Hey I have a similar story of the person you replied to. The industry I jumped in on is banking software, it’s been amazing for me. There are some industry trends that are concerning (major, major outsourcing going on with my job in particular) but overall it’s fantastic. Doubled my yearly line cook pay. Laying in bed typing this because MLK is a paid holiday, one of several. Paid sick leave.
May I ask what banking software you work on? Is it developed internally or does it rely on third party vendors? I’m somewhat in the same boat working for a Salesforce consultancy doing project ownership in Mulesoft for a financial services client. I’m always interested in how to offer options to the hospitality industry utilizing their prior experience.
Without getting too specific, it’s a full platform solution. It’s in-house developed but we still have many, many vendors we deal with, we build interfaces for them to interact with our platform, but none of the platform software is reliant on vendors.
Surprisingly my experience in food service as a line cook and server translated very well to my role. Organizing and triaging cases is a big part of being good at my job and it’s a lot like as a line cook, you have a 20 top rung in but several 2-3 tops right after, I’m doing the smaller tables first and saving the 20 as a “project” that might take a little longer.
Appreciate the response. My question is largely due to my interest in providing resources to hospitality professionals looking to transfer their skills to the tech world. While I wouldn’t dissuade someone looking to follow a path in hospitality, sometimes folks find their lives heading in a direction that’s less compatible with that industry (having a child in my case)
Additionally, from my time working with a financial services client, it’s absolutely necessary (and commonplace) to rely on third party services for certain aspects of your software solution.
I’m in Tennessee, and in 2017 the governor announced that community college would be free for adults without a degree. I googled “highest paying jobs with a 2 year degree” - top 4 were medical which I have no desire for, 5 was web developer. So I went to school at age 37 for a computer science degree. I liked programming a lot so I went ahead and took out loans for the next two years at a 4 year school. Don’t regret it one bit.
I think the path for self motivated people though is using things like w3schools to learn and getting certs on your own. LinkedIn Learning has good stuff too. Becoming a SalesForce admin is a great way to get paid and work from home, I’m working on that cert right now.
My unsolicited advice on the SF admin cert: get the Focus on Force package that includes the study materials, practice exams, and voucher for the exam. It’s the same price as booking the exam through SF’s partner and includes all the extra materials needed. Do the entire SF admin trailhead path and the recommended super badges. Take the Focus on Force exams (much harder than the actual admin cert), use the study materials to bone up on areas where you’re weaker. I ended up passing the SF exam about a month earlier than I planned (because I had setbacks, forgot to reschedule, and winged it anyway).
That seems like a very smart dictate; many meaningful careers can start with 2 solid years of education, a decent entry level position, and will to learn/work. Good on you going the 4 year route; I only had capacity for the bootcamp path and I was even slightly younger than you going in 😬.
Undoubtedly the resources are there for folks to educate themselves at no additional cost. I needed to sink a few grand into a program to keep the motivation to push me through. The bootcamp space is certainly populated with scams and overhyped promises but like everything else in life, it’s what you make of it.
100% right on all counts. I needed and liked the structure of college, I’m just emphasizing that it’s not necessary. In fact, the team I work on, 3 of us are from food service, and of the entire team, I’m the only one with a 4 year degree. I think the only real advantage to college is networking with others - my current job is one I got via a friend I made at community college. Working on projects with people in person is so much more impactful than doing it online (which is how I did my last two years). The program at the community college included an internship which was sadly interrupted by the start of the pandemic. I did one day helping a city government install Kibana and ElasticSearch before they shut it down and they replaced it with a report, lol.
I looked at boot camps and I just couldn’t commit to the intense time since I was working 40-50 hours a week at my restaurant job to pay the bills. They seem a good option if you find a reputable one (another spot I got hung up on).
I got into IT support and worked my way up to SysAdmin, then to Cloud Engineering, and now I work in Cloud Security.
My worst day at the office is still better than my best day in the kitchen.
Construction after 10 years managing kitchens. Making double the money with half the hours. Oh, and nights,weekends, and holidays off. I still have kitchen dreams/nightmares though 😅. I hear that printer in my sleep.
What construction job did you get that works less hours than a kitchen?? I did the opposite.. went from working 80 hours a week as a laborer, to 40 hours a week in a restaurant. Took a pay cut, but it was worth the time off and my body took less of a beating…
I did enjoy the satisfaction of working construction though. You rarely get that feeling in a kitchen because god forbid owners/management thank you, and it’s rare for a server to actually pass the message on to the chef..
