Watching Olbermann tonight I was a bit taken aback to hear him butcher our city's name when talking about a story at Mr. B's Pancake House.
Psst...Mr. Olberman it's Muh-skee-GUN (as in the thing you shoot at deer). Not Muh-skee-GIN (as in what we drink to forget our sorrows).
But that's okay. Your story is pretty typical Muskegon fare.
Full story here
Yes. As Muskegon faces ever climbing unemployment now in excess of 10% and possibly approaching 11% or 12%, businesses are facing mounting pressure to the point where employees are actually donating their time to help keep the business solvent. Make no mistake...even the owners of these establishments aren't living high on the hog.
In a world yearning for good news, meet Mary VanDam who decided to help out her boss during tough economic times by working a Sunday shift for free.
Then, just to put icing on the cake, she convinced her fellow employees at Mr. B's Pancake House to do the same.
A week ago, 17 restaurant employees -- servers, cooks, busboys, dishwashers, cashiers and hostesses -- worked exclusively for tips, so owner Dave Barham could trim the payroll.
"Isn't that something?" he asked.
Chronicle/Cory Morse
Dave and Lisa Barham own Mr. B's Pancake House. Employees last Sunday worked for free to help the Barhams save money. Customers pitched in with a generosity all their own, leaving the restaurant employees $800 in tips
When the last customer left on what employees dubbed "Donate A Day," they'd saved the boss about $700 in wages. The restaurant employs 31 people.
"We wish we could have saved him $5,000," VanDam said. "We wanted to give back to him, lighten the load a little."
I've been to Mr. B's and have attended meetings there and have eaten delicious breakfasts there. Some folk may just see the jobs as wait-staff jobs, but for some it's a way of life, it's how they feed their families and keep their homes. Of course they donate their time to keep business afloat. It's what communities in hard times do.
It's easy to demonize the business owners, imagining they're living lives of plenty while their employees toil...and for some that's true. But all too often in places like Muskegon, the employers are in the same soup with the employees and they spend sleepless nights worrying how to bring people in, fully aware that 31 families depend on their decisions. I've seen it first hand, bosses who go unpaid for months or even more than a year so they can keep the company running, while they pay their employees like clockwork.
Olberman...this is Muskegon. Muh-skee-gun. This is what over 10% unemployment looks like, people banding together for survival.