Bogota Blogger

There’s a chain of three French restaurants called Bagatelle, which for almost a year I used to eat at often on a Saturday or Sunday morning. The food’s great (though not cheap), the ambience is perfect for a breakfast or brunch–all have patios, lots of plants and lots of French cafe cachet.

But about six months ago I found out some pretty unpleasant things about employee relations, and now I make a point of not going there and of telling others the same. It turns out that the owner, through the manager, is pretty much a slavedriver. I heard stories through a friend, but they were just rumors. While walking his dog one day my friend passed the Rosales Bagatelle and saw a waiter on a cigarette break–he asked him about it, but the guy didn’t really want to talk.

I have another friend, though, who knows a lot of poor people because he took juggling lessons from a kid who performs at intersections and got to know the whole extended family (and friends). One of these friends used to work at Bagatelle (she now sells candy in the street), and so my amigo had a few of us over to dinner one night to hear her story.

Turns out that at Bagatelle, there’s a lot of psychological abuse of employees. I had sort of sensed this once when eating there, when the manager (the woman with the large gray streak in her black hair–sort of Cruella de Ville looking) saw a little scrap of paper on the floor during a busy Sunday brunch. She went over and stood next to it, glaring at waitresses until one caught her eye–then looked down at the paper and back up at the waitress, who came running over to pick it up. The manager just had a hate-filled look the entire time and never said a word. Until she caught MY eye, that is, then broke into a smile and was all over me within 30 seconds asking how everything was.

Lucia (name changed for obvious purposes) also told us about how waitresses would have to pay for broken plates, and on a slow day the entire 12- or 14-hour shift pay would not cover the cost of one broken plate. So, the waitress had to pay her salary the next day, too.  Anytime the owner thinks the cash register doesn’t balance, he takes an equal proportion of the missing money from everyone who worked that day. There’s a lot of verbal abuse in the kitchen, too.

Now, understand that first of all wait staff in restaurants are generally only tipped 6-10%, so might only make $30,000 pesos (about $13) on a good day. They often work 12 or more hour shifts, even if it’s not busy. 

So, why do they do it? Because jobs are so hard to get. But at Bagatelle, Lucia and lots of others are driven to the breaking point, and would rather go unemployed or turn to selling trinkets on the street. Other restaurants are probably similar, I think, because of the unemployment situation in the country, but I’m avoiding this place because I KNOW they mistreat the staff. If you look around in a restaurant, you can usually get a sense of whether or not the staff is at least moderately happy or if they’re in fear of their jobs just about every second. At Bagatelle, it’s the latter.

This entry was posted on Tuesday, May 1st, 2007 at 9:00 am and is filed under Restaurants/Cafes/Bars. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.