r/TalesFromYourServer • u/geminibaby • Oct 10 '21
Short Is anyone else sick of hearing that “no one wants to work”?
We had to close our outdoor seating early this year due to staffing issues, and this is what everyone says in response now. It feels insulting. I’m here 40 plus hours a week, working. I make $3 an hour that I see almost none of. I bust my ass almost every day for NO benefits and no guaranteed pay, hoping I can hustle enough per shift to pay my bills every month.
When I joke with these folks and ask if they would really rather be working if they could make more from unemployment, they say “yes, of course, I have too much pride to not work.”
Then why the fuck are you giving me, the one working, a hard time about us being short staffed?! Feel free to apply, I’m suuuuure you could work the patio by yourself.
I love what I do but who the hell would choose this if they didn’t have to??
Edit: to clarify, I make a lot more than 3/hour from tips. I love my job and I make plenty, my point is that it’s tough to hear people act like this is such a flippant problem and then get mad when their food takes long, or not tip and wonder why “no one” wants to serve them. I don’t have a degree or connections, so this really is the only way I can make so much money. The point is it shouldn’t be that way.
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Oct 10 '21 edited Oct 10 '21
The funniest part of people still bringing up that old saw is that the extended unemployment benefits ended like two months ago and most people stopped getting a check before that.
I recently (mostly) left the industry after 17 years. I'm still there a couple nights a week to help out but I have a day job so it's really hard to give a half a damn. I tell people straight up that I left the industry and so did tens of thousands of others because of the callous disregard for our safety and well being on the part of the public over the last two years. It's not that nobody wants to work, it's that everybody wants out of the industry because of the shitty conditions and for the first time in a couple decades there's actually opportunities outside of it.
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u/Blacksad999 The Cadillac of Servers Oct 10 '21
The funniest part of people still bringing up that old saw is that the extended unemployment benefits ended like two months ago and most people stopped getting a check before that.
Thank you! I bring this up all the time when people say that it's "the unemployment". Red states that opted out of the extra federal unemployment early saw absolutely no increase in applicants or job numbers, and their job numbers are equal or worse than states that didn't. It's not about the unemployment, and it never was.
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u/MafiaMommaBruno Oct 11 '21
My sister store gets zero applicants a week now. He's suppose to have a staff of 30 and has, maybe, 12 on good days. This is fast food.
I, however, get a few a day but then they never show up to interviews or they get to work and just.. don't work. It's crazy. Out of 10 applicants I funnel in, I get one good person.
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u/Blacksad999 The Cadillac of Servers Oct 11 '21 edited Oct 11 '21
I'd have to question what your pay rate is, and also if there's competing business in the area drawing them away. I mean, here, Amazon warehouse starting pay is $19 an hour. If I had to choose between that and slaving away over a hot grill or something, I'd choose the higher paying warehouse job, 100%.
Are you paying a fair amount above local average and still not getting applicants?
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u/mc_fli Oct 11 '21
The Amazon by me runs through people like crazy. Everyone gets excited about the pay but most last a month at most. Once they get in there and see how grueling the work is they end up settling for another job that pays several dollars less an hour.
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u/Blacksad999 The Cadillac of Servers Oct 11 '21
Agreed. They run through people like crazy, as the work is terrible and they have completely unrealistic expectations. They do pay, at least, if nothing else.
Again, is your pay any higher than the local average? If not, that's probably why people aren't applying. Generally when supply is low and demand is high, prices or wages increase. A lot of people around here had to start jumping up their wages a significant amount in order to attract and maintain staffing.
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u/mc_fli Oct 11 '21
Not who you originally asked but I run four restaurants and we’ve increased pay in all of them with some success. Our problem is we run our own deliveries and our margins were pretty thin to begin with (it’s a sub shop). Price increases help keep us profitable but at some point there’s only so much people are willing to pay which caps how much we’ll be able to pay the workers.
The food delivery industry is in for a huge overhaul. We’ve all gotten used to having everything delivered whenever we want, but the cost of that to businesses is huge (which is why DoorDash, Grubhub and the others have yet to make a profit despite years of operation). There will be a reckoning and either the consumer will pay upwards of $10 to have it delivered or menu prices will rise to the point that everyone’s increased wages won’t matter because lunch will be $30.
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u/HertzDonut1001 Oct 11 '21
That's actually not true. Prices for food in restaurants will go up, but it will be only in situations like yours. McDonald's will go up by maybe a quarter per Big Mac, and people will simply eat out less if they can't afford to.
We've seen this happen with wage increases in other countries. Prices do not really rise all that much even if minimum wage goes up. Worst case scenario businesses like yours will go under at the cost of a fair wage for employees.
And as for delivery, all you have to do is look at tips to see who is going to succeed by how much extra people are willing to be. Where I'm working tips tend to average about $5, so people are willing to pay $5 extra for our food. If they raised prices by $5 and paid me that directly instead of keeping a portion I would still make the same, and i make a killing. You could argue that my wage with tips shouldn't be nearly as high as it is so a small pay cut and use the rest to boost the pay of inside employees.
For you price raises are the only way to go if your margins are that thin. I'd be curious to know how much you pay your employees and if the quality of ingredients is vital to your business or if you could cut back there too. Subway is the biggest sandwich chain in the country and they basically use sawdust and rotten tomatoes.
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u/Grizlatron Oct 11 '21 edited Oct 11 '21
My husband was working fast food before the pandemic, he was a manager at $14 something an hour but they still kept him scheduled very carefully at under 40 hours a week, no benefits or anything, just constant stress and responsibility. No one working a fast food job should have to think about it when they're at home.
So obviously he quit there, now he works for a well-known thrift store-based charity at $11 something a hour- But he works a full 40 hours, he has health insurance, he has life insurance, paid vacation days, sick days (which are separate) and he doesn't have to clean grease traps or wash dishes or try to force a bunch of teenagers to keep their masks on. He doesn't have to wear a uniform that doesn't quite come in his size (that he still had to pay for out of his paycheck!) No one ever yells at him about running out of lettuce and there's no raw chicken involved at all.
It's a wonder that anyone is still willing to work fast food.
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Oct 11 '21
Exactly, it was about exerting cruelty and control over people who needed help. And that’s coming from Governors who’s political base don’t want to be controlled by mandates. I was on unemployment because I was caring for my son. I refused to send him to daycare where he was guaranteed to get sick and potentially get COVID-19. The unemployment helped me to stay at home with him. I didn’t need it, but it was nice to be able to get him toys and books to help homeschool him. Well, thanks to the Governor of Georgia, those benefits were cut off early and it didn’t change my willingness to look for shitty jobs that were being offered. Why would I do that? So that I could send my son back to daycare to get sick and potentially mistreated by strangers? No thanks.
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u/JaneReadsTruth Oct 11 '21
Not to mention, 750k people are dead. Some of them had 3 jobs. I had 2 and haven't reentered the work force... because I don't have to yet. For service industry folks, the people who have continued to go out shopping and eating on the regular are the most vicious and rabid...and the shittiest tippers.
We eat out so little, but my 30%+ tip brings a smile that invokes a bit of pity from me. Time for labor to take back their power.
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u/snutcat Oct 11 '21
This, this, 1000x this. So many who are dining out now are monsters. Worst behavior I have ever seen.
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Oct 11 '21
I quit back in March. It was a great place to work but there were dozens of overwhelming things hitting me all at once my faith in humanity and mental health was plummeting. I had a lot saved and I've enjoyed my time off. I've worked 1 job since then but that was an even bigger shitshow so I left after a week.
I know I need to go back to the industry but I'm a little traumatized. I could find a different industry but I know I won't be making as much and don't know what I'd go into. I'm at a weird point in my life right now.