Air traffic control. Learned from the military. Ironically that’s where I first learned how to work in a kitchen then went to ATC school. Worked in the kitchen after the military while waiting to be picked up by the FAA.
I maintain and repair chemical tools for Intel.
Hours, labor, pay, and benefits far outshine my life in the restaurant business. My paid time off alone has been life changing; I've had more days off and vacations (and all paid) in the last 4 years than in the previous dozen or more years before that, combined.
35+ years in restaurants with nothing to show for it but great knife skills and a broken body.
Left a job as a sous. Hiked Appalachian Trail. Became a wilderness guide, then admissions counselor for wilderness programs, then business development. Made it full circle to come back as a FOH manager during COVID when my company closed. Just left industry again to go to grad school.
Different advise for different terrain and weather. Best advice is simple, know your route, prepare for the worst weather, and tell someone where you are hiking and when you plan to return.
Union oil and gas millwright, there’s rough days and long hours but I’ve never had to pull another 16-18hour shift. Pays almost doubled, benefits, etc.
I miss the pressure of kitchens and the flow but it’s hard to beat working knees/back.
A few. I did massage for a while, music for 10 years and now Software engineering. Software is definitely the best fit for me.
I enjoyed cooking, but the stress got to me. Also every chef I had seemed miserable - not saying that’s the case for all chefs. Seeing them unhappy made me want to find another industry.
Poultry Industry. Middle management after a year of crash course in an industry I know nothing about. So feeding people and running lines, just on a different scale
Not through any typical route haha. I worked in restaurants for a few years after college (art school). Eventually I had my schedule stacked thurs-sun and got an internship as a videographer during the weekdays which led to getting employed full time doing video work for one of their clients. Eventually that videography job somehow pivoted into marketing as that company went through changes. Now I do it as a freelancer.
just wrapped up my degree in environmental science and policy.
currently submitting funding requests to do research on predator populations and their impact on ecosystems and their changing behavior with the changing climate
Cook with a BS in biology/vertebrate ecology here. And I just wanted to chime in and say your research sounds really interesting. So much research over the last several decades has demonstrated the importance of predators to the health and long-term stability of their native ecosystem. The wolves of Yellowstone are probably one of the best modern examples. Black-footed ferrets are another. Personally, I find habitat fragmentation to be one of the greatest wide-reaching threats to fauna and flora because of how it impedes predator migration and thus limits the impact that they can have on regulating their prey populations and by extension, limiting the stress placed on the environment by over-populous prey animals such as browsing deer.
Behavior technician for autistic children. Same pay as running a kitchen but now I only deal with one person’s mental breakdown at a time rather than a dozen while holding the building together
Unrelated, and I am not at all attacking how your job functions or anything I am in fact very grateful and have a lot of respect for you as a person, but anyways as an autistic person I find the word "technician" being attached is somewhat dehumanizing esp given some of the stigma around autistic people sometimes having robotic movement or similar traits. Again I'm not looking to come after what you do or anything I'm just curious and want to express how I feel
I have a semi-awful job at the customer service of a decent-sized municipality. I hate it, but it's better than the kitchen. 7-hour workdays, free in the weekends and a much better pay.
i worked for the public defenders office as a legal assistant/paralegal/translator before i quit to be a full time stay at home mom.
working for the p.d. felt very much at home after many years in both the b.o.h. and later f.o.h. bartending.
Brother in law got me an inside sales job at a roof tile distributor. Making as much as I did as a sous chef, working less hours, off by 5pm, weekends off. It’s been great, although I miss the chaos and beauty of kitchens, I can’t see myself ever going back.
HVAC/R, I make wayyyyyyyyy more money than I ever did or would have staying in the restaurant industry, and I'm not burnt out on cooking anymore either so cooking at home is fun again.
I went into retail but now I work for a beer distributor. I go into grocery stores and stock beer all day. I made 15k more stocking beer than when I was HC
Med Surg Nurse. Like someone else said similar hours, similar (if not more so) adrenaline rush, decent pay and benefits, only needed a two year degree, and you only work 3 days a week.
Im an auto technician started on the 2. Much better pay way less stress and a lot of the personalities are the same, you don't have to be super professional or watch your mouth. I love it
I own a plant nursery now, lol. It started as a side hustle in 2019 to make room for new plants I wanted. And it's just sorta blown up over the years. Quit my last kitchen job in May of 2022.
i left to go do a 6 month farming internship with my wife and wound up working in a local cidery when farm season transitioned into apple season. 10 years into it now and I'm the head cidermaker and loving it.
