3 Dangerous Myths About Restaurant and Service Jobs

Due to the historical past, the hospitality and service industries in the post-Soviet countries are haunted by a number of myths that we were dealing with for several years. And even if the owners and leaders of the restaurant business have already overcome these myths in their own heads, they can bloom in the heads of their employees and guests and hinder the development of the industry as a whole.

Up to this day, in many regions, young people hide the fact that they work in a restaurant from their relatives and friends. Gradually growing up, many leave the profession, rejecting the opportunities that could be open for them, only because they follow common stereotypes.

The good news is that we, the owners and managers of the industry, can quickly change the situation in a positive direction, deliberately debunking these myths in our daily management practice - or at least not promoting them.

Myth 1. Working in a service / restaurant is a career path to nowhere

In fact, work in a service / restaurant is one of the only remaining social elevators in traditional industries, that makes it possible to make a career in 7-10-12 years, starting from a waiter’s helper to a managing partner or an operating director, and earn % from turnover or net proceeds.

It’s no longer possible to have a career like this in the financial sector, or in manufacturing, or in B2B services, with a possible exception of new industries: programming, e-commerce, augmented reality and other innovative areas.

The restaurant business is also among the few businesses, where specialists of various professions are in demand. The restaurant combines production, specialized warehouse, accounting, logistics / storage, and the service, in-depth analytics, and the entire marketing cycle - and this entire layered cake of different types of work is automated!

Basically, everyone could find a job in the hospitality and service industry: an accountant, engineers, mathematicians, marketers, and programmers. Put your own occupation in this list - and I'm sure you can find your purpose in the hospitality and service industry)

People who know how to solve problems in the restaurant business will never be left without work, money and career growth and - at least - will never be hungry! The latter, of course, is a bit of an inner joke, because restaurant employees often forget to eat during busy hours))

Myth 2. "The customer is always right!" Service is a humiliation

Another one of the common myth-legacy from the wild 90s and early 2000s, is that restaurant employees should humiliate themselves in front of the guest so that he/she feels so-called “the personal approach”. This is when we only have one person - the guest - and all personal come to work only to make that particular person to feel good at any costs. This idea has nothing to do with a personal approach, I call it "service Kama Sutra")

It had changed a long time ago, healthy competition made it and its created their own adjustments by improving relations between employees and guests. In cities with high competition, guests expect an equal approach, while fawning people generally cause irritation or even an open aggression. Individual approach means one person works for another person.

Myth 3. Working in a service / restaurant is a job for stupid people

Web of lies. This is the major myth that I struggle with every day at my work and on the courses at the Novikov School of Service. Working in the service, especially in the restaurant industry, is a chance to become better, stronger and more flexible as a person every day, to make sharp your character

1. Feelings. Working in the service means to understand and manage your own emotions, to create a safe emotional atmosphere in your team and for your guests.
2. Thinking and memory. A service person trains his memory, logic. He/she thinks two steps ahead for himself/herself and “for that guy” in three different ways.
3. Will. The service person is very self-organized and boldly organizes team to work “here and now”. Few people are able to get themselves out of bed at 8 am, when they closed the establishment at 4 am, and be as fresh as a cucumber in half an hour.
4. Taste. Every day we train and develop our taste: for gastronomy, aesthetic taste, taste for music, for clothes, for wines. In general, every day we develop our taste for life!
5. Body. Last but not least. Working in service presents one of the few opportunities to keep your body in good shape, healthy and beautiful: you always look nice and tidy, you smell good. You have a pleasant voice, you have impeccable gestures, you are coordinated and balanced.

I call all of these -  the Service Star. In it, we do not stipulate separately the possibility for good earnings, because it is implied and is a consequence of the “Star” practice