Jamie Oliver tells the truth!!!

N1AK

wymondham wrote: »

Should people be proud for working 100 hours a week?

It's up to them what they want to be proud of. Personally, I'm not impressed by claims of working long hours whether they are true or not.

I know plenty of people who are at work longer than I am, have been working at the firm since before I started school and who are still in less senior roles.

I'm also very dubious about Jamie's claims on how long the hours he regularly worked were.

HAMISH_MCTAVISH

misskool wrote: »

Why should a minimum wage worker work 100 hours @ £6.19 if there is no job/career progression? .

Well, for starters, because they'd earn £619 in a week.

Do a year of that and put themselves through Uni.... Then there's plenty of job/career progression for someone that motivated.

PasturesNew wrote: »

But have you been "lucky".

I firmly believe you make your own luck in life.

Yes, sometimes people are genuinely unlucky, but the difference in most cases between success and failure over the long run is nothing other than determination to succeed and hard work.

If you'd lived, say, elsewhere, would you have ever got the job you have?

Yes.

Have you had to move hundreds of miles away from family/familiarity to pursue something?

Yes.

You've kept your job.

Not always.

How'd you have fared living elsewhere, not getting the job you did (or even knowing it existed), not having access to decent jobs with progression, and - for good measure - a good sprinkling of having to start all over again (say 5-6x) as companies closed down and/or you were laid off?

Not everybody has a straight forward line through life, through no fault of their own.

At various times in the past, I've been made redundant, had companies I was working for go under, quit a job I couldn't stand, etc.

I've also been moved across the country with little notice and no choice, been moved to other countries and parked there for several years, and even had to find a new job in another country at short notice.

My life has been anything but straightforward.

But in most cases, the difference between success and failure is not the hand you're dealt in life, but rather how you play that hand.

Graham_Devon

HAMISH_MCTAVISH wrote: »

In our organisation I'm one step below C-level and still do 100+ hour weeks a dozen or more times a year, with a 60 hour week as a bare minimum.

I'm on call 24/7, I work at least 3-4 hours a day on weekends, and I check emails daily on holidays. My bonus however, regularly exceeds my base salary, and my share awards will allow me to retire very comfortably at 50 if I keep this pace going.

As a junior I did 100+ hours all the time, week in and week out, for the best part of a decade.

And the juniors of today who wish to progress in our industry still do.

I absolutely do not understand the 9-5 Monday to Friday culture.

If that's what you want go and work in the public sector or some useless Quango.

But don't moan about the fact you can't afford a house.... (not aimed at you, just a general rant against the 'entitlement generation')

Progression and financial rewards in the real world takes blood sweat and tears.

And sacrifice.

Career comes before family, personal life, and self-gratification.

There is time to be self-indulgent later..... But the first 20 years out of School or Uni you pay your dues and earn respect and prioritise work above everything.

Here endeth the rant.:o

Good.

I have a response.

I'd rather spend time with my partner and kids. They are young once (all of them! ). We live once. While you are free to make your choices, it doesn't mean they are right for everyone or you are somehow better. Being a good dad and spending time with the kids is equally as important to me as earning a wage.

Doing a fishing trip this weekend. Might catch a plastic bag and a twig if we are lucky. But you know what, whatever we catch they will be over the moon.

Thankfully for me, I have no such thing as "hours". I have jobs to do. Most of them I can do whenever I like.

spacey2012

He spends more on his lunch than these workers earn in a week.
Of course he is happy, he is a member of the upper class champaign socialist brigade.
Every penny counts when you are worth £44,000,000 .
Now get working harder and longer for less for the "prince of pucker".
He needs more.

Carl31

wymondham wrote: »

Should people be proud for working 100 hours a week?

Great if that's your thing and you're happy, but surely the idea is to work less and earn more? ie be a politician?

