<<So MT , you are a manager or a boss or something like that?>>
I started out as an employee, then I became a boss.
<<How did that come about?>>
Sorry, plane, I don't want to get too personal here.
<<Are you good for your employees and customers?>>
I'm a good boss now but I made my share of mistakes in the beginning. I never took any courses in management, so I learned by trial and error. After one really disastrous error, I found my way via business magazine articles into the business sections of libraries and from there into the business sections of bookstores. I think I got from all that an analytical framework for taking stock of a situation from the beginning. I also learned some of the jargon of management, which I used to laugh at previously. I always
wanted to be a good boss, but didn't realize at the beginning that it was actually an art and a science. I've got a whole personal theory of management now, but that's a book in itself, not a post.
As for my customers, I think on the whole I've been pretty good for them. I would rate myself as well above average but not the best, someone who frequently could provide the same level of service as the best in the field. The best in my business have had to make many sacrifices which I am just not prepared to make. Of course, from time to time, mistakes were made. I'm probably still making 'em, just not as many as the competition.
<<Have you ever had a customer stop using your service and go to a compeditor for better service /product?>>
Not very often, and when they did, they rarely if ever got better service/product. But it's happened.
<<Have you ever had an employee leave your business to get better job than you could give him?>>
What I do is pretty intense and demanding - - there's a burnout rate among employees of three to five years. There's a short learning curve and I'm an excellent teacher/trainer, so employees are highly replaceable. This also means there's a glass ceiling on wages. Hiring the right people is absolutely critical. That is also an art and a science in its own right and I think I've become excellent in that as well. I could probably write a book about it, but the best book on the subject has already been written. By Canadian authors, I proudly add. I don't mind at all when an employee leaves because my competitors are stupid enough to pay him or her more money, and often I've helped them exit into better-paying positions. This has actually reaped me enormous benefits, but that's a whole other story. In 40-plus years in business, only one employee ever left me on bad terms and I'm still friends with many of my former employees.
<<I think that as a general rule restaurants sell the whole experience of eating out and not just food. The decor and lighting , music in he background and attentive staff cost more than the raw food , but where they sell raw food is called a grocery store and the competition between restaurant and grocers isn't direct even though all the customers can choose to cook for themselves.>>
I wouldn't agree with that at all. You're speaking of a better class of restaurants, "fine dining" and such, but there are plenty of "greasy spoons" and diners where a businessman just wants a bacon-and-eggs breakfast or a quick lunch and doesn't give a shit what kind of atmosphere he's eating in, so long as it's quick and clean.
<<I don't think it is illegal for people to open restaurants with co-op ownership. An employee owned restaurant might not need anyone to ensure the employees didn't thieve. What keeps this from happening commonly?>>
I don't think capitalism produces the mindset or facilitates the venture. I became familiar with the concept in Cuba, where my family and I have stayed at small, worker-owned resort hotels and eaten in worker-owned restaurants. Somehow the government had empowered the workers to think of themselves as equal to anyone else and capable of organizing and running their own enterprises collectively without the need to have parasites interposing themselves between workers and customers and skimming off the profits. I think the government makes it easy for them to get up and running with some advice and low-cost loans, the same general way they encourage people to build their own homes cooperatively.
It was interesting that in the hotel we stayed at, the workers themselves had seen the need for a manager and had finally taken one on. I had an interesting discussion with him once, and he was complaining about the difficulties of managing what was effectively a mini-democracy, where all the workers had a vote and all decisions were collective. For example, he was complaining about his inability to fire anyone. The decision would have to be a collective one, and the discussions on the failings of
Companero (Comrade) X would be interminable. The usual decision was to give the
companero one more warning. I would guess that sooner or later, the collective would come to the point where a
companero would have to be given the boot, but the manager was frustrated in not having the power to fire on the spot.