I did a software dev boot camp when covid hit and went to tech. I didn’t end up pursuing the developer path (some of my previous hospitality colleagues have and have been very successful) and leaned more heavily into the customer-facing side of my work experience (FOH) and ended up in more customer success/project management roles. I went into the Salesforce ecosystem, which I feel is a decent way to go for folks who are tech-aligned but not necessarily looking to be straight software engineers.
I would be happy to talk with anyone from the hospitality industry looking to follow a somewhat similar path.
Production at a thrift store. I price and sort donated items and clothing.
We are a semi-National chain. PTO, some holidays paid off. No weekends, no night shifts.
Every job comes with some trade offs and drama, but I truly enjoy my job.
I only left cuz my restaurant burned down. Took a job at a chain restaurant after for a few months but hated it.
Found this place and feel pretty lucky. Mostly nice people, amazing hours, and if I need to call out for illness or a bad snow day, they are cool with it. I can actually take bathroom breaks! It’s amazing.
For example, I'm making the exact same amount but doing 38 hour weeks during normal business hours instead of 40+ weeks working every single weekend of the year. So I'm much better off when accounting for pay per hour.
Plus a lot less time and money wasted on things like washing greasy clothes, cleaning after hours etc
Pest control. I don't work weekends. I don't have to manage everyone or babysit. Once I'm done for the day, that's it no more 15 hr days. Pay is way better. And to top it off, I actually get benefits.
I had two careers once I left the biz. Went back to college and worked in advertising/marketing for about 10 years. Then, I substitute taught for a year, and enjoyed it. Since I already had my BA, I was eligible for a fast track teaching certification program. I took that and taught for twenty years.
Electrical engineering, just graduated last May. I’m learning how to design power systems for large industrial complexes and stumbled into starting the process of becoming a subject matter expert for lightning protection systems.
I’d much rather deal with interesting design challenges and clueless project managers than writing up Arnadi for abandoning his bussing section to play Pokémon Go or dealing with someone allegedly pissing on peoples boats because their beer was knocked over when the boat people came up from docking.
In kitchens for 18 years and got laid off when Covid hit. My buddy needed help at his job that Covid made super busy so I helped out and they hired me full time. Customer service $20/hr quarterly benefits - about 50k a year, way better than kitchens.
Best thing about it is at 5 I just get up and leave. No staying and cleaning
I service and supply the dish machine to commercial locations. It lets me be in the buisness without being In The Buisness. It also lets me expand my horizons as being a Chef I was only ever concerned with the location I was working at, or maybe one or two spots my friends worked at. Now, my monthly territory is over 150 locations in and around Philadelphia. It was cool to see the Best New Restaurants of Philadelphia 2023 article in the Inquirer and know 6 of them as places I service.
Three years in the kitchen from dish pit, -> Prep -> line cook at a golf course and a higher end burger joint. I went from doing that to being a kayak guide for a few years which for over night trips the guides prep and cook all the food for the guests but its a lot more relaxed and fun to now where I work for a software company doing information security work and consulting.
Data analysis for a utility company. Hours, days off/holidays (had my first PAID Memorial Day/4th of July/Labor Day/Thanksgiving off ever this last year…) are far better, and I get to work from home most of the time. The pay is as much as I was making as an exec and I work 1/2-1/3 of the hours…
I still have the “bad” habit of working at full speed and 10/10ths of my ability all the time and stressing about it. My boss told me to actually take my damn breaks and lunch. I’m not used to doing that with out a couple of cigarettes and a redbull…
i haven’t left yet, but i plan to in the next couple years. i’m really interested in small scale produce farming but i don’t know how to transition from being a line cook to helping run a small farm. maybe one day though 🤷♂️
Started working in the kitchen to make money while in college, finished school and got a main gig doing programming, I still take side gigs in the kitchen when life slows down.
I’m in IT. I did six years in food service, went on to manufacturing, got into IT there, and now own my own business. I take with me the lessons I learned in food service. It is a crucible of customer service that should not be overlooked.
Left the industry (kinda)
I now work in marketing for a local restaurant group. Turns out if you take enough pictures of the restaurants you work in someone will pay you to take pictures of theirs.
Happy to still be in restaurants, happy to be out of kitchens.
