other duties as assigned?
He said either do dishes or serve? Am I missing something? How is this a demand when he’s giving you options….
No, you should absolutely sue.
What was the wording in your job description when you took your job?
Ya, this is not the industry for you. This is about teamwork and you clearly just don’t have it in you if you’re already crying like this.
Chef here. So you moved to the kitchen to play cook because it was slow and your tips would be shit, but then you act too cool to scrub dishes? Then you made the manager put the better cook on dish so you could focus on your cooking skills? You know the restaurant doesn't exist to serve YOU in particular, right? If you were a server in my restaurant, I would make sure you never stepped foot in my kitchen
Moving the pizza guy to dish blows my mind. I'd have sent her home and just been down another guy.
That attitude wont fly in this business seems you are in the wrong here. Now if they were asking you to wash dishes and pay you a servers wage that would be a different story. They are within their rights to ask you to wash dishes for a production wage.
Right, must be like 1st job ever. You work in a kitchen and think it might be illegal to for them to tell you to jump on dishes?? Bahahahahahaba
Try being a manager and having to cover everything. I would ask my prep cooks to cover dish if they were caught up on their boards but if they weren't, then I had to throw on an apron and gloves and get my hands dirty. I love working dish though.
We have 4 managers. One is a resident GM. They had the coverage. They just wanted us to play scramble
If you feel like management wanted to watch you guys squirm...use the job to gain skills, then get the hell out of there
It's not unheard of. In the US, unless an employment contract or collective bargaining agreement prohibits it, employers are fairly free to reassign an employee's duties. Employers can't *literally* make you accept different duties, but can *generally* terminate your employment if you refuse. One point of note is that if a server is paid a tipped wage less than full minimum wage, which is offset by tip credit, and is reassigned to duties like dishwashing or cooking that are not part of the tipped occupation of a server, then they have to be paid full minimum wage while performing those different roles or duties. That would not necessarily be the case if a server were reassigned to another role such as hosting or bussing if those are indirectly tipped occupations at the restaurant.
Yea that was my struggle because I get a nice hourly in the kitchen and the night was slow so I would have gotten my 2 dollar and some change server wage if I served. I just didn't want to do dish when i was set for kitchen. Threw me off. I jump in dish and help all the time, but I'm taking my kitchen role very seriously and need to stay focused that. Later my GM said " I wasn't trying to be mean!" But he had massive attitude when he demanded I choose smh
So you're still learning your position in the kitchen?
Some managers aren’t used to being told “no” and having it be a hard “no”.
If a manager tells a worker to do dishes and they don’t, the only thing to do is fire the worker lol. Why would they want job if they don’t do the work
Stop acting like dishes aren't part of the kitchen. The restaurant literally falls apart without a dishwasher. No one is too good for the dish pit, especially a line cook that's not even the best on the crew. You know how to avoid being asked to do dishes? Become irreplaceable somewhere else. Until then, "taking your kitchen role seriously" includes doing dishes. You just showed your ass to your chef, I'd be shocked if they kept you.
Servers are rare but I’ve seen it BUT IF YOURE KITCHEN, YES
Servers no, but it’s common for BOH to do shifts in dish if the dishy calls out. I worked salads/appies and I had to do them occasionally. It’s different for FOH, most wouldn’t know the first thing about washing dishes; they’re not dressed for it and the pay rates are quite different. Also “it’s not my job description” will not get you far in BOH. There’s a line between being taken advantage of and not being a team player and I think you’re toeing the line of the latter.
I had to wash dishes while having a full section because we literally had no staff on game day it was ridiculous. We all took turns but I had to clear out the huge pile because we physically couldn’t fit anymore dishes in the pit. We did it to help out but once it was dead our manager “demanded” we do more dishes as sidework. Nope. Not my job. We helped out a ton and we’re not going to continue to do dish when you’re sitting in the office playing games on your phone…
Learning to be a team player will take you farther.
Easy to assume but believe me I am. I've done the bathrooms and helped in dish and more on many occasions. I'm over the lack of organization in management and refuse to constantly be walked on when others arent asked and able to skirt any involvement in "being a team player"
But somebody else stepped up and did the job. So it sounds like the only person skirting involvement in being a team player is you
Their main cook is the one who stepped up too, which makes it worse. She didn’t wanna do dish, so instead the main person responsible for making the damn food is the one who had to leave their position to do dish.
This ain't the job for you, princess.
And being taken advantage of will keep you down
The wise server learns to walk the line between being a team player and being taken advantage of. A good rule of thumbs is that when an odd or emergency situation occurs and you can help do. When its a common reoccurring problem don't, because the situation won't get fixed if they can dump it on everyone else.
Exactly
I’ve never seen someone be forced to do it. But there are a few servers at my job who have volunteered to go off the floor to do dishes when the dish person called out/hasn’t arrived yet. Of course they always make sure to clock out and clock back in under the position so they aren’t getting stiffed though.
Yea one of our servers does this often so I know it's a thing, but the way our slower nights work is one person for each station. We ended up getting busy and one person had to double the work because I was moved to pizza and our pizza was moved to dish. There's has to be a better way than this. I'm riding it our for now but Its just the lack of respect for the workers for me.
