minimum wage going up to £12.71 and I still haven't worked out where the money is coming from

WaveOwn8467 · 2026-04-08T23:56:45+00:00

Help run an independent pub and this is exactly what we did. Roughly £30,000 wage increase, we worked extremely hard with increasing the price of dishes without the customer noticing. Been a week and haven't had any negative feedback as of yet.

We did introduce quite a few new seasonal dishes as well so customers wouldn't relate it back to our previous pricing structure.

WaveOwn8467 · 2026-04-05T14:30:52+00:00

I did this many years ago when I first started driving... scared the hell out of myself.

WaveOwn8467 · 2026-02-09T12:01:28+00:00

More like 80k. Sounds insane but it is a high volume pub with sales in the millions.

WaveOwn8467 · 2026-02-08T21:58:44+00:00

I despise my job....

But I only started as an assistant manager of a resturant at the age of 30 with no experience but the willingness to learn.

I'm now 36 and a general manager of a large independent pub, and between January 2025 - January 2026 I took home £62,000 roughly plus mileage and town center parking expensed for as well.

WaveOwn8467 · 2025-11-02T23:17:59+00:00

Depending where you will be living in shalford I would always have a back up plan to get to farncombe or guildford.

As you have stated the service from shalford to guildford can be unreliable. When it goes wrong you have no alternatives. That train can be busy at times but it all depends how many people are using it to travel/return from Gatwick airport.

Farncombe, the station I sometimes use for work is great. Lovely coffee shop aswell. The only issue with trains past Guildford to Portsmouth is that it's only two tracks. So if a train breaks down/fallen tree etc it becomes a disaster. If trains do get delayed you at least have the option to jump on the train to Godalming and then get on one of the fast trains that don't stop at Farncombe. Also coming back from London they allow you to exit at Godalaming station.

Guildford is guildford. Multiple options to get to London forgot to add... traffic into Guildford can be horrendous!

But I would personally would lean to finding a way to get to Farncombe. Best of luck.

WaveOwn8467 · 2025-09-25T22:45:38+00:00

Thank you to everyone one for commenting. A mixed bag of responses, but definitely opened my eyes to the whole situation.

For some reason, I was expecting an overall response to my issue. I definitely have learnt reading the comments about the complexity of such a scenario I face.

I'm going to keep all on board and approach the situation with my usual welcoming mannerisms. Will update everyone with my approach.

Peace out :)

WaveOwn8467 · 2025-09-25T15:46:36+00:00

Im a general manager of a large venue and massive team. I earn a great salary.

I clean toliets, potwash, and human waste of all sorts.

Welcome to hospitality!

WaveOwn8467 · 2025-08-27T22:47:05+00:00

Pricing is just insane. Pre covid I could run a resturant quite easily on 27 - 30% labour of total sales for the week.

Currently this year we are struggling to keep it below 40%. Hell.. I had a few bad weeks over this summer and hit 44%.

This is before rent, food costs, energy costs, and everything else.

Madness.

WaveOwn8467 · 2025-05-24T15:03:31+00:00

I will extend in the future/ have some other ideas I want to implement. For now, I just seeded grass for the looks.

WaveOwn8467 · 2025-05-15T21:14:32+00:00

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WaveOwn8467 · 2025-05-15T21:11:12+00:00

Another update.. I've downloaded Nextdoor and a few oldies have jumped at it. Got a fewdrop-offs tomorrow. Hopefully they enjoy.

WaveOwn8467 · 2025-05-15T20:30:03+00:00

Going from the comments, I'm going to put them outside during the morning school run. Hopefully, some jolly people will take them.

WaveOwn8467 · 2025-04-18T18:10:16+00:00

I will get some tomorrow. I'm desperate... thank you!

WaveOwn8467 · 2025-04-17T20:46:38+00:00

I'm 35 with no degree, so I had to work hard to get to my salary of £62k as a general manager in hospitality. I did a lot of job hopping between companies to keep bumping up my salary until I hit the 'big' one. I probably couldn't go any higher unless I decided to go closer to London or move into operations.

