One of the best things about working in a restaurant is that most employees don’t have to take their work home with them. While it’s true that the smell of the restaurant is embedded into our hair, clothes and skin and we occasionally may carry out some carry-out, for the most part, we do not have to think about our job when we aren’t there. (Well, there’s the recurring server nightmare, but that’s another story.)
Even though the work hours are flexible, it doesn’t always give us the option for a decent work-life balance. It can be challenging to make plans since the restaurant business is notoriously unpredictable and the beginning and end times for shifts and even the restaurant hours can change by the day.
The restaurant working schedule is a complicated enigma created by some unlucky manager who crafts it like a Tetris game, with each employee sliding precisely into the necessary work slot. The …