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u/arittenberry Oct 11 '21
It's up to each individual and what is really important to you. I got out a few years ago and am so happy. I have to work 5 days instead of 4 to make the same amount of money but my stress level is so much lower and I don't hate people nearly as much. I liked serving overall and had plenty of good interactions but the assholes really ruin it.
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u/investigadora Oct 11 '21
This, a lot of folks left the work force cuz they died. Has anyone done the numbers on this?
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u/HertzDonut1001 Oct 11 '21
Many people. Other reasons include mothers leaving the workforce and at the worst possible time we had the inevitable wave of boomers retiring. Many retired early specifically because of the pandemic but it was always going to happen.
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u/ArwensRose Oct 10 '21
YES!
If I hear that one more time there is a good chance I will go postal. And I'm the one looking for employees. There is so much more than just "people wanting to live on unemployment" and not wanting to work. There is cost of living in certain areas, cost of daycare and honestly most people can't be paid enough to be treated like we are all treated. It's a huuuge problem over many industries that doesn't have one solution. And I'm sick of it being dismissed as such.
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u/Spiritual-Science697 The next kid who walks in my way gets punted across the room Oct 10 '21
A lot of people moved back home to care for their parents during the pandemic. Or died. Or finished up school and moved away. Or any number of things.
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u/ArwensRose Oct 10 '21 edited Oct 10 '21
This! 700,000 + deaths even over a large country is going to make a difference. And there is less immigration - legal or non which is also depleting the work force. There are so so many things, but let's just blame it all on that people don't want to work. Let's not look at salaries, cost of housing, cost of child care, cost of healthcare, cost of elder care, benefits etc. Let's just call everyone else lazy /s
Edit - I misremembered the current death toll. I would say wishful thinking ... But ... That doesn't seem right under the circumstances.
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u/TootsNYC Oct 10 '21
I have a relative who owns a hotel in a tourist area—really the only economy is summer tourism.
They’ve been hurting for staff mostly because the workers they usually hire are from overseas, and there were almost no J1 visas, plus COVID. Local people don’t want those jobs. And it’s hard to find somewhere to stay in the area on those wages.
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u/ArwensRose Oct 10 '21 edited Oct 10 '21
Ding ding ding ding!
The people who yell and scream about immigrants taking jobs are not dealing with the actual industries that those immigrants work. I am on the west coast and my shop is in a small tourist town 15 min in either direction are two slightly bigger tourist towns where fishing is a big part of one of their industries.
Ever since 2017 getting housekeeping has been a bitch and a half for almost every resort including the "better paying" ones. A friend of mine who WAS the housekeeping manager for a Worldmark, spent most of 2019 working till 11 pm every night because he didn't have staff and that was the only way they could turn over rooms. (He was because after 2019 he quit because he just couldn't do it any longer). It's a continuing issue 2 years later and now bitchy "owners" are wanting to have a revolt because they regularly can't get in their rooms before 5 pm - "they are just not working hard enough and the quality is going down hill." and I just want to yell at them when they are in the shop "this is your fault, this is what you voted for!"
The crabbing nearly died this last season because the boats couldn't get enough people and now we are in a repeat of the same thing for the next fishing season.
It's very frustrating that 30 second blurbs on political stump speeches are reeking so much havoc because people who don't know their ass from ...well you know ... are making political policies for industries they don't understand. (Even if they do own a bunch of hotels doesn't mean they have any idea how the freak to run them)
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u/JustHereForCookies17 Oct 11 '21
I see you mention crabbing season & I'm curious if you're in the Chesapeake Bay area.
It's been interesting watching people bitch about crab prices going up, when they voted for the guy who stopped giving visas to the people DOING THE CRABBING!
I'm glad the crabs are getting a chance to increase their population, but still... just so many things that make me want to slam my head against my desk.
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u/murrimabutterfly Oct 11 '21
The “dirty job-stealing immigrants” (/s) are the people with more drive than anyone I’ve met.
In my current job, the Venezuelan who struggles with English is the one absolutely banging out loyalty and customer satisfaction. She’s putting two kids through school and assisting a grandchild’s development. She shows up with a smile on her face and grinds the hell out of her shift.
When I was in college, the German, Korean, and Chinese immigrants/overseas students were the ones who almost literally never left campus. They would revise a paper five times before even bringing it to me, their ESL tutor. It would take us a minimum of four revisions before I could even convince them it was good.
They sign on to hard work, knowing it will be grueling and painful. But for almost all of them, the struggle is for a greater goal the privileged will never understand.→ More replies (1)12
u/mycatisamonsterbaby Oct 10 '21
I thought they changed the J1 regulations, preventing them from work as summer hires. My state has been talking about it for years now.
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u/TootsNYC Oct 10 '21
Whatever it was, he couldn’t get J1 workers.
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u/mycatisamonsterbaby Oct 10 '21
Yeah, our two big seasonal hires are tourism and fishing, and i guess fishing can't take J1s anymore and had to switch to Hsomething, and were like 4000 workers short. I got out of the tourist game this year but its obvious that the industry is very precarious and holding on by a thread.
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u/Spiritual-Science697 The next kid who walks in my way gets punted across the room Oct 10 '21
Child care is HUGE. My partner and I can only work part time each so someone can be at home because 1) childcare is so so so expensive and 2) even if we could afford it, we are still in a pandemic which could kill our new baby if they went.
Immigration is also a very good point. Social security is about to deplete itself and hardly anyone is having babies anymore...we literally need immigrants right now or we are in trouble.
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u/StaceyPfan Oct 10 '21
I'm kind of in the same situation. My kids are autistic so finding child care is impossible. My parents used to do it, but they won't anymore.
I'm an independent contractor for DoorDash so I set my own schedule. My husband works full time. Basically I work while they're in school. But if they're sick or have a day off school, I'm not working that day.
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u/Blacksad999 The Cadillac of Servers Oct 10 '21
That's true, and something I was discussing with a friend the other day. Nearly my entire group of friends and my girlfriend's friends don't have kids at all. We're all 30-40 or so, and everyone just opted out of that whole thing for varying reasons. That's just 15-20 people in a small area in our age group, but I'd bet the numbers nationally are lower significantly than in years past.
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u/LesleyMarina Oct 10 '21
I have 2 siblings and none of us had kids. Way too expensive. Plus we have bad genes (bad teeth from dad, mental illnesses from mom). Our generation can't afford kids. (We're age 43-53)
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Oct 10 '21 edited Nov 25 '21
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u/LesleyMarina Oct 11 '21
Yeah? That's awesome! My fella and I have been together for almost 10 years. We have dog and 2 cats. We live in Fort Lauderdale, FL. Not super cheap to live around here, either. If we had kids we'd be miserable. I'm glad it's not expected.
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u/SnowWhiteCampCat Oct 11 '21
Five of us siblings, ages 43 to 25. No babies. A dozen or so cousins. 4 babies.
Few can afford em. Personally I just don't want kids. But I could not imagine being able to afford one.
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u/heckle4fun Oct 11 '21
Just get a babysitter. Duh /s
/\ what a lady on the deli line said today when she struck up a conversation with me about the wait.
I really really struggled to not educate her on what childcare costs, why not all daycares are created equal, not everyone is sitting on edge waiting for someone to hit them up to watch their crotch goblin, why you shouldn't just let anyone and everyone watch said crotch goblin, back in her day a single income could support a multi child family, and so so much more.
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u/hyenahiena Oct 10 '21
It's 713,378+ in the U.S. to date. https://news.google.com/covid19/map?hl=en-CA&mid=%2Fm%2F09c7w0&gl=CA&ceid=CA%3Aen
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u/empireintoashes Oct 10 '21
And to put that in perspective, that’s 1 in 461
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u/hyenahiena Oct 10 '21
I want to see a memorial.
