Why I am Contemplating Not Returning to the Restaurant Industry Post Covid and the Fight for $15.

Much has been said and written about restaurants around the country having a hard time finding staff in the last month. From McDonald’s to 5-star dining in NYC, experts, restauranteurs, politicians and economists are weighing in. They all seem to believe the tales they tell and most of the discussions are done with little input from those of us who once worked in the industry and are contemplating never returning. In fact, most of these people like to demean those of us not returning as lazy- happily collecting our dismal unemployment to smoke weed and play video games. This is something I have heard more than once in the last few weeks. I began working in restaurants at the age of 16 and for the following 26 years I worked at various restaurants while pursuing my actual career of acting and entertainment. The gravity of that statement is not lost on me- I hardly think of myself as old enough to have worked for that many years, let alone in an industry that was not my true love and often felt like a bad codependent relationship. But like many artists, restaurant work provided the type of flexibility that the entertainment industry requires. It is also not lost on me that after those 26 years, three economic collapses, and the cost of continuing education that is necessary for success in my industry, I have very little money to show for all that effort. It is with all this in mind that I write this missive to the industry that suffered terribly during the pandemic and add my voice to the growing cacophony of reasons why people are choosing not to return- the difference here is mine is based on truth and facts, if only my own.

I began working at McDonald’s at 16 (that’s 1993 for anyone keeping track, but I’d rather you didn’t) to pay for my dance and voice lessons. My single mother had paid for my siblings and me (there were four of us and I was the youngest) to attend dance classes at Carol Cain Dance School, something I did from the age of 3. But after my sophomore year in high school where I was cast as a boy in Fagin’s gang in Oliver! and also as the show’s dance captain, I had the opportunity to work with my first Broadway professional. Mark Smith had been in A Chorus Line- he actually knew all the choreography intimately! I could hardly believe I had the chance to work and learn from him as he choreographed our public high school production. It was here that I realized what money can buy. Our local small dance school was fine, and in years past had been even better. Under the owner’s tutelage, my second eldest brother, John, found his way to the finals of the Mr. Teen Dance Ohio competition in the mid 1980s. I remember watching him dance as a little girl and being, not only in awe of his talent, but also so proud that he was my brother. I am still in awe of him and proud he is my brother; in case you were wondering. Years later, the school was no longer a challenge and after working with Mark, I realized how much I wasn’t being taught. It had been affordable, though, and Mark’s school was not only on the Westside of Akron, but also $50 more a week. Babysitting was not going to cut it. It was this year that I was also lucky enough to inherit my great-aunt Mary’s two-tone brown, 1984 Ford LTD. It only had an AM radio with an 8-track player and my only 8-track was the Grease soundtrack. This would not only be my ride to work and school but it would also free my very busy mother from the burden of a 30 minute drive to and from my new dance school.

I tell you all these things because for me, my chosen career and the restaurant industry were intimately linked. I couldn’t get by on the money I made from babysitting, not to mention the fact that my dad would come by to “borrow” it to fill his gas tank. He had wanderlust (something I inherited) and rarely could afford gas prices in tandem with his need to drive all over town while waiting for his disability to finally get approved. I tried anything to avoid working at McDonald’s. Each of my older siblings had worked at two of the three McDonald’s in town. And I hated how they smelled of oil and grime when they came home- it’s a smell anyone who has worked in fast food knows well. The fryer oils permeated not only their clothing, but also their hair and skin. I thought anybody else would be thrilled to hire this out-going, happy, honor roll, rule following kid with big dreams, but I was wrong. After filling out applications all over town and not finding any luck, I walked into the Rainforest themed McDonald’s (did I mention we lived in Ohio?), put in an application and was hired on the spot. The irony of this rainforest theme is not lost on me, considering the fast-food industry, meat production and harmful farming practices, in general, are responsible for much of the deforestation of the Amazon, but I’ll get to that… So, minimum wage was $4.25 and I was offered to work every weekend and one day a week after school. I was asked if I would be willing to work in the dreaded “smelly clothes” grill area- if I proved myself there, they had an incentive program called “Super Crew” and I could get a $0.50 raise. I made it my job to prove myself, smelly clothes and hair be damned. I needed that raise! I got it after my first 30 days. Did I mention I was a rule follower? Corporations love that. By the time I was 18, graduated from high school and accepted into Kent State University’s acting program, I was a swing manager, managing adults and kids alike. Opening and closing the store, counting money, doing inventory, and taking classes at the local “Burger college,” all for $7.50 an hour. I had dreams of NYU, but after taking my first flight ever to NYC to audition, my mom realized the gravity of a $36,000 a year education and squashed the idea upon our return. Looking back, I wish things had been different and that we could have managed it. Entertainment is often far more about who you know and who you are exposed to than just talent. Being in NYC working with Broadway professionals may have paid off in a way my local state school wouldn’t- but I am also thankful that I finished paying my student loans off in my early 30s.