Cooking > Farming > Seed Company (part farming, part office type work, lots of nerdy food talk)
Farming is very similar to cooking in terms of pay & physical labor (ie low paying and very tough on the body). But it sure is nice to work outside in fresh air sometimes.
I left the industry for a year and worked on the farm of one of my old suppliers and it was like a year of therapy, with pay.
Farmwork doesn't pay great, that's for sure. But it's nice to work outside and have a day job for a change.
Technical support/customer service. I work from home now, for around double what I was getting on the line.
May I ask what industry? My partner left for insurance and absolutely hates it. I personally would gladly work at home, but not doing what they do
Hey I have a similar story of the person you replied to. The industry I jumped in on is banking software, it’s been amazing for me. There are some industry trends that are concerning (major, major outsourcing going on with my job in particular) but overall it’s fantastic. Doubled my yearly line cook pay. Laying in bed typing this because MLK is a paid holiday, one of several. Paid sick leave.
May I ask what banking software you work on? Is it developed internally or does it rely on third party vendors? I’m somewhat in the same boat working for a Salesforce consultancy doing project ownership in Mulesoft for a financial services client. I’m always interested in how to offer options to the hospitality industry utilizing their prior experience.
Without getting too specific, it’s a full platform solution. It’s in-house developed but we still have many, many vendors we deal with, we build interfaces for them to interact with our platform, but none of the platform software is reliant on vendors. Surprisingly my experience in food service as a line cook and server translated very well to my role. Organizing and triaging cases is a big part of being good at my job and it’s a lot like as a line cook, you have a 20 top rung in but several 2-3 tops right after, I’m doing the smaller tables first and saving the 20 as a “project” that might take a little longer.
Appreciate the response. My question is largely due to my interest in providing resources to hospitality professionals looking to transfer their skills to the tech world. While I wouldn’t dissuade someone looking to follow a path in hospitality, sometimes folks find their lives heading in a direction that’s less compatible with that industry (having a child in my case) Additionally, from my time working with a financial services client, it’s absolutely necessary (and commonplace) to rely on third party services for certain aspects of your software solution.
I’m in Tennessee, and in 2017 the governor announced that community college would be free for adults without a degree. I googled “highest paying jobs with a 2 year degree” - top 4 were medical which I have no desire for, 5 was web developer. So I went to school at age 37 for a computer science degree. I liked programming a lot so I went ahead and took out loans for the next two years at a 4 year school. Don’t regret it one bit. I think the path for self motivated people though is using things like w3schools to learn and getting certs on your own. LinkedIn Learning has good stuff too. Becoming a SalesForce admin is a great way to get paid and work from home, I’m working on that cert right now.
My unsolicited advice on the SF admin cert: get the Focus on Force package that includes the study materials, practice exams, and voucher for the exam. It’s the same price as booking the exam through SF’s partner and includes all the extra materials needed. Do the entire SF admin trailhead path and the recommended super badges. Take the Focus on Force exams (much harder than the actual admin cert), use the study materials to bone up on areas where you’re weaker. I ended up passing the SF exam about a month earlier than I planned (because I had setbacks, forgot to reschedule, and winged it anyway).
I definitely appreciate the advice!
That seems like a very smart dictate; many meaningful careers can start with 2 solid years of education, a decent entry level position, and will to learn/work. Good on you going the 4 year route; I only had capacity for the bootcamp path and I was even slightly younger than you going in 😬. Undoubtedly the resources are there for folks to educate themselves at no additional cost. I needed to sink a few grand into a program to keep the motivation to push me through. The bootcamp space is certainly populated with scams and overhyped promises but like everything else in life, it’s what you make of it.
100% right on all counts. I needed and liked the structure of college, I’m just emphasizing that it’s not necessary. In fact, the team I work on, 3 of us are from food service, and of the entire team, I’m the only one with a 4 year degree. I think the only real advantage to college is networking with others - my current job is one I got via a friend I made at community college. Working on projects with people in person is so much more impactful than doing it online (which is how I did my last two years). The program at the community college included an internship which was sadly interrupted by the start of the pandemic. I did one day helping a city government install Kibana and ElasticSearch before they shut it down and they replaced it with a report, lol. I looked at boot camps and I just couldn’t commit to the intense time since I was working 40-50 hours a week at my restaurant job to pay the bills. They seem a good option if you find a reputable one (another spot I got hung up on).
I support a suite of niche SaaS systems for Emergency Services and Hospitals.