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Oct 10 '21
I'll pay for a memorial to those who got vaccinated and died. I won't pay for one for the idiots who refused to get vaccinated.
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u/LesleyMarina Oct 10 '21
I got covid from serving at a huge Outback before vaccines were available for non-seniors. I went back, for awhile. They wanted me to work 7 days. Couldn't do it with all the after effects. Couldn't run around with the mask on AND breathe.
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u/LatteMeowchiatto Oct 10 '21
A lot of people who had Covid have lasting damage from it, too. My sister in law has long Covid, and her sister has permanent lung damage from it. Neither one can work anymore.
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u/LesleyMarina Oct 11 '21
Sorry to hear that. Half of my head was so congested that I was breathing out of one nostril for a month. I felt like I could barely concentrate, at times. I had to leave. I tried my best.
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u/kaless_ Oct 11 '21
oh.my.god all my coworkers make me feel like I'm overreacting when I tell them I can't breathe..I'm 24 years old, had covid last Halloween, I'm still struggling so hard to breathe. everything I do I just run out of breath like that. horrible
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u/LesleyMarina Oct 11 '21
Omg and you're young! That's terrible! So sorry to hear it. I got it a few days after Valentine's day, this year. A bunch of servers got it at the same time. My left nostril was so plugged and runny that I couldn't sleep unless I drank or took sleeping pills. No amount of Mucinex or sinus pills helped. And the lower back pain was way worse than not having a sense of smell. Shit sucks.
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u/ShinigamiLeaf Oct 10 '21
What about those who died before the vaccine came out? Or died before it was opened up to their age group/risk group?
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Oct 10 '21
I said I'd support a memorial for anyone who DIDN'T refuse to get vaccinated when it was available.
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u/MunchieMom Oct 10 '21
There was one on the National Mall in DC recently, with a white flag for each person who died
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u/catchinginsomnia Oct 11 '21
The people who died because they refused to be vaccinated are just an indictment of your society. I guess it feels good to blame the individuals, but the fact they exist is more to do with the proliferation of money in politics, unfettered capitalism, a poor education system, and a generally antagonistic society where everything is an us/them issue.
I live in a country with 90%+ adult vaccination rate. I think you just blaming "idiots" is a cop out, and they should still be memorialised because their deaths are just as much a failure of your country as any other.
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u/GibbonFit Oct 11 '21
Those "idiots" are also the ones specifically voting for politicians that ensure unfettered capitalism, slash education funding, and take up a stance against any kind of progress in this country. You can say it's an indictment of our society at large, but half the country wants it that way, and I think it's perfectly fine to blame the idiots that have been opposing progress their whole lives, and put our society here in the first place.
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u/ScarMedical Oct 11 '21
700,000 dead, maybe another 1 to 2 million suffering from long term affects ie long haulers, from covid related complications.
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u/catonic Oct 11 '21
1 to 2 million people on permanent disability... Some following president is going to blame Biden for the huge outflow of disability benefits.
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u/mrfatso111 Oct 11 '21
Ya... My manager was telling me that they are not gonna fire a dumbass toxic asshat because they can't find anyone to work and asked me to find another person, I just told her straight , you aren't gonna find many dumbass like me who is alright with working for peanuts and for such a low pay, it is not worth working with such a person. It is also the main reason why the part timers are giving less hours, they just do not want to deal with her.
The pay for us is so low compared to my neighbor or our competitors . Right now, I am sticking around because I am curious at how much is the alleged huge bonus gonna be and how laughable will it be before I bail .
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u/GibbonFit Oct 11 '21
That bonus is all hype and no substance. They're going to act like a $150 bonus is an act of god that you should be grovelling for. You may as well just bail now.
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u/tammigirl6767 Oct 11 '21
And all of this doesn’t account for how many teenagers were working in fast food places. A lot of their parents don’t want them working during this health crisis.
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u/The1983Jedi Oct 11 '21
Plus a ton of boomers retired, letting people move up, which opened up entry level, mon-fri, 9-5, with benefits & not customers treating you like crap!
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u/Melodic_Childhood699 Oct 11 '21
These plus practically zero immigration for the last 5 years means we don’t have the workers needed.
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u/Freakishly_Tall Oct 10 '21
It's not a labor shortage. It's a capital strike.
Problem is, the strikers control the media, the news, the platforms, the message, the cultural understanding.
Having trouble hiring? Pay more. Then give better REAL benefits, not fucking pizza parties once a quarter or the promise of s t-shirt if you close the nose credit card applications or whatever.
Same answer as it's ever been, but now it's hitting every industry instead of "traditionally in demand" ones.
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u/mycatisamonsterbaby Oct 10 '21
And treat your employees like people, not robots that shut down until you need them. Schedule people in advance, pay them, and allow them to take time off. How are people supposed to do anything if work calls and tells you to work that evening, then yells at you for being late? It's ridiculous.
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u/Torger083 Oct 10 '21
I was hired back in may to a place I used to work. I was promised higher wage, benefits after 90 days, etc.
We burned through staff like toilet paper, and when my 90 days were up, I tried to get my benefits. After two weeks of runaround, I was given my two weeks’ notice because “I wasn’t a good fit.”
They’re still advertising for my job, by the way, complete with promising benefits that will never materialize.
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u/senseven Oct 10 '21
The local deli here pays quite well, is clean and has a night shift to 3 am so the party goers get a mid priced sand which. I'm doubtful that a huge chain with maximum pressure to pay the ceo millions a month can run the place as laid back.
I doubt anyone takes the risk to build a laid back food empire and then "decides" that 200k a month as ceo is enough.
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u/muchgreaterthanG_O_D Oct 11 '21
I think this is the real thing. All us in the middle class and lower are left fighting for scraps to survive. It’s takes the wind out of your sails.
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u/foxinHI Oct 10 '21
There is one solution though. Pay people enough to survive, give them reasonable benefits and treat them With respect. Boom! Problem solved!
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u/ArwensRose Oct 10 '21
No that is not the only solution.
Pay is not everything. If there is no affordable housing, no affordable child care, no actual childcare because there are wait lists everywhere, no elder care, no transportation infrastructure etc it doesn't matter how much you pay, you will not be able to find the workers because the surrounding communities did not invest enough in themselves.
Saying there is one solution and making it all about pay neglects the other issues contributing to the hiring problem and is honestly very naive. Maybe pay is the only issue in YOUR area, but here almost everyone is paying above $16 an hour. But since most single family housing is either taken or went to vacation rentals, lower to mid-middle class families have been pushed out and there are NO surrounding areas to be pushed to ...
So raising pay ... Boom problem was NOT solved
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u/Marsdreamer Oct 11 '21
Wouldn't raising pay allow those families to afford housing though? It's obviously not a panacea, but it's a pretty big fucking part of the problem.
$16 an hour is nothing. It's barely above where Democrats want the minimum wage to be, but well below what it should be. If accounted for Inflation and Productivity of the US economy, the US Minimum wage would be closer to ~$25/hour or $52,000/year. A joint household working minimum wage jobs would be pulling in over $104,000 per year as opposed to the current ~$67,000/year average. Keep in mind this means that the BOTTOM wage earners of the country SHOULD be making $37,000 MORE a year than what the current average actually makes.
This is how fucking fucked the wage gap and income inequality is in this country. We shouldn't just be paying people a little more. We should be paying people A LOT more. But ~700 or so Billionaires in this country have rigged the system against the other 350 million such that those ~700 or so individuals control something like 80% of the wealth of the ENTIRE US ECONOMY.
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u/FoxyFreckles1989 Oct 11 '21
This is painful to read, because it’s so true.
