re: Wolfgang Puck: 'Waiters make $120,000 a year but I can't find them'

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for high end restaurant 120k can be easy for an experienced waiter, hell Commanders in New Orleans has waiters making that and struggling to fill it's staff. Now most don't make 120k a year and are closer to 60-70k having to work doubles and pretty much every Friday/Saturday

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I both bartended and waited tables for years at multiple old line New Orleans fine dining restaurants, including in the French Quarter. Service industry people here continually and obsessively lie about what they make. It's a coping mechanism for not melting down when people are well into adulthood and existentially realize they can't get a real job/career because they've screwed their life.

Just about nobody anywhere is making 120k. Sure, some people will make $800 to $1000 working a double on New Year's eve at Galatoire's, but then they're off for three days and spend $650 partying. If these guys are really making $120k, why are they driving a dented up '92 Corolla and living in a dump with roommates at 35 years old?

Thank God I got out of that game.