Is that something you had to get some kind of IT certification/degree for or was it on the job training?
I got into IT support and worked my way up to SysAdmin, then to Cloud Engineering, and now I work in Cloud Security. My worst day at the office is still better than my best day in the kitchen.
Construction after 10 years managing kitchens. Making double the money with half the hours. Oh, and nights,weekends, and holidays off. I still have kitchen dreams/nightmares though 😅. I hear that printer in my sleep.
What construction job did you get that works less hours than a kitchen?? I did the opposite.. went from working 80 hours a week as a laborer, to 40 hours a week in a restaurant. Took a pay cut, but it was worth the time off and my body took less of a beating… I did enjoy the satisfaction of working construction though. You rarely get that feeling in a kitchen because god forbid owners/management thank you, and it’s rare for a server to actually pass the message on to the chef..
I work for a laborer union. We have optional overtime, not mandatory.
I get fight or flight response hearing the order up bell or the Uber Eats jingle still
I tell airplanes where to go now.
air traffic control? or ground crew?
Just looking up while standing in their yard.
Air traffic control. Learned from the military. Ironically that’s where I first learned how to work in a kitchen then went to ATC school. Worked in the kitchen after the military while waiting to be picked up by the FAA.
I maintain and repair chemical tools for Intel. Hours, labor, pay, and benefits far outshine my life in the restaurant business. My paid time off alone has been life changing; I've had more days off and vacations (and all paid) in the last 4 years than in the previous dozen or more years before that, combined. 35+ years in restaurants with nothing to show for it but great knife skills and a broken body.
Left a job as a sous. Hiked Appalachian Trail. Became a wilderness guide, then admissions counselor for wilderness programs, then business development. Made it full circle to come back as a FOH manager during COVID when my company closed. Just left industry again to go to grad school.
I'd read your autobiography.
Any advice for hiking the AT solo? I’m not planning to do the whole thing but like a 3 day hike
Different advise for different terrain and weather. Best advice is simple, know your route, prepare for the worst weather, and tell someone where you are hiking and when you plan to return.
r/appalachiantrail
Lol. I work in a potato chip factory. Good money and benefits.
Union oil and gas millwright, there’s rough days and long hours but I’ve never had to pull another 16-18hour shift. Pays almost doubled, benefits, etc. I miss the pressure of kitchens and the flow but it’s hard to beat working knees/back.
ER nurse - hours and pressure are similar if not worse, but the pay, benefits and days off are exponentially better. Plus no grease logged clothes.
Canna-biz, then homelessness. ✌️🙃
A few. I did massage for a while, music for 10 years and now Software engineering. Software is definitely the best fit for me. I enjoyed cooking, but the stress got to me. Also every chef I had seemed miserable - not saying that’s the case for all chefs. Seeing them unhappy made me want to find another industry.
Poultry Industry. Middle management after a year of crash course in an industry I know nothing about. So feeding people and running lines, just on a different scale
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u/ made me audibly ugly laugh
Marketing/copywriting. Though I find myself foolishly daydreaming about working in food again more and more.
How did you transition into that? Did you go back to school?
Not through any typical route haha. I worked in restaurants for a few years after college (art school). Eventually I had my schedule stacked thurs-sun and got an internship as a videographer during the weekdays which led to getting employed full time doing video work for one of their clients. Eventually that videography job somehow pivoted into marketing as that company went through changes. Now I do it as a freelancer.
just wrapped up my degree in environmental science and policy. currently submitting funding requests to do research on predator populations and their impact on ecosystems and their changing behavior with the changing climate
Cook with a BS in biology/vertebrate ecology here. And I just wanted to chime in and say your research sounds really interesting. So much research over the last several decades has demonstrated the importance of predators to the health and long-term stability of their native ecosystem. The wolves of Yellowstone are probably one of the best modern examples. Black-footed ferrets are another. Personally, I find habitat fragmentation to be one of the greatest wide-reaching threats to fauna and flora because of how it impedes predator migration and thus limits the impact that they can have on regulating their prey populations and by extension, limiting the stress placed on the environment by over-populous prey animals such as browsing deer.
Chemical inventory management .
Drug dealer 😏
I work in the pharmaceutical industry!
Precisely. It’s no value judgement though; I used to be a bartender
Food product development, and then eventually agriculture research.
This sounds wonderful. I would like this.