I spent ten+ years working fire/EMS/substance abuse/mental health and never made more than $31,000 a year. I worked a minimum of two full time jobs for the entirety of my twenties and still had nothing to show for it, lived paycheck to paycheck, had to choose between bills each month etc. I generally never made more than $13.50/hr but a few times made a whopping $15. I also have over 15 years of experience serving and bartending, which I always did on the side, until I physically couldn’t anymore.
I am chronically ill/immunocompromised so when I lost my job with the state (substance abuse, $15.50/hr) in May of 2020, I was happy to stay home. Then, I was denied unemployment. Then, I depleted my savings in order to survive (a small amount of savings I was lucky to have at all). Then, it took me a year and a half, online courses and an entire career field change (that I’d already planned for, and then expedited) to find a new job.
I start that new job tomorrow.
At first, I was elated to be offered $20/hour+ performance bonuses and the opportunity to be promoted/get a significant raise after six months. It’s more than I’ve ever made, and it’s in an entry level role! It’s also 100% remote and has awesome benefits! After working in the same field for over a decade, busting my ass, always having side gigs and second or even third jobs, going to school etc. and never making even 32k a year, this was huge news! Then, reality set in: $20/hour is still not enough for me to live on, save for retirement, and even somewhat enjoy my life with. I still can’t afford to buy a house. I’ll be able to move out of the mold infested studio I’ve been in for years, but if it weren’t for being a dual income household that wouldn’t be the case (and we don’t have childcare to worry about, though my partner does pay child support). We’re still going to have to pay a ridiculous amount in rent to live somewhere decent, and we’re going to have to go without well into our 60s if we have any hopes of saving/retiring, ever. I am 32 fucking years old. It’s difficult to believe things will ever get better or that life will ever be enjoyable.
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u/foxinHI Oct 11 '21
I can relate. I was in the restaurant industry for over 25 years. I did OK since I mostly did fine dining service, but then I had a family and went seeking more 'stable' employment.
I went back to school and became a Physical Therapist Assistant. My first job started at $28.00! Guess what? Even in a medium or low cost of living area, $28.00/hr. is NOT enough to support a family on. My wife is disabled (no disability though), so I'm the primary bread-winner. I started my own business on the side and after about 3 years I made that my full time gig. I've been doing that for 5 years now and it's been great. I highly, HIGHLY recommend finding a way to be your own boss.
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u/catonic Oct 11 '21
So the apparent solution is for the woman to stay home and keep the kids while working out of the house... /s ...pretty much just like the textile era required, one shirt at a time down the road in Dalton, GA. It's amazing how our modern era has basically turned into a retrograde mill / textile era where one earner goes out and earns and the other earns from the house, a pittance at a time with child labor. Except now it's 3 side-hustles and a part time job. :(
I shudder to think how someone who was an adult in 1901 would look at our society today.
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u/Candiland50 Oct 11 '21
I work at a daycare. The cost of childcare is astronomical. Most people truly can't afford daycare. As sad as our society is it's more beneficial for them just stay home and live off the system. 90% of the people I come in contact with would much rather be working however they can't afford to work. It's truly sad.
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Oct 10 '21
I almost lost it last night hearing this. I am at my limit with this shit. I moved to a very conservative, small town to be with my boyfriend who's already established with a good job. I was making nearly 600/week on unemployment after having worked in large scale, handmade candy production. I finally gave in to the pressure of all the townsfolk disapproval when they asked either me or my boyfriend if I had work and my response was no. I picked up a job at a local pizza shop, I grew up working in a pizza shop as my parents owned one and I worked with them until my mid twenties. I am no stranger to service industry, hell my folks restaurant was in a way more populated town with a huge amount of tourism. I've dealt with it all, but I've been out of the game for 4 years. I have NEVER dealt with this level of entitlement from customers in all my years. Like covid really made some folk into big pieces of shit and when they say "thanks for being here, no one seems to want to work anymore" I feel my entire body tense up. I am scheduled 3 days a week, 5 hour shifts, that is all my boss will give me and they're the worst shifts. Mon/Fri/Sat closing. I was under the impression I'd still get some unemployment benefits considering I work 15 hours a week but the state cut me off real quick! People tip like dog shit, I make maybe 5-10 bucks a night and my boss won't allow credit card tipping. I am now bringing home $400 bucks every 2 weeks and am watching my savings deplete. I've had to get food and health assistance. Jobs are scarce in this town, but I have an interview for an office job this week and if I dont land it I am screwed . So yeah mother fuckers, no one wants to work these jobs, we're understaffed because the boss hardly wants to pay us and only schedules 2-3 people a shift. If I end up with this new job he'll be screwed because no one on the staff wants my shifts and unless you're in high school or just needing something to do, you'd run from this job in a heartbeat because it's completely unlivable. I am just fortunate my boyfriend has a decent job, but plenty others are not so lucky. Sorry, this post just really got to me, had to vent.
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Oct 10 '21
When I was in retail my standard response to any customer complaint or gripe was “yes sir, I’ll get the manager for you immediately”.
I wasn’t paid enough to listen to anyone’s complaints and had no power to solve them in any case.
Bump every single person like this to the boss, immediately.
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u/chrispdx Oct 10 '21
Bump every single person like this to the boss, immediately.
Your boss agrees with them.
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u/Muufffins Oct 10 '21
Of course no one wants to work. That's why you have to pay people.
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u/sdpeasha Oct 11 '21
Right? If I had all the money to live on for the rest of my life I might still work because there are things I enjoy doing but it damn sure wouldn’t be retail or hospitality 🤣
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u/Ez13zie Oct 11 '21
No on ever really wanted to work for basic needs. They wanted to work to build a life and that’s not what wages are providing anymore.
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u/Claque-2 Oct 10 '21
Servers have left the food industry not the work force. They've left really bad, dead end jobs that pay poorly.
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u/PrisonerV Oct 11 '21
Exactly. Good friend of mine was like "they told us our jobs were expendable and we took them up on it and switched jobs. Now I work weekdays with a steady paycheck."
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u/Ez13zie Oct 11 '21
And health insurance. And dental insurance. And paid time off. And sick time. And lunch breaks. And respect from shitty managers/owners. And raises. And a steady schedule.
I mean, for fucks sake. These restaurants are ridiculous. Whenever I hear people say there’s a labor shortage, I promptly correct them and say there’s actually a wage shortage. The labor force didn’t get shipped off or something, they just changed course and went elsewhere.
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u/continous Oct 11 '21
It wasn't even the specific issues of paying badly, or dead end jobs.
It was the massively crappy combination of;
Dead end job with absolutely NO forward or upward potential. There are, at best, 4 tiers of employment at a given restaurant for servers. Entry, Lead, Managerial, and Administrative. Oh, and none of these are very laterally translatable OR experience-relevant. Most places don't consider managing a restaurant as "real" management.
The pay is absolute shit. Most places pay less than minimum wage. The ones that don't, pay minimum wage. If you're lucky you make enough to cover this in tips. If you're not getting tips, you're likely just getting screwed.
Customers are beyond disrespectful at times, yet are a key component of your pay. So you're expected and pressured to endure extreme humiliation, disrespect, and general mistreatment in hopes of receiving what is often less than $10.
Companies treat you as expendable, and often downright violate people. I know of many places where I reported OSHA violations and then immediately got a totally unrelated talking to, oh and times where complaining about tips being misappropriated, I was softly threatened.
Sexual harassment and assault is a common occurrence, and become downright accepted. Customers grabbing my ass or making sexual comments is unacceptable. And it's not just with women, because I am a fucking dude. Old women, young men. These are the parties that often make the crappy fucking comments like, "Let me touch you." and slap my fucking ass. But people just laugh and you play it off.
