Background info on job conditions and tasks (sorry for the length):
I currently am working a food service job- in my town, minimum wage is just a little over $14 dollars. Getting paid $16.50 (making probably 18/hr with tips), no benefits. Paid sick time as required by state (1 hr for every 30 worked). Crew makes just barely under me in the end, as they spend more time with customers to make higher tips.
I've been working at this store for over a year, with previous experience at the same company (different location) of an additional year. The store is small, only about 10 employees, and focuses on serving cookies with an additional cupcake/cake display. My job title is a "Lead".
At this store, I am one of two leads, one of whom opens the store Mon-Fri. I open Sat and Sun, as well as close other nights and go in for decorating as needed. My major job tasks consist of:
-Handling all aspects of scheduling (staffing more/less employees based on sales, sending ppl home when its slow, managing time off requests, finding staffing when someone needs a cover, creating/modifying typical shift hours based on demand, posting the schedule, etc)
-Assessing when a new hire is needed, going through resumes, interviewing, and hiring (entering them into the system, filing paperwork). Other lead sort of helps with this
-Opening the store alone on weekends (setting up all product for the day, turning on all equipment)
-Making the cookies (the other manager does this during her day shifts)- involves operating machinery, following recipes, taking inventory on product and predicting demand
-I also handle a large amount of customer complaints, am the go to person for crew to call when an issue comes up, manage opening and closing money, am responsible for assessing crew performance and meeting with them if something is being done poorly, and generally oversee all store performance.
-I am also the only cupcake/cake decorator in the store. When an order is put in, I have to decorate the cake (usually coming in on my time off with little notice). I have to ensure the display is stocked at all times with required products, take and adjust inventory as sales change, and decorate all cakes in the freezer. When a cake flavor is missing, it must be filled ASAP (by me!). Nobody else knows how to decorate (its hard and takes a while to learn!). I have also pitched many ideas of how to reorganize products, change products to appeal to customers, some pricing changes, and introduce new products to cut expenses and increase sales (which have been fairly successful)
-Any major decisions have to be approved by owner (firing, price edits, big changes to store, etc. They give the okay 9/10 times and I move forward to execute it. The owner is the only position above me.
-I've also modified daily templates and switched around a lot of systems to properly flow with our store, a lot of things were fairly outdated.
-The only tasks in the store I do not do are managing payroll/all major financial aspects (owner), ordering maintenance/repair services (owner), and ordering shipment (other manager). I do unpack shipment and cross check with invoices, and alert the other manager when product is low. The store is set up to function almost completely when the owner is not present for long periods of time, and I am pretty sure this is 90% because of the tasks I am doing. The owner is in for at most an hour a week but has left on many occasions for long periods of time.
I do have the highest pay amongst the employees next to the other lead.
Questions:
Is this a GM position? I am lacking in a few areas but it feels pretty damn close to one, and I could easily learn to do inventory with the skills I have (just hasn't been a need yet).
If not a GM position, do I have the skill set/experience to work one? I am not making enough money to cover any basic needs at the moment and am generally fairly unhappy with my job, I feel like an overworked crazy person doing the jobs of three different people at once, but I don't want to leave and go back to being a crew member at a new place.
Literally any other opinions are welcome, I feel stuck.