I stayed with McDonald’s for 4 years. I was moved to a different location as they needed help turning around some bad habits that this specific location had adopted from poor leadership. Somehow a 20-year-old college sophomore was supposed to figure out how to convince an entire crew and management that rules were in place for everyone’s safety. I was told to lead by example- it was exhausting. After being cast as Sally Bowles in Cabaret at the end of my sophomore year, my schedule had become almost untenable. I was glad to have a job that worked around my school schedule. But to be able to pay my bills and continue my education with all the extracurricular activities a Bachelor’s degree in the arts demanded, I was waking at 3:50am to open the store at 5:30am, heading to class at 11:30am, invariably getting a parking ticket for not having the time to drive all the way off campus to my assigned parking lot to take the bus, taking dance, acting and singing classes as well as my liberal arts requirements until 6pm and then heading into rehearsal from 7pm-10pm. I barely found time to breath let alone study. Somehow, I eked out Magna Cum Laude by the time I was finished in 4 years. But I know so much of my education was missed by not being able to fully sink into it. If I did, I would have probably fallen asleep as I did every morning I had astronomy class and fell asleep in the dark planetarium. That year at McDonald’s was miserable. Things were so bad at this store, I told my sister who had two little boys not to eat there for their own safety. This year also saw me miss a full day of class completely when my store manager decided to “no-show” on me after I had reported many mismanagement problems to my regional manager. I had been told to falsely report food temperatures, change dates on baked goods, and fill out pages of food safety data that should have been done in real time as a matter of course. The GM won the lottery or had gotten an inheritance- the details were murky at the time and she no longer needed to work. She plotted a grand departure to screw the one person there she couldn’t stand- me. At 5:30am when I was supposed to have additional crew members and another shift manager to open all the stations, I had one person in the grill area- an old man who should have been in retirement and who didn’t understand why he couldn’t prebatch all the eggs and meat for the entire breakfast service while I was managing (most of the breakfast items had a 30 minute expiration and breakfast service was a 5 hour ordeal), one woman for the back booth of the drive-through that took the orders and payments, and me. We needed a minimum of two more people to open the store properly. After looking at the schedule drafted by this illustrious GM, there were no other people scheduled until she was to come in at 9am. I put in a call to all the local McDonald’s and begged for any extra staff. There were none. I put in a call to my regional manager hoping for help and none came. I had to open the doors. So, there I was managing the entire dining room and the front booth of the drive through while trying to keep grandpa from flipping out in the kitchen from having to continually cook through this travesty. The phone was ringing and there was no way to get to the office to pick it up. At 9am, when the GM failed to show and I had finally gotten two more employees who were scheduled to come in then, I sat in the office and cried and dialed the GM’s number. Voicemail, voicemail, voicemail. Over and over and over and I realized I had been screwed on purpose. I finally got a hold of Debbie, my regional, explained what was happening and the earliest she could get me managerial help was at 12pm- a half hour after my first class started- my favorite class- my voice lesson with Jim Mismas. I called him crying. He reassured me he wouldn’t hold the absence against me and then told me I should probably look for some other type of work. I was going through all this for $8.00 an hour.

But I’m not a quitter and so I stuck it out… until beanie babies came again that summer. I had survived the first beanie baby craze the previous summer, but I knew I couldn’t and wouldn’t be able to do it again. Having to look middle aged mothers and fathers in the eye and beg them to stop fighting in the lobby over a stupid toy, seeing the incredible amount of food thrown away in the overflowing trash cans around the store from people who had no intention of eating the 10 happy meals they bought for said, stupid toy, and the final straw of having to call the police when I couldn’t keep the lobby locked with all the crowds after we had closed a half hour before. I was at risk of breaking all the child labor laws with 16 and 17 year olds that had been forced to work without a break so adults could act like children and buy pointless toys someone had decided were worth something. That was my first exposure to an industry that cares more about profits than anything else. It was shocking. The food waste at restaurants is shocking- this was full dumpsters of uneaten food, shocking. And it wouldn’t be the last time.