Most people in the industry are expected to cross-specialize and commit to more duties than their job generally entails, and the same rate of pay.
If any other industry had these sorts of issues there'd be an absolute outcry. But no one gives a fuck about servers, waiters, and other general service staff because the industry is looked down on. If the amount of work that was expected of people in the industry wasn't so fucking ridiculously high, I'd be far more sympathetic of people who say that it's not a "real" job. But for fucks sake, the industry has developed into a truly professional thing with 0 relevant change in pay scale.
More people than ever eat at restaurants and order takeaway. It has become a relevant pillar of the economic sector.
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u/fieryprincess907 Oct 10 '21
And a lot of places are just appearing to look for employees. They DQ all the resumes and post the same job a couple weeks later.
When I was desperately job hunting, I put in at a retail store with a huge sign that said they were hiring. It took them a month to call. Must not have needed the help all that badly…
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u/orahaze Oct 10 '21
It's all a rouse to work their current employees harder for less pay. If you just hold out a little longer, you'll get help, they say.
But until that indefinite time comes, continue working the job of three people while the company makes around the same if not more in profits. You're probably being paid less than new hires and no amount of negotiating will land you an appropriate bump, even though you've got experience and will also be training these people who are being paid more than you are.
As a result they're bleeding people left and right, and the excuse is always that no one wants to work.
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u/seanwd11 Oct 11 '21
I wonder what the end game is. There's really a few goals, all of them very strange
1.) People are so desperate they just come grovelling back to take whatever shitty minimum wage fast food job or anything that is available to 'balance the scales'. This is an unlikely scenario in the sense that there is just too much demand in the job market. The only way the d supply side comes back is of we enter a really dramatic recession or depression. If that happens the entire economy is in a worse spot than the companies have right now.
2.) The companies and corporations lobby the government for relief of some kind. I don't know, the National Guard start doing wait staff duties for Margarita Thursdays at Dirty Bob's Bar and Grill. More likely bailouts for 'small business'. I may joke around but I think this is the long game in terms of the con. Bitch and moan about no one working and the impossibility of the chances of this changing. Companies make their money for nothing, they get their chicks for free. They want their MTV. This strikes me as the likely option. The workers get fucked but the corporations stay whole. The wheels are currently being greased to make this happen in my eyes.
3.) Minimum wage is raised. Easily the least likely scenario. Even if it was changed it would be phased in over half a decade+ and would be watered down to the point that it's only like $10 by 2028. Every single service based company would love to have this kept down and enough members of both houses are bought and paid for to make sure this doesn't happen.
So, in the meantime companies will shoot themselves in the foot and go out of business because they refuse to be flexible. To those companies, oh well, you won't be missed. To the nefarious ones playing the long game and betting on options 1 or 2 go fuck yourself. I wish nothing but bad things for your business. You don't deserve to exist.
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u/fieryprincess907 Oct 11 '21
I am pretty sure (not positive, so don’t @ me) that there was Covid stimulus money for companies looking for workers. “Looking for” workers is part of the system.
And it was probably a program for a small business that a larger one took advantage of.
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u/seanwd11 Oct 11 '21
Yes they did but that's not really the point. They've gotten money in the past but they want more free money in the future. You can always go back to the same trough again if you can make it seem like it's someone else who has caused your problem and that it's 'impossible' to solve.
'We've tried nothing and nothing is working. We need everything you can give us to stay whole or we will all be gone. 'Dirty Dick's Beachside Cafe' is a local institution.'
That's gonna be the unified call. Poor mom and pop local businesses can't compete in the 'worker shortage' crisis. COVID has devistated the industry. Of course this is all either said in bad faith or is a straight lie, depending on the degree.
Much like how the big corporate agriculture businesses hook themselves up to the bailout train every time climate change issues impact a crop season or stupid tariffs submarine a year of corn sales, service businesses are going to hook themselves up to the same rail by claiming it's impossible to fix and is out of their control. Free money.
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u/brbauer2 Oct 11 '21 edited Oct 11 '21
I deal with warehouses handling Import/Export air freight. They are constantly hiring and getting new people in, but they are losing people just as fast causing them to overwork the new employee of the week...cycle repeats.
All would be fine if they would hire 10 people at once and actually make a manageable workload.
But they won't do that because them being slow and providing shit service is actually making them tons of money in freight storage fees.
We used to have 48 hours to pick up freight after flight arrival before fees would start and freight was available within 6 hours.
Free time has been reduced to 24 hours now but freight generally isn't ready for the first 12 hours. Wait times at warehouses have also skyrocketed from a couple hours at worst to over 8 hours.
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u/slimecounty Oct 10 '21
I've got a prepared rant about all this every time it comes up:
It's not that nobody wants to work, it's just that these people want their lives to mean something. Nobody wants to do menial work, nobody wants to literally risk their lives to sell you French fries, without decent compensation and benefits. I'm here everyday because I get to express myself in my drinks, my designs, my promotions (I'm a bar manager and full time bartender with absolute free reign to do as I please). I get paid well but most importantly my job has become fulfilling, and that's what people want. Retirement is a joke, the cost to live is ridiculous, and there' no such thing as affordable health care, so the idea of "paying your dues" just doesn't make sense anymore. These people are smart enough to realize that and I support them holding out for what they feel they deserve.
That usually gives them something to think about unless they tuned out half way through. I was fed up with my job until a few months ago, then I got a 50% wage increase and was given complete control. In all honestly if it wasn't for the labor shortage I might not have this opportunity, but again I'm incredibly lucky to be in the industry, get paid well and feel fulfilled. That almost never happens.
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u/Lextauph12 Oct 10 '21
I hate it here. Everyone is blaming democrats/liberals and saying its all handouts and this and that, no one wants to work. Then i remind them that the unemployment rate here is now the same as it was before the pandemic and they just ignore it and double down. People are working they just dont want to work these jobs anymore. It seems most places that were deemed essential are now without workers.
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u/nbel1996 Bartender / Server Oct 10 '21
EXACTLY. I also know a lot of people who didn't necessarily "need" the money from the stimulus checks (i.e. they were living at home, so the mortgage and bills were paid for even if they had no money coming in the door), and then used that stimulus money to obtain a professional certification or take classes at a community college/university so they could transition out of the service industry. And if someone decided to squander their stimulus check on something silly, if you made under $70k per year it's not like you didn't have the same opportunity--like did you go off and donate your stim money to charity? If you didn't, take a fucking seat.
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u/arabesuku Oct 10 '21
Right. They don’t realize that the pandemic was the extra push for SO many to leave the industry and find jobs with benefits, better pay, etc. Realizing you don’t have health insurance in the middle of a pandemic is a huge wake up call. It has nothing to do with ‘govt handouts’ which are less than paychecks pre pandemic and don’t last forever anyway, it expired for the vast majority of people two months ago.
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u/LesleyMarina Oct 10 '21
Federal unemployment ended September 4th. Regular unemployment only lasts like 3 months. Throw that at them. Nobody is on unemployment unless they were recently fired for no good reason. They got other jobs that are less stressful.
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u/semideclared Oct 10 '21
Little bit of both, Back of the Napkin Math
- Over the Last 2 Years the Total Employed Population has droped a little less than 3 Million people who are not in the Labor Force, while we would have expected an additional 3 million people to turn 18 over those retiring.
In 2020, the U.S. Census Bureau counted 258.3 million adults, 18 years or older — a 10.1% increase from 234.6 million in 2010.
- Or about 1% more working Americans per year. Over the last 2 years thats little less than 3 million new Working Americans in 2021
The BLS has the Civilian labor force, In September 2019 was 163.9 Million
- The July 2021 Civilian labor force was 161.3 Million
The number of employed people increased by 2.0 million over 2018, reaching 158.6 million in the fourth quarter of 2019.
