unemployed, chef, or consultant?, that is the question...


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North America » Mexico » Oaxaca » Oaxaca
June 16th 2008
Published: June 17th 2008
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ok, so im possibly unemployed right now... my prior agreement with the owner of Los Danzantes was to stay until sunday... i spoke to him on friday, and told him i wanted a lot more money if he wanted me to stay on bc i found out i was being grossly underpaid. if he wants me to do a chef's work he has to pay me like one. up to now i've been making 8,000 pesos a month (500 euros) while i shouldve been makin at least triple that!! i found out after talking to a friend of mine here who's a chef. so that's what i asked jaime (the owner) for. coincidentally through inside sources i found out that that's also what the last chef was making. so i finally have this meeting with jaime last friday and he starts out by teklling me that no one makes that much money here in mexico... which is bullshit. it wasnt a very smart move on his part bc since the first excuse for not paying me what im asking for is a lie im not gonna negotiate one cent, out of principle. he kept brigning up all sorts of reasons why he cant, wont, or shouldnt pay me what im asking for (it wouldnt be fair to the other employees, no one makes that much in mexico, even the manager of the restaurant doesnt make that much, u have only been sous chef for 2 weeks, etc. etc. etc.) and every excuse he thought up i squashed. so he would think for another couple minutes and come up with another one, which i'd squash, and so on for an hour!! he ended up trying to negotiate first for 16,000, pulling out a piece of A4 paper on which were printed the ¨salaries¨ of the kitchen staff in of Los Danzantes in DF, saying a chef m,akes that much. i courteously replied that anyone couldve printed thos numbers and they didnt really mean much, especially when a friend of mine told me how much i should be making and he (unlike jaime) has no reason to lie to me. he got up to offering me 20,000, but i kept telling him the sum was non negotiable, that i asked him for 24,000 bc i want 24,000.

so finally i have a meeting w him yesterday (today is tue, i didnt pub lish this last entry cuz i had shit to do) and he offers me 16,000 to be purely a consultant, telling me he prefers i dont have anything to do w the kitchen and just focus on menu planning, organizing the kitchen, training the 'chef', and organizing the warehouse. that he was gonna offer me 16000 for being chef and another 8000 for the consulting fee but out of the goodness of his heart (my words not his...although that was the way he said it) he would offer me a chef's salary just for the consulting fee. i told him id have to think about it but in full honesty it seemed very little and id get back to him on wed (tomorrow). yesterday i couldnt sleep thinking about this whole ordeal so i started jotting down all the things id have to do and it turns out it's just as much work if not more, bc now he expects to get everything done by the time i leave, as opposed to me continuing until another chef would take over. so i figure the following: ima tell him ill work 5 days a week, and have him pay me 21000, bc each day of work comes out to 707.5 pesos, so 707.5 times 4 (the extra days off id get in this month) equals 2830 pesos, which i will MAGNANIMOUSLY round up to 3000, so 24000 minus 3000 equals what ima ask for. and thats as low as im gonna go...
to be continued mañana....


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18th June 2008

a frate
e un resoconto o na lezione de economia!!!!! a bello, spaccate F
20th June 2008

get yours papa
I guess I would ask him if he's a mexiCAN or a mexiCAN'T....anyhow big dogs my new email is charliecoal@gmail.com soysage is now goone. likkle more

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