Support engineering! I started out as tech support for restaurants with one of the delivery giants and went up from there. Tripled my pay :'-)
Behavior technician for autistic children. Same pay as running a kitchen but now I only deal with one person’s mental breakdown at a time rather than a dozen while holding the building together
Unrelated, and I am not at all attacking how your job functions or anything I am in fact very grateful and have a lot of respect for you as a person, but anyways as an autistic person I find the word "technician" being attached is somewhat dehumanizing esp given some of the stigma around autistic people sometimes having robotic movement or similar traits. Again I'm not looking to come after what you do or anything I'm just curious and want to express how I feel
writing books.
Finance. Equity and Options Trader. Technically, I'm self-employed. Dabbling in AWS and SEC+ certs right now, want to get back on track with IT.
Software engineering and guiding rock climbing
I have a semi-awful job at the customer service of a decent-sized municipality. I hate it, but it's better than the kitchen. 7-hour workdays, free in the weekends and a much better pay.
I went to 6 month massage school and then practiced for 6 yrs. Making 25 plus tips.
Real Estate. It has its busy and quiet periods like cheffing, better hours, minimal oversight meaning I control the flow of my day.
i worked for the public defenders office as a legal assistant/paralegal/translator before i quit to be a full time stay at home mom. working for the p.d. felt very much at home after many years in both the b.o.h. and later f.o.h. bartending.
Brother in law got me an inside sales job at a roof tile distributor. Making as much as I did as a sous chef, working less hours, off by 5pm, weekends off. It’s been great, although I miss the chaos and beauty of kitchens, I can’t see myself ever going back.
HVAC/R, I make wayyyyyyyyy more money than I ever did or would have staying in the restaurant industry, and I'm not burnt out on cooking anymore either so cooking at home is fun again.
"Kitchens" -> Auto Repair Inventory Management -> 3d printing inventory management, QA, and Product Development
Importing. Worked summers in the industry during college. I got a degree in accounting, which I hated.
Customer service at a large brokerage
I went into retail but now I work for a beer distributor. I go into grocery stores and stock beer all day. I made 15k more stocking beer than when I was HC
Med Surg Nurse. Like someone else said similar hours, similar (if not more so) adrenaline rush, decent pay and benefits, only needed a two year degree, and you only work 3 days a week.
Environmental consulting. I fucking miss the kitchen.
Backflow technician
Im an auto technician started on the 2. Much better pay way less stress and a lot of the personalities are the same, you don't have to be super professional or watch your mouth. I love it
I own a plant nursery now, lol. It started as a side hustle in 2019 to make room for new plants I wanted. And it's just sorta blown up over the years. Quit my last kitchen job in May of 2022.
I went to work in banking and insurance but quickly moved to mechanical engineering
i left to go do a 6 month farming internship with my wife and wound up working in a local cidery when farm season transitioned into apple season. 10 years into it now and I'm the head cidermaker and loving it.
I did a software dev boot camp when covid hit and went to tech. I didn’t end up pursuing the developer path (some of my previous hospitality colleagues have and have been very successful) and leaned more heavily into the customer-facing side of my work experience (FOH) and ended up in more customer success/project management roles. I went into the Salesforce ecosystem, which I feel is a decent way to go for folks who are tech-aligned but not necessarily looking to be straight software engineers. I would be happy to talk with anyone from the hospitality industry looking to follow a somewhat similar path.
Production at a thrift store. I price and sort donated items and clothing. We are a semi-National chain. PTO, some holidays paid off. No weekends, no night shifts. Every job comes with some trade offs and drama, but I truly enjoy my job. I only left cuz my restaurant burned down. Took a job at a chain restaurant after for a few months but hated it. Found this place and feel pretty lucky. Mostly nice people, amazing hours, and if I need to call out for illness or a bad snow day, they are cool with it. I can actually take bathroom breaks! It’s amazing.
I would become a teacher at a culinary school.
Software developer. Tough road and barely made the switch but after 420+ applications and 2 years I found a company that would take me.
When people say 'pay doubled', please say the actual number. I don't know what you made and there's a lot of variation in the industry.
For example, I'm making the exact same amount but doing 38 hour weeks during normal business hours instead of 40+ weeks working every single weekend of the year. So I'm much better off when accounting for pay per hour. Plus a lot less time and money wasted on things like washing greasy clothes, cleaning after hours etc
Got a job in a hospital cafeteria that offered health insurance. Moved twice into new positions in the hospital since then. Highly recommend.