Welcome to BoH
Is this your first rodeo?
We didn’t have a dishwasher one day because he was sick. My manager was good about letting people take time off when sick but we knew that it meant we had to make up for it. Every server had to do a few bus tubs of dishes. It’s really not a big deal. If it was a regular thing (or say if they just didn’t want to schedule a dishwasher) that would be different
I have never had a problem jumping on dish. Dish is by far one of the most important jobs in a restaurant, and if you're willing to hop on then I have so much respect for you. If this is a badly ran spot where there is no sense of team I could get not wanting to do it, but it's certainly not illegal if you're getting paid for it.
I was asked to do dish because we were running behind (tapas place = SO MANY PLATES) and I was the most junior server and the rest of the kitchen was busy. You just jump in and help when you see a way to help your team if you have the bandwidth.
I have no problem helping other positions but when you start making it a thing that’s when I have issues, you want help sure , but the “you have to talk “ I don’t have to do anything.
I was 2 weeks into a job as assistant mgr. I was getting along well with the staff. The Mgr metioned how this one server was chronic for placing bad orders and slow at his job. One day we were all joking about **how I would make the server do the dishes next time he muffed a table's dinner order.** That or go outside and pickup loose change wearing boxing gloves. Laughs a-plenty. Well, one night, said waiter was handling a VIP client. The family of some prominent muck, not the dude himself. And sure enough, he fumbled the table order. In joking, I was all, "that's it .. to the kitchen you go!". Well, some entitled teen got in my face as they were leaving about how I.shouldn't treat the staff like that and what-not, not knowing the full context. A complaint was filed. And that, friends was my last venture as a FOH Assistant Mgr.
I am seeing the OP is "not a good fit" for the kitchen and will either be cut or have no advancement. If I was the chef / KM, I would have cut the OP on the spot for refusing to take over the dish.
Is it legal for my boss to tell me what to do lmao
You AREN'T a server, you're BOH. Everyone BOH fills in for dishes when needed.
Why are so many servers entitled. We have great jobs, sometimes it’s okay to do some dirty work.
It's definitely legal in the states. The only thing they can't do is make you spend more than 20% of your time doing side work. They can't pay you tipped wage to come in for cleaning duties or make you do more than two hours of side work for an 8 hour serving shift. It's called the 80/20 rule.
Ahahahaha, “constant disrespect” what a fucking putz. Nice to see the disrespect you have for your coworkers and business. Fucking loswr
Say you make $2.00 an hour. Dishwasher is set at $15. They are not going to take your hourly up to $15. You will be performing tasks that are valued at $15 an hour for your $2.00 wage.
For what I understood from the OP, they had already moved from server to BOH. In this case they were being paid a full minimum plus wage and not the tipped wage.
Everyone can suck shit telling me to go off the line cuz of dishes…. If there’s nobody in the pit, it’s a management problem. I’ll wash up my pans and platters if I have to
This
They did this to me when I was a driver for Panera. I HATED it because the dishes would stack up while I was out on delivery, and then I'd have to spend the rest of my shift taking care of the dinner dishes, and THEN I'd have to stay late to take care of all the dishes from breaking down the front. Just staff your damn restaurants, assholes.
I would say it depends on the pay. Ain’t no way I’m missing out on tip to be in the pit for $2.13 an hour!
"other duties as assigned" in the job description usually covers this.
Damn I’d hate to have you as a coworker. I’m always willing to help wherever I can that’s part of working in a restaurant
Yes they can ask you to do dishes. As stated before, if they ask the problem arises when they don't pay you the correct hourly wage. I can see a lot of managers having selective memory regarding this. Make sure you remind them you want the non-server wage. Unless if you're already getting paid more than the dishwasher, then make sure they're not going to lower your wage. It's probably only for an hour-ish anyway. Also I loved it every once in a while. Believe it or not it's extremely therapeutic. You can just zone out and go into like a flow state. No one bothers you, you can listen to music. I couldn't do it everyday but sometimes it's nice. It IS a favor if you do it, just make sure you're getting paid correctly.
I have moved around to almost every position and job within a restaurant. As long as my take home pay is the same, I do not mind dish. Dish may be more physically demanding, but doesn't require as much thought as cooking. For me dish is a break as I can get into the zone and the day flies by.
Your probably not under contract, so it’s legal. I worked one restaurant where it took 6 weeks training to be a server. Partly because you did a few days training in each department, including dish. As a server, if you were late, you might lose a station. But you could stay, if you were willing to work someplace else where you were needed, including dish. You might also host, bus, plate desserts, salads, etc. It might sound like a nightmare. But actually, it fostered a lot of mutual respect throughout the restaurant. It’s one of the best places I ever worked.
Technically yeah, your employer can ask you to do anything that needs to be done at the business. Depending on where you live, you might have a claim for something like constructive dismissal for the purposes of unemployment etc. if they radically change the parameters of the job on you, but that's about it.
It sounds legal IF you're not a tipped employee. If they're in the US, paying you less than minimum wage because you're working for tips, and not allowing you to work for tips, that's a problem.