The general gist I have been getting from management in our industry (Industry Accounting/Finance) recently is that if you are unable to complete your work during office hours, you are probably under performing, under resourced, or not capable of fulfilling your role. With technological advances, it seems odd that people still have to work these hours. Work Smarter, not harder as they say
Admittedly, thats office based work, not sure it would apply to manual type roles, but surely even the modern kitchen is full of the latest tech to make life easier
The last company I worked for had a very old fashioned ethic, where if you didn't claim you were working every hour you were awake, you were slacking, a lot of people used to boast about how many hours they had been at work, thing is they were only productive 50% of the time

Carl31

Graham_Devon wrote: »

Good.

I have a response.

I'd rather spend time with my partner and kids. They are young once (all of them! ). We live once. While you are free to make your choices, it doesn't mean they are right for everyone or you are somehow better. Being a good dad and spending time with the kids is equally as important to me as earning a wage.

Doing a fishing trip this weekend. Might catch a plastic bag and a twig if we are lucky. But you know what, whatever we catch they will be over the moon.

Thankfully for me, I have no such thing as "hours". I have jobs to do. Most of them I can do whenever I like.

Quite right

Lifes for living etc...someone said to me, make sure you dont look back on your death bed and all you saw was a life wasted through working

princeofpounds

I have no idea whether Jamie really worked 100 hours per week... many chefs do work very hard but that leaves no time for anything except work, sleep and showering 7 days a week. Probably he had some weeks like that, but on average doubt it was quite that bad.

But I can tell you he wouldn't be where he is today if he hadn't been lucky enough to have those TV cameras turn up at the River Cafe that time. The only thing the long hours did for him was to increase the chances that he was on a shift that day. It's hardly as if his cooking depends on Michelin star levels of skill (and that's not a criticism - I actually think his style is generally practical and tasty which is far more relevant to an ordinary person).

I think the point he makes is broadly correct, if exagerrated. But I don't think there is much point berating people. Immigrants work hard because of necessity. So did the generations growing up during and after the war. People haven't changed genetically since then, it's just that they aren't forced by circumstance to work so hard to achieve the basics (although some aspirational things like owning housing remain further away than before). That has both good and bad aspects to it.

I don't think Oliver's generation is any better than that entering the workforce now frankly, most of the change happened prior to then.

zagfles

Carl31 wrote: »

The general gist I have been getting from management in our industry (Industry Accounting/Finance) recently is that if you are unable to complete your work during office hours, you are probably under performing, under resourced, or not capable of fulfilling your role.

Yes, there's someone at our place who always stays late, he was asked in his appraisal why he struggles to get his work done in normal working hours!

With technological advances, it seems odd that people still have to work these hours. Work Smarter, not harder as they say
Admittedly, thats office based work, not sure it would apply to manual type roles, but surely even the modern kitchen is full of the latest tech to make life easier
The last company I worked for had a very old fashioned ethic, where if you didn't claim you were working every hour you were awake, you were slacking, a lot of people used to boast about how many hours they had been at work, thing is they were only productive 50% of the time

Yes like people who claim to work long hours but seem to spend loads of time on MSE

Working long hours doesn't impress any decent employer these days. It either demonstrates you're a mug to be taken advantage of or you're not up to the job so it takes you longer to do everything!

spacey2012

With the average plate of food in his restaurant coming in at £40, I wonder how much he pays his staff to make each £40 plate, £5.03 an hour if he sacks them at 20, how many plates an hour will the cook make for the £5 an hour.

That is why some jobs are hard to fill, people know when they are been exploited.

lostinrates

Kitchen hours are notoriously long.

As a matter of interest when I was a soliciter's clerk a client was a young employee in one of the Jamie Oliver restaurants. He used to go to work on his day off to do one of his favourite tasks. Don't remember what happened to the end of his case, but a young guy who goes into work on his day off is pretty good IMO, especially in one of those kitchens born of the initiative of employment for those harder to employ as I think that one was.....probably feels like a kick in the teeth to them.

Also incidentally, last time we were in bath we made a complaint about service from (foreign) employees (the foreign is irrelevantly our complaint but relevant to this news story and was mentioned in identifying the culprits in the complaint). This eventually needn't up with the CEO (or some such, can't remember details) , who is giving us a free meal at a restaurant in the group of our choice.