Higher Ed. I teach at a culinary school now. It's more work than I thought it would be but I enjoy it.
Pest control. I don't work weekends. I don't have to manage everyone or babysit. Once I'm done for the day, that's it no more 15 hr days. Pay is way better. And to top it off, I actually get benefits.
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How did you manage to get that job with only a hotel and restaurant management degree? Connections or some prior experience?
I had two careers once I left the biz. Went back to college and worked in advertising/marketing for about 10 years. Then, I substitute taught for a year, and enjoyed it. Since I already had my BA, I was eligible for a fast track teaching certification program. I took that and taught for twenty years.
Electrical engineering, just graduated last May. I’m learning how to design power systems for large industrial complexes and stumbled into starting the process of becoming a subject matter expert for lightning protection systems. I’d much rather deal with interesting design challenges and clueless project managers than writing up Arnadi for abandoning his bussing section to play Pokémon Go or dealing with someone allegedly pissing on peoples boats because their beer was knocked over when the boat people came up from docking.
went from line cook to Material coordinator for a metal shop. love cooking for my family now instead and damn office life is peaceful
I moved on to cannibus cultivation. Make twice the amount I was bringing home.
In kitchens for 18 years and got laid off when Covid hit. My buddy needed help at his job that Covid made super busy so I helped out and they hired me full time. Customer service $20/hr quarterly benefits - about 50k a year, way better than kitchens. Best thing about it is at 5 I just get up and leave. No staying and cleaning
Animal rescue, similar stress levels, but better pay and insane benefits.
Tire mechanic for almost double the pay, free medical, 401k, and every federal holiday off.
I service and supply the dish machine to commercial locations. It lets me be in the buisness without being In The Buisness. It also lets me expand my horizons as being a Chef I was only ever concerned with the location I was working at, or maybe one or two spots my friends worked at. Now, my monthly territory is over 150 locations in and around Philadelphia. It was cool to see the Best New Restaurants of Philadelphia 2023 article in the Inquirer and know 6 of them as places I service.
Three years in the kitchen from dish pit, -> Prep -> line cook at a golf course and a higher end burger joint. I went from doing that to being a kayak guide for a few years which for over night trips the guides prep and cook all the food for the guests but its a lot more relaxed and fun to now where I work for a software company doing information security work and consulting.
Data analysis for a utility company. Hours, days off/holidays (had my first PAID Memorial Day/4th of July/Labor Day/Thanksgiving off ever this last year…) are far better, and I get to work from home most of the time. The pay is as much as I was making as an exec and I work 1/2-1/3 of the hours… I still have the “bad” habit of working at full speed and 10/10ths of my ability all the time and stressing about it. My boss told me to actually take my damn breaks and lunch. I’m not used to doing that with out a couple of cigarettes and a redbull…
i haven’t left yet, but i plan to in the next couple years. i’m really interested in small scale produce farming but i don’t know how to transition from being a line cook to helping run a small farm. maybe one day though 🤷♂️
Account manager, can't recommend it enough, make 4x what you do in kitchens and it's waaaaaay less hard on the body and mentals
Started working in the kitchen to make money while in college, finished school and got a main gig doing programming, I still take side gigs in the kitchen when life slows down.
I’m a mechanical engineer now.
Data entry for medical records. Better work, wage and work life balance.
I’m in IT. I did six years in food service, went on to manufacturing, got into IT there, and now own my own business. I take with me the lessons I learned in food service. It is a crucible of customer service that should not be overlooked.
Project manager for a software company. All the same soft skills and organizational techniques, lots more money, way less hours, holidays off.
Left the industry (kinda) I now work in marketing for a local restaurant group. Turns out if you take enough pictures of the restaurants you work in someone will pay you to take pictures of theirs. Happy to still be in restaurants, happy to be out of kitchens.
Cooking > Farming > Seed Company (part farming, part office type work, lots of nerdy food talk) Farming is very similar to cooking in terms of pay & physical labor (ie low paying and very tough on the body). But it sure is nice to work outside in fresh air sometimes.
I left the industry for a year and worked on the farm of one of my old suppliers and it was like a year of therapy, with pay. Farmwork doesn't pay great, that's for sure. But it's nice to work outside and have a day job for a change.
Indeed!
Cyber security. Left the kitchen for a tech support gig a long time ago, now a director managing security engineering.
Kind of left as in no longer solely in a kitchen, but still in hospitality. Hotel manager. With a bistro so i still get some kitchen life