I finished out my college career as a waitress and bartender at the now defunct Chi-Chi’s Mexican restaurant. Collecting tips for a job well done was way more up my alley and gave me so much more financial freedom. Plus, everyone around me kept reminding me that actors are always “just” bartenders and waiters waiting for their chance. It felt like the perfect skill to learn as I planned my way out of Ohio and into the big city.

I moved to NYC on September 1, 2001. Needless to say, my timing is impeccable. Ten days later the towers would fall, on the same day I was scheduled for my interview at Olive Garden- Times Square. I was very green and didn't yet realize that the city teemed with restaurants outside the national chain, corporate structure. I finally got that job a month later. As college friends decided to call it quits and move back home to Ohio, I stuck it out. Olive Garden was horrible. They constantly talked about pushing guests to purchase alcohol, and extra appetizers, and desserts. The tables we got depended on being good at sales, not customer service. I was good at both, but we only had three tables and they soon started threatening us that they would reduce our tables if we didn’t meet a certain quota. Waiters with kids lost a table and it meant less money for their families- there were a lot of people with families working there. Every time a restautant I worked for came up with a scheme to make more money and threatened their staff to do so, the shenanigans from the staff would reach epic proportions. The people making the most money and having the best sections were usually the best at the shenanigans- ordering foreign tourists things they didn’t order and then fighting with them about their checks, adding gratuities on anyone who didn’t speak English… the list goes on and on. And management in pretty much any restaurant from that point on in my life as a waiter/bartender turned a blind eye if they were making money. I worked at legendary NYC restaurants and bridge and tunnel bars and it was always the same. Push the front of the house to sell or lose money, lose tables, or add another bartender when two splitting the tips barely pays the rent. I always pulled my weight. I always was a top seller. But the pressure was always there.

I got a short respite from the industry when I moved to Hong Kong. The man I was with at the time recognized how much effort I had to put into my day job and promised me the moon. I wouldn’t have to do that anymore and I could finally focus solely on my career, albeit a world away. When that relationship ended and I found my way back to NYC, I was lucky enough that the off-Broadway show I had been doing before I left, Greenwich Village Follies, was able to hire me back! The woman they cast to replace me was pregnant and leaving the show. It felt like a small victory to be back and doing what I loved after the tragedy of a failed romance. But off-Broadway actors don’t make a lot of money and I found myself back in the grind. Now older and wiser, the time away from restaurants gave me a new perspective. I was not only able to recognize all the managers and chefs and staff on drugs, one of whom, I would find out died of a drug overdose years later, but also more aware of the amount of food wasted, money stolen, and the guests who were increasingly shoveling the food and spirits into their mouths to cover for the depression they were experiencing from a world ignoring its problems by sticking its head in the sand. People at restaurants, guests and workers alike, just stick their heads in a pound of ribs, a New York style cheesecake or a double shot of Knob Creek and call it dinner. It wouldn’t be until 2020 that the entire world would get a needed break from the go-go-go culture of a capitalist society that not only prioritizes more profit this year than last but that demands it of the world as a means purely to exist.

So, at the end of 2019, my dear friend and hilariously funny writer, Alina and I promised each other that this was the last year we were going to work in the restaurant industry. We had both had some minor successes and realized that the way to greater success was to spread our wings and fly. She has written several really great pilots and a feature film looking to sell them and I had just signed with my new agents and my first show as a Producer and Director, Dear Prospective Student, was opening Off Broadway. Then March 2020 happened and the world came to a stop. We told each other we may have manifested the entire Pandemic as we declared our intention to the universe a little too loudly. But here was a year away from it all- one we weren’t clear we were fully ready to take. I surely hadn’t saved for a year and a half out of work. I lost my fabulous 2 bedroom apartment in Long Island City and packed my bags. The unemployment was helpful but I had grander plans and they couldn’t be reached paying New York rent on unemployment. I was one of the many people forced to run away, but silently happy about leaving the rat race for a bit and focusing solely on my art.

