I am wondering if I could get some help figuring out if in fact my position should be considered exempt. What I will do is outline a typical day and list my job responsibilities.

State: MN
Job Title: Manager
Reports to: Two onsite owners
Manages a staff of: 7 or so per shift, 23 total in the restaurant
Typical day:

Pick up bread order at 9:30am
Drive to my work and arrive at 10:30 am
Work expeditor position over lunch peak until 1:30 or so. (expeditor is the person who takes the food from the kitchen and hands it to the food runners)
1:30 to 2:30 complete product orders
2:30 to 5:00pm work on food prep in the back, making food items and such
5:00 to 8:00 work either the line cooking or expediting
8:00 to 9:00 pm work on cleaning up the back kitchen area
9:00 to 10:00 count food items (daily inventory) and place a few orders
10:30 typically time to go home

This is my typical work day, 6 days a week.

Along with the above, I troubleshoot our computer network and POS (Point of sale system) I also orient new employees. Other things that I do are updating our web site, working on our menu system (inputing new menu items and stuff like that)

Now, I have spoken to one of the owners about this issue (by my estimation, I am easily over the 40% limmit for an exempt employee) and he told me "Don't even go there". Another reason I ask is that even while I am doing the typical mundane tasks, I also and providing guidance to the other employees working.

Am I in the wrong for pursuing this? I have been a Manager for over 14 years and I guess my issue is that I clearly spend a huge amount of my time doing typical line cook or prep cook tasks which is completely different from any job I have had before. Another reason I ask is that they are considering bringing on an "assistant" for me, but they want to pay him salary also. I don't want to get us in a legal bind with a new employee right off the bat (my suggestion is we pay him or her hourly)

Thoughts?

I would present your case to your state Dept. of Labor for their opinion. To me, it certainly does appear that the time you spend in nonmanagerial tasks may disqualify you from being an exempt employee, even though you do perform some managerial tasks, and such tasks are critical to the business.

If I heard "don't even go there" in regards to this particular situation, it would just cause me to want to "go there" even more. I would just "go" to the Dept. of Labor, instead of the owners.

Pattymd, that is the problem!

Unfortunately I left a really good paying job to go work with this startup operation, and after almost a year, it isn't quite what I thought it was going to be. Unfortunatly there are other issues too (like a promise to be paid $100.00 more per week that never came through)

Unfortunately, things like this wear on you especially when you are working 70+ hours each week.

I have no further advice than what I already gave you, but I understand the frustration. I have had 3 "newly created" positions in the last 4 years; one of them they didn't know what they wanted and what I wanted to make of the position, they didn't appear to want, and 2 of them the positions were eliminated after 6 months and 16 months. It happens.

Good luck, though.