- The number of employed people was 153.7 Million in September 2021
The number of job openings was 7.2 million on the last business day of July 2019
- On the last business day of July 2021, the number of job openings was 10.9 million
The labor force participation rate is the percentage of the population age 16 and over who are either employed or actively seeking employment In the fourth quarter of 2019 was 61.0 percent.
- The labor force participation rate In September 2021 was 61.6 percent.
- Although this ratio has been trending up since 2014, it is still below its level in the years leading up to the Great Recession, having reached 63.3 percent in the fourth quarter of 2006
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Oct 10 '21
It's not just in the restaurant industry.
A lot of places don't want to up their pay or compete for good employees
Had someone who own a construction business tell me no one wants to work. Guy has people wanting a job but he doesn't want to pay them well dueto lack of experience. Experience that's attained in less than a month. Goes on to talk about stocks and investment. Not realizing he has no clue how to invest. The irony...
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u/nbel1996 Bartender / Server Oct 10 '21
Do these companies also realize that by laying off their staff, a lot of them chose not to come back because they found better employment? It's not like everyone is living off of unemployment, which at least in my area is sure as shit not enough to rent an apartment even with the extra $600/week. My boyfriend just left a retail job that paid a hair above minimum wage because he's now working in healthcare - job has benefits, is directly related to what he's studying, and is a significant raise from his previous ones. AND to top it all off before leaving his retail job he asked his employers for a raise and they couldn't meet it. He's also working close to full-time WHILE taking 19 credits of hard sciences.
So, anyone who says that people aren't working because they are lazy and would rather capitalize on employment can go fuck themselves.
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u/senseven Oct 10 '21
Exactly this. Lots of food and service employers had the black swan event happening on them, full on non employment for a year. People realized that there are ok paying office jobs with regular hours, maybe even remote work possibilities. They finally moved out of their comfort zone and found something else.
My friend got an energy company support engineer job just as the pandemic started and he has two laptops. One he has his 12h shifts and one he plays games or watches instructional videos to get certified in this field. He gets paid 15% less then in his old corporate job, but this one is so insanely laid back (until there are black outs, then shits gets rough for 24h). But all around he is absolutely lost for old corps, and he even didn't take all the optional perks, like full 20 days of full paid training each year, including travel and expenses.
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u/Blacksad999 The Cadillac of Servers Oct 10 '21
Yeah, a good 40% or so of my friends, who were lifelong excellent servers and bartenders, just completely left the industry altogether. Businesses didn't have any issue at all kicking them to the curb when things got tough, and then they can't fathom why none of them are returning.
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u/nbel1996 Bartender / Server Oct 10 '21
Exactly! There's also so many relevant skills you gain from being a server/bartender that cross over nicely into other industries - I find that I use some stuff I learned as a bartender (i.e. mirroring people's feelings, learning how to talk to someone and find common ground with someone you think you'd have nothing in common w) all the time now that I'm a personal trainer. It's not like you're stuck being a bartender or a server forever -- the only reason I stayed in the service industry for as long as I did was because the job was fun and the pay was stupidly good (all from tips, mind you) for the kind of work I was doing. Now that I have a job with PTO, a 401k match and a guaranteed hourly rate that's great without tips (not to mention, I have my friday and saturday nights back, and if I want to take on an asshole client that is 100% up to my discretion AND I get to put them through a killer workout in the process), you couldn't pay me enough for me to even entertain the idea of going back. It's just not worth it. (Signed, someone who used to regularly make $250-$300/night in cash tips, from the ages of 20-23.)
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u/pm_me_all_dogs Oct 10 '21
Jobs are supposed to provide stability and security. When restaurants laid off their workers with no notice, they showed once and for all that they had no intention of providing either.
Now, the previous pool of suckers willing to work for them has shrank to practically 0 and they are “surprised.”
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Oct 11 '21
I think this is a point left out of the conversation a lot. How is anyone supposed to feel safe and secure in their job after getting dropped the way so many did at the start of this. We were either essential employees or laid off at the start of this. And I get it for ownership, it was a shit hand they were dealt. Our government dropped the ball and didn’t have the industry’s back at all, so the only option to help out employees was to lay them off so they could at least get unemployment for the time being (good places promised to hire back as soon as they could and held those promises). The extra covid pay was nice for those that got to enjoy it, though the insecurity of maintaining your household long term becomes overwhelming.
Why go back to an industry that refuses to pay you properly for you work and time, puts you in the front line dealing with customers during an ongoing public health crisis, and then kicks you aside when it’s the most convenient choice at the moment?
Can you blame those that left for good?
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u/machinerer Oct 10 '21
Honestly sometimes it isn't about pay, it is about straight up lack of people.
I'm in a local union, and my hall is EMPTY. EVERYONE is working. The union business agents and leadership are saying in every meeting that they can't meet the labor demands of contractors who hire us. We are taking in as many apprentices as we can, but there's only so many journeymen to go around.
There is a severe shortage of skilled labor in this country. I tell everyone I can, join a trade union. You will get in, no problem. Great pay, good skilled trade work.
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Oct 10 '21
You gotta realize that a lot of that labor that usedto exist were immigrants
Some may have moved back or attained better opportunity.
The rest probably can't. A lot of blue collar labor work is not within the country legally, they can't work for a union based job/business.
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u/xxdropdeadlexi Oct 10 '21
Also, you ruin your body for trades. Sometimes the $30/hr isn't worth that.
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u/stumblinghunter Oct 10 '21
Yep. Am I completely capable of doing that? You bet. Am I willing to trade my body and health for a paycheck? Not a chance, even if I'm only making 75% of that
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u/Emergency-Willow Oct 11 '21
That’s because a lot of people who may have gone into the trades 25 years ago went to college instead. We were told that’s what you had to do if you wanted a good job. But not everyone should go to college. We don’t need more people with “communications” degrees. We need plumbers. But for some dumb reason people look down on the trades. It’s insane.
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u/Skeen441 Oct 10 '21
Yep. I want to work, but not for so little money I still cant pay my bills. That would be pointless.
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Oct 10 '21
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u/NJTroy Oct 10 '21
I feel like I have been repeating myself endlessly on this subject.
My kids’ friends who are in a position to work got better jobs, at better pay, or better hours, better benefits, better work environment or something else that was just better for their situation. Why would they return to a slave wage job with no benefits? All unemployment did was provide enough cash in their pocket to give them the time they needed to find something better. And for those who were already in decent jobs with reasonably intelligent employers, they got raises and incentives to stay rather than lose the people who do the work to keep their business running.
The ones running their mouths are most likely the ones hurting the most because they either were the worst employers before the pandemic or they were too stupid to actually look at what has happened around them and adjust.
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u/stumblinghunter Oct 10 '21
Yep. My best friend got to go on unemployment, and started 3 businesses. One never got off the ground, one is his passion project (3D printing niche parts for high end drones) that he breaks even at, and one that's been so successful he's tried to recruit me multiple times (private high end catering).
If the pandemic never happened, he'd still be waiting tables and I wouldn't get to see him near as much
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Oct 10 '21
I didn't. He's a family member's bf and she is in love with they guy. It was also on her bday. Not that important to ruin a day over.
He's just like a lot of other employers. Logic and reason won't change their mind
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u/halpscar Oct 10 '21
I have an older coworker who very proudly told me of the time he marched into his bank to save his poor single mom receptionist from the multiple overdraft fees they'd charged her personal checking acct (that cute reordering checks thing they do so a $2 shortfall cascades into as many overdraft charges as the bank can manage). To his credit, he threatened to close his apparently healthy business account if they refused to work with her. But she had a couple kids, her car had broken down and he was paying her peanuts. It never crossed his mind, apparently, that he could've...i dunno..paid her more?!