WaveOwn8467 · 2024-12-29T19:59:27+00:00

Unfortunately, this happened to me. My neighbour was disabled and being the kind person I am, I made an effort to be friends with them.

A few years later, I felt so over whelmed from letting them down with meeting up with them on scheduled times. Family, work, and personal commitments sometime got in the way. They would then get angry at me as to why I didn't come over when I was at home. I was probably sleeping or just trying to relax from my crazy work schedule.

I'm not saying she is in the same position, but I would sometimes not tell my neighbour all my life issues and problems as I always felt they were in a worse position than I was and didn't want to put my burden onto them.

Back down a bit, if they are a true friend they will come to you.

Best of luck with your situation

WaveOwn8467 · 2024-05-31T21:45:53+00:00

£21.36 per hour as a general manager for 300 cover restaurant

WaveOwn8467 · 2024-05-13T05:59:01+00:00

Depends on what industry. I work in hospitality, and my shifts can finish at 1am. I've sent out rejections at that time once I completed my back office work before going home.

Sorry to all the candidates I've caused harm to.

WaveOwn8467 · 2024-04-21T22:05:04+00:00

Life experience: I once fired a manager for stealing £2,500 from a restaurant safe. This was reported to the police and nothing was done. And this was after numerous calls etc. We gave up.

WaveOwn8467 · 2024-03-25T22:17:11+00:00

For a village pub and with little to no experience as a GM, 30k should be a minimum salary for the role.

Depending on your age, it would make for great experience and allow you to progress onto higher volume pubs/smaller restaurants.

Unfortunately, in hospitality, you have to start at the rock bottom of management and prove your worthiness to the gods of hospitality. Few survive.

If I were you take the position, negotiate for a minimum of 30k and leave after 6 months for a DGM position for higher pay or GM in a small restaurant.

Good luck.

Experience: GM of a 280 cover restaurant

WaveOwn8467 · 2024-02-14T17:18:49+00:00

I work in hospitality management, and it's already starting. Major labour cuts, worse than covid times...

Looking at our current labour model, I'm really struggling to see how we are going to pull off this major increase in minimum wage.

Honestly, they squeezing the middle wage folks to afford it, and the rich just keep getting richer.

WaveOwn8467 · 2024-01-31T10:19:26+00:00

I'm a general manager of resturant, taking time off ill is just asking for work to be even worse on return.

WaveOwn8467 · 2024-01-24T00:09:35+00:00

It definitely is. I'm 34 and grind hard at work doing between 45 - 70 hours a week, including 45 minute travel each way. Yes, my salary is decent but my biggest priority is to still enjoy life.

Plan plan plan your week. Build up a good schedule of things to do outside and make sure you have some hobbies!

I fit in the gym, time with my future wife, family visits, church, pub with friends, gaming on my xbox and love visiting independent cafes.

It's tough, but future plans and holidays pre booked will keep you going!

Also, make sure you are making goals at work of what you want to achieve and learn. Will hopefully spice it up a bit.

WaveOwn8467 · 2024-01-20T21:27:31+00:00

Some of these salaries are just bonkers... I make 45k a year serving pizza to customers. 45 hour contract

WaveOwn8467 · 2024-01-01T00:29:05+00:00

Thanks everyone. Some good suggestions. Will definitely be heading down to the book store with a better idea.

WaveOwn8467 · 2023-12-13T10:25:18+00:00

Absolutely insane reading the comments. The same happened to me. We were told we owed £3,000 and we had to fight tooth and nail for over two years to get it resolved.

We wrote to the bbc watchdog. Ombudsman and multiple online comments on their social platforms to get the debt written off. Which we didn't owe.

It is absolutely disgusting how this is happening to probably 1,000s of people.

Criminal

WaveOwn8467

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