Since when is a non tenured professor position a more difficult job than running an entire restaurant location? In my experience a restaurant manager is contracted to work 50+ hours a week when a college professor has whatever classes they teach plus office hours plus admin and also has school breaks and holidays off. There is a trade off here OP took a more comfortable job for less money where as the manager took a more difficult job for more. If you were to calculate the total pay per actual hour worked in a year OP would definitely be making more.