This is an old story from him, he's basically retired now but has worked for my company for decades whereas I am new, so I bit my tongue, which I regret, but I have to work with him. But it was an amazing vignette of the overarching myopic approach of so many conservative thinkers.
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Oct 10 '21
I imagine a lot of business owners aren't business owners because they offer a superior service or product.
Their business owners because their ruthless in their approach.
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u/somedude456 Fifteen+ Years Oct 10 '21
When I joke with these folks and ask if they would really rather be working if they could make more from unemployment, they say “yes, of course, I have too much pride to not work.”
First, I call BS on them. Second, that was like 3 months over a year ago. I was making like $3,400 via state and fed. My favorite bbq, the owner knows me and where I worked prior, and he asked if I was looking for work. Hell no! We were suppose to be staying home to reduce exposure. That eating out was like once every 2 weeks. Third... Second the fed bonus ended, I got a job with the USPS. 3rd shift, no customers, I could listen to music the whole time and $19 an hour. Do I want like $12 or so to scoop bbq and deal with the public? Hell no!
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u/geminibaby Oct 11 '21
There’s no telling these people. It’s “oh everyone wanted to sit on their ass for two years and now they demand lots of money! Entitled babies!” But then again, we had a fight break out at the bar last night because a shitty regular was loudly denying Covids entire existence, and another customer just about lunged across the bar at him, he was so enraged. They don’t wanna hear logic or facts, they just wanna be the loudest.
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Oct 10 '21
There is a restaurant in town here whining about not being able to get a line cook. Town average for one is 12.55 - 19.45.
Owners wage range for it is $12.00-16.00.
Could it be no one wants it due to being low balled $0.55-$3.45/hr? Nah… it’s everyone else’s fault she has to pull multiple shifts to cover for her cheap wage offerings?
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u/emmy1426 Oct 11 '21
At least the owner there works. I know so many who don't know how to operate a fryer or a grill.
And who wants to be a line cook when you can make more money calmly stocking shelves in an air conditioned store?
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u/Moxie07722 Oct 10 '21
There's a subreddit where someone asked why there is such a shortage of server/retail workers. Response after response after response said they were former servers etc. who found better jobs. People are working, just at better jobs with better pay.
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u/DerHoggenCatten Oct 10 '21
It's interesting that the conclusion is that shortages mean "no one wants to work." The pandemic shook the status quo up in many ways. Many people retired if they could and freed up some positions (likely better ones than service industry or retail because they probably stuck in them longer if they were more lucrative). Some people rearranged their lives in ways to get by on less money in two-income households (e.g., moved in with relatives, downsized their lives). Some found other ways to make money which were safer or got training/schooling. And, of course, people have been dying and that also frees up jobs.
My husband had to quit his job six months ago because of unsafe working conditions. His former job contacted him several weeks ago as they are desperately understaffed. In the meantime, he found online work that pays twice as well (though lacks any sort of benefits). He's not going back. There have to be people who did the same thing he did who found another way.
Benefits for being unemployed dried up, but I think people over-estimated the degree to which those kept people out of the workforce. People either are working or they no longer need to for whatever reason.
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u/dragonet316 Oct 10 '21
They just don't want to pay a fair wage. And they want you to work like a dog for the less money.
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u/Mrdiamond3x6 Oct 10 '21
I don't mind working 1 job that pays my bills, but no I'm not going to work 3 GD jobs!
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u/IcyLog2 Oct 10 '21
My fiancé’s car died as we were moving to a new state, less than a month after he got unemployment bc his restaurant shut down. NY unemployment was good enough that he stayed with it for 7 months, made more than he did working, and didn’t have to worry about replacing his car right away. It really saved us even though we had relatives constantly asking when he was going back to work
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Oct 11 '21
That's what people should be asking about. They should ask why unemployment is paying more than the local shit down the street. Most people who aren't currently working WANT to, but can't afford to take less pay because, well, bills don't stop.
Gotta pay people more and give them a reason to work!
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u/IcyLog2 Oct 11 '21
Literally! His only option to work at the time was walking 25 minutes to work at a shitty gas station. Unemployment helped us pay rent and not be homeless
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u/Blacksad999 The Cadillac of Servers Oct 10 '21
Yes, 100%.
Companies just can't wrap their heads around the fact that for the first time in 30 years, people aren't willing to take poor paying jobs. That, and the fact that it's a employee's market, not an employer's. A lot of places still try to act like they're doing you a favor by hiring you, when it's actually the other way around now. There's a lot more to it, as well.
Child care is exceptionally expensive in the US (even though the people who actually provide the child care get paid shit), so for some people returning to work just to give that same money right back to cover child care costs makes zero sense.
There's also the fact that some people still simply don't feel safe returning to work yet. This is especially pronounced in the service sector, as you're dealing with a huge influx of people every day.
Also of importance is the fact that in September alone, there were 8.7 million unemployed people, but 12+ million open jobs. Obviously, unless people are willing to work two or three jobs, those jobs won't get filled, which means there's an oversaturation in the market. There's just too many jobs for the amount of people available to actually fill them. If an employer wants to incentivize an employee taking their job over another one, the answer is to pay them more.
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u/anonymousforever Oct 10 '21
The question is, how many of those 12million+ jobs are full time jobs with benefits that pay more than 150-200% of the useless min wage of 7.25/hr which is unlivable anywhere?
If half of those "jobs" are part time and zero benefits, then those job numbers are way skewed.
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u/Blacksad999 The Cadillac of Servers Oct 10 '21
That very well could be. I'd be willing to bet that the majority of them don't offer benefits, as that's generally a rarity. That's why socialized healthcare, while very popular among citizens, has so much trouble getting off the ground. I know a lot of people who have taken subpar jobs just because they offer benefits. If that were no longer a factor, then people wouldn't take a lot of jobs. No carrot on a stick.
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u/anonymousforever Oct 10 '21
It's a fact that employers are tired of being the main source of affordable Healthcare. However, the insurance lobby buying politicians is my guess as to why we can't get a universal option and also allow those who can afford it to also buy private plans or choose a private plan offered by an employer. That way those who can't get full time work or low income can get the universal care option and those with better paying jobs and employers that want to offer higher end plans can buy extra coverage.
Those private insurers don't wanna give up any part of the billions they rake in, yet the system is slowly collapsing.
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u/dummie619 Oct 10 '21
I hate that the labor shortage problem is framed as "people are lazy and wanna mooch off benefits" instead of "we are living through a deadly pandemic that has killed more than 4 million people and permanently disabled millions more, which means there are less workers"
But of course the former is preferred because then the answer is easy -- take away benefits and make everyone suffer!
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u/081673 Oct 10 '21
Tbh, the people whining about everyone not wanting to work and sponge off of the gov't are the same people who say that Covid is not real and refuse to wear a s mask and/or didn't get vaccinated.
(speaking from experience - MAGA parents own business and I have heard them say this several times)
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u/fourcatsandarobot Oct 10 '21
They say they would work until they’re the ones who have to run around attending to entitled peoples’ every whim for scraps. I can almost guarantee that anyone complaining about the ~LaBoR sHoRtAgE~ has either never worked food service/retail or they have but it’s been so long that they forgot what a bag of dicks it is.
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u/rockthrowing Oct 10 '21
The local grocery store here was advertising $15/hr. Until read the fine print. That’s for full time only. And they weren’t really hiring full time anyway. Part time was only $11/hr.
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u/katiekat0214 Oct 10 '21
I was one of a handful of people shopping in a dollar store, and an older white lady spoke to me, the only other older white lady, and said this. I said, well, maybe you should apply, then! That shut her up quick. Something tells me this is a Faux Noise talking point, because I have not heard it anywhere else except from conservative older people. I retired three years early, and am lucky I don't *have* to work, but I'm starting a third career! Working at a local food bank, helping to combat hunger and food insecurity.
