Tuesday, October 16, 2007

Babysit or Manage a Subway?



So I was talking to a young lady who owns a Subway sandwich shop in the Boston area. She told me that she pays her managers $10 per hour and the minions $7.50 per hour.

Bear in mind that I pay my babysitters, cheapskate that I am for my locale, $12-$14 per hour - in cash (i.e. no tax withholding, Morons).

What would you rather do? Bean-count at a restaurant or play with my angelic kids for substantially higher pay?

Note that $7.50 per hour is the State of Massachusetts' minimum wage. No doubt if the Subway owner could pay the minions a little less, she'd be able to raise the manager's pay to the neighborhood of a babysitter's (unregulated) pay.

Furthermore, the owner told me that she has had problems with all the managers skimming (that means stealing money, Morons).

Gee, I wonder why they skim?

8 comments:

Matt G. said...

exactly why i bailed on the idea of purchasing a franchise. all the feedback from owners confirmed that the margins are so thin that you can't pay much more than minimum wage to your employees. so unless you have family or close friends who can serve as manager, you have to be on site every day, all day... hardly worth it for the measly $40k you can squeeze out of a single store.

Anonymous said...

Interesting. Out here (Silicon Valley) I see signs in the local In-and-Out hamburger place offering jobs starting at $9.25 per hour.
Lots of students in Boston driving down wages for these jobs?

CaptiousNut said...

Driving wages down?

Surely you jest!

Bear in mind that Silicon Valley is a much more prosperous place than Boston.

Anonymous said...

Silicon Valley much more prosperous than Boston?
Didn't know that ... thought your area was participating in the general tech recovery. Not true?
Sorry for you guys then, it's been a long hard road to where we are today.

Not true that you have an abundance of low wage labor available there or do students not work part time as burger flippers anymore?
That's what I saw last time I was there (June) but my sample is necesarily severely limited too.
I did NOT see [Hispanic looking] people on every corner, in every restaurant, etc like I see here though.

CaptiousNut said...

You hit the nail on the head.

There are no Mexican day laborers up here in Boston because there's no real prosperity here. The Mexicans hang out in NYC, Long Island, the Hamptons, and as you mentioned Silicon Valley because that's where the high paying, cash jobs are.

The rich in Boston live off their assets whereas the rich elsewhere are younger and live off their income.

Most of the $5 million dollar homes you see up here are empty. They are owned by fossils who are likely in Florida or somewhere else much of the year.

The college kids up here don't really work. We used to live next to Boston College and still couldn't find a babysitter. The one we found had a nicer car than us and only showed up 50% of the time.

Anonymous said...

Funny... i remember (i guess in the early 90's) $10/hr WAS THEE Job that you wanted. That was 'the american dream' almost to earn $10/hr. now what is it, minimum wage. (which recently went up to $11/hr in some states like califirnia, connecicut, florida.)

Anonymous said...

g-d ... i can't spell.. seriously just typos my friends. California, connecticut

CaptiousNut said...

Stuck,

No one will even work for $10 an hour in NYC nowadays...