I’m back now, sleeping on couches and watching all these people discuss the restaurant industry and the workers that are refusing or unwilling to come back. I am just appalled that we got this time off from the world as it had been, we had been gifted this moment to reflect; and the only thing we’ve got to hang our hats on, is that we need to return to “normal.” Well, I’m not sure I’m having it. I’d rather have more of the learning I did in the last year. I learned to cook each and every meal for myself, eating out only a handful of times. It became what I think it should be- a special occasion where I could truly honor the food and the hands that made it and delivered it to me. I learned to be a vegan, in a healthy sustainable way, avoiding processed foods and making almost everything from scratch. I loved meat and dairy and had tried for years to eat “sustainable” products. But, I love more the way I feel when I eat home cooked vegan meals knowing I hurt fewer people and animals by the choices I make in the kitchen. I also know I couldn’t afford to eat meat these days- at least not organic, grass-fed meat and dairy sans the chemicals. I am also healthier than I have ever been in my life. I know we have been lied to about “sustainability” and the concept has now been co-opted by corporations from the oil and gas industry to fashion to …insert anyone trying to make a buck from going green (Corporations did the same thing with Cancer for Pete’s sake- monetizing a horrible disease and making us feel better about consuming too much because at least we do it for a good cause)… when there isn’t anything sustainable about the over consumption model that these industries are based on. I learned how difficult it is to be zero waste in a single use plastic sort of world. I know that many restaurants pretend to recycle, so the idea that they could go zero waste in any real way is a fallacy. I know that our entire food system in America is a true disaster. I know that our eating and drinking and drug habits cover for our undocumented and often documented depression. I know the federal government no matter what party is in control is owned by special interests. I know the pharmaceutical industry influences the food industry through the FDA and the other way around. I know that agribusiness and the model of farming in America has been infiltrated by disastrous chemical companies that began as tools of war and are now destroying the earth, our water and our health and have been for pretty much my entire life. I know that there are farmers, restaurants, and people who are trying to do more and do better but there aren’t enough of them. They are often some of the most expensive places to eat, proving to me that most people can’t afford to eat healthy or sustainably outside the home. I know that there are more people standing in line at food pantries than ever before, more children going to bed hungry, and tent cities popping up all over the country as the unhoused population soars. I know from an early age that I was taught to ignore the homeless, avert my eyes, and not to ask deep questions about how it may be possible that a developing nation in Africa I visited didn’t have a visible homeless population, but America has a population of unhoused people in every state in the country if not in every city. And I know that the amount of consumption we have on this planet and particularly in this country is a problem. The world’s resources are finite. It was never meant to hold us all up while we consume everything in sight, and bank on the fact that next year we’ll consume even more. I have to pay my bills and live in this world that was created for me, for all of us, without asking us if this is the world we wanted to participate in. We were forced to leave our jobs last year, which forced some of us to truly contemplate what type of world we live in. We saw that in the streets last year as many of us, some for the first time, were able to contemplate and really listen to what it means to be black in America and decide that we are done with the status quo. My head is out of the sand, and it’s staying there. The air up here is fresh and I don’t have to tie myself in knots to live in a world that promotes cognitive dissonance as a means of survival. I’m awake now and I’m not going back to sleep.

Now, with many states ending the additional federal unemployment benefits, many workers are being coerced back into a lifestyle that is disastrous for their health. We live in a world where McDonald’s and Amazon have to be forced into paying a wage that doesn’t even cover most family’s bills if they work 40 hours a week. $15 an hour is only $600 a week, before taxes, if you’re lucky enough to get 40 hours. Believe me, as a McDonald’s manager we were trained to keep people comfortably in the 30–35 hours per week range (that’s $450- $525 a week at $15) as to stay clear of any possible overtime. Could you buy food and gas if that’s how much you made a week? Could you feed your family? How about rent or a mortgage? Could you afford health insurance? In NYC, the answer is a resounding no. This country has a minimum wage at $7.25 an hour which is $0.75 less than what I was making 24 years ago at McDonald’s as a college student and I was barely getting by then. Maybe it’s not common knowledge but the fight for $15 as a movement is 8 years old! Joe Biden, in an effort to court progressives ran on increasing the minimum wage and yet people are told by inaction that they are not worth the humanity of having a job where they can pay their bills and take care of their families. By the time any federal action on this is taken, people are going to need a bigger raise than that! I haven’t even mentioned the lack of health insurance offered in this industry… It’s been a long time since I worked so hand to mouth, but I don’t forget where I came from. What is happening now is not laziness, this is malaise. The people I have worked with in restaurants are some of the hardest workers I have ever known. Many of them are there because without proper documentation they can work nowhere else. I hope that I am not forced to return, but I live in this world and understand we don’t always get what we want. I’m hoping that at least we can have an honest conversation about what’s next for this industry and our world. If we expect the world to be here for future generations, we must.