At Olive Garden there is a serious lack of upwards mobility. It takes years to be hired as a manager, when in fact they have college graduates working at low levels of the totem pole.
There is also a real sense of a lack of empathy for the employees, from management, as they deal with so many people on a daily basis they start treating people like crap. Although it is rare, you can be yelled or blamed for something you did not even do, but have to sit there and take it or risk losing your job. Some of the managers are so ignorant you are constantly amazed that they made it to be managers, and some are just lazy and you wonder why they are not fired for ignorance or laziness.
Another con is the fact that servers are not paid minimum wage. I think this is a ridiculous policy that needs to be revoked. Servers are basically free labor for restaurants as they don't have to pay them minimum wage (or anything!) unless they make less then that. Still, as a server/bartender I never made less then minimum wage, but there were days that I would go home with 15 dollars in my pocket.
One more con is the fact that Olive Garden has a slew of ridiculous policies that end up hurting the company. So many time do I see managers give away food (they comp the entire meal) to complaining customers, simply because they are complaining! Thousands of dollars worth of food a week are comped at each Olive Garden!