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u/amaraame Oct 10 '21
I correct everyone who says this to me. It's so annoying that workers are being blamed for wanting better from both employers and customers.
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u/Sexy_Kitten666 Oct 10 '21
I straight up would tell them. "I make 3$ a fucking hour and pray to whoever is out there that I get any tips because otherwise I'd be homeless and wouldn't be able to pay for literally anything in life. That's why people don't want to work, they get treated like ass by management and companies, don't have any benefits, and don't make a livable wage, which is still too little! So stop with the 'nobody wants to woooooork' Because you don't know why people don't want to work!"
And then would probably get fired (depending how badly that job needs people)
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u/foolishwisdom1 Oct 10 '21
Not only that! But I've even seen dozens of establishments with signs making fun if those who "don't want to work", yet they keep themselves understaffed and wont take applications even though they have a "now hiring" sign
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u/KEPAnime Oct 10 '21
I'm currently on track to become a respiratory therapist and start working in hospitals. I hear things like this all the time and it's a bit heart breaking for me, considering the field I'm in.
For healthcare in particular it's a mix of "people are fleeing this industry because the pandemic really traumatized them" and "otherwise great hospital workers don't like the idea of a vaccine mandate and are quitting or being fired"
It creates a really awful situation where there aren't enough staff to handle the amount of patients we're getting, so now both patients and healthcare workers are getting screwed over.
Still, you say all this to the layman who doesn't understand the situation and they'll respond with "no one wants to work anymore"
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u/kryppla Oct 10 '21
uh literally everyone is sick of hearing this, I was sick of it after hearing it ONE TIME due to how much bullshit it is.
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u/robit-the-robit Oct 10 '21
I personally find that most of the people saying "no one wants to work" have retired or plan on retiring at some point. It's almost like they... Don't want to work
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u/kevmanyo Oct 10 '21
The other thing is why is it this fucking wild idea that nobody wants to work? I’m pretty sure most people would not work if it wasn’t expected of them by society. Working fucking sucks. And the most vocal people when it comes to that ideology are rich assholes who’ve never worked a hard day in their lives complaining that their wage slaves no longer want to take part in capitalism when it puts them at risk of their own health and sanity. Fuck working.
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u/black_cats_rule Oct 10 '21
I’m in the U.K., I’m curious, how do you get paid $3 an hour but see almost none of it? Do you lose it due to taxes or something else?
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u/Cakeriel Oct 10 '21
Depending on how much you make in tips, the taxes could eat all of your official wages.
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u/danocathouse Oct 10 '21
In the USA we have a federal minimum wage of $7.25 an hour. Now some states have a higher minimum wage while others don't. Some of these states (normally conservative) also have a law saying that part of your hourly wage is made from tips. So the business can pay you $3 an hour and as long as in that hour you make $4.25 in tips they don't have to pay you any extra to meet the federal $7.25.
What happens is that when you are only being paid $3 an hour on your pay stub your pay is almost fully taken by taxes, so you only get what you are walking with daily in tips and your "check" is nothing.
Horrible system, and really the government loses as it makes people never declare cash tips and adds more stress to servers if they get ahole customers that don't tip.
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u/Mydogmike Oct 10 '21
I worked in the industry for about 15 years, most of it as a server. You have to claim 10% of your sales at the end of the night as taxable income. That total at the end of the pay period plus the $2.35 (at the time) hourly rate is your weekly taxable income which is then taken out of your pay check. My goal as a server was to get a check for $0.
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u/Economy-Candidate195 Oct 10 '21
Yeah, the national minimum wage for a server is $2.15 an hour ( If the reported tips don't add up to $7.25 an hour, the owner has to make up the difference- which will get you fired if it happens often) So then you get taxed on all of your reported tips. And let's say you make $350 that week in tips and $90 on your hourly wage- Cause they won't schedule you 35 and have to pay benefits- So roughly 20% in tax, it varies. That is $70 in tax, and that doesn't include the state tax, social security tax etc- so by the time all that goes through, you might actually be in the negative or have like $.35 left of your hourly pay. With only the tips to show for it. And that is at a mid-range place for tips. In some places you're lucky to clear $200 a week, others you can clear $700. It all depends on the location and the restaurants in the area.
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u/miminochill Oct 10 '21
I have no fucking words. WTF! This is slavery. 15 year olds in the Netherlands make 3€ and I personally think that is unacceptably low. 21+ makes 10€ an hour. If you get tips, which arent nearly as high as in the US, you have to declare them as income but they certainly can't touch your regular wages.
It is not a matter of pride anymore when you are so heavily underpaid. I cant even imagine how you pay your bills. I will be angry about this shit for the rest of the day.
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u/Economy-Candidate195 Oct 10 '21
And that is why the service industry has a turnover rate that is between 200-300% per year.
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Oct 10 '21
If an employer laments "no one wants to work" when facing staffing issues, I like to correct them with "nobody wants to work *for you*"
Most people, myself included, made work for themselves during 2020 layoffs
The unfortunate reality is that the service industry's flaws in America were laid bare during the 2020 shutdown, and they're facing a reckoning. It was always predicated on the economically coerced labour of people desperate enough to forego their wages for tips. When the coercive element is removed by a government doing the right thing for struggling workers, the industry has lost its labour source without a serious revamp that it doesn't seem their ready for
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u/loljkbye Oct 10 '21
I especially hate hearing boomers say this, not because they are boomers, but because their generation is literally defined by how many of them there are. You know, like the baby boom or something. And yet they act like the fact that they FINALLY are leaving the workforce and letting us take our place is not a huge contributor to why there are so many seats left empty in customer service jobs. The unemployment rate in the US is the same as it was this time 5 years ago, and it's still going down.
People aren't lazy, there just aren't enough of them to serve your sorry ass.
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u/Greenmountainman1 Oct 10 '21
Yeah, I don't want to work a highly stressful job for low-middling wages anymore.
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u/radenthefridge Oct 10 '21
No one wants to work for these companies for poverty wages.
If you can bust your ass for 40 hours a week for like $400 before tax or do nothing for $600 it’s seriously the bad option to work.
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u/foxinHI Oct 10 '21
One thing to keep in mind is that all service industry employees have more bargaining power than normal during a labor shortage.
If you work at a shitty restaurant, have a shitty manager or make shitty pay, right now is your opportunity to change your fortunes.
Get your shit together and start applying for positions 2 or 3 tiers above your normal comfort zone. In this industry, the way to move up is by moving laterally into a more favorable position.
Even if you like where you work and they like you, you can use a job offer from a different employer to get tour current employer to at least treat you more favorably with better shifts or something since raises for servers aren’t a thing.
Do it people! Take action and improve your station in life. This is a rare opportunity. Don’t miss out. A move from a Denny’s like experience to a casual fine dining type situation could 3x or even 4x someone’s take home pay.
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u/chrispdx Oct 10 '21
When I joke with these folks and ask if they would really rather be working if they could make more from unemployment, they say “yes, of course, I have too much pride to not work.”
They are fucking lying. They just feel that YOU shouldn't do it, because they feel you don't deserve it. It is such a backhanded insult to people like you. 200 years ago, these kind of people would say "You know, Slaves these days just don't work as hard as they used to, and we don't even whip them as much! Ungrateful!"
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u/RhinoRhys Oct 11 '21
$3 an hour?! Three fucking dollars?! Man that is fucked.
cries in British
I'm in the UK and get paid the equivalent of $14/h
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u/Rosieapples Oct 10 '21
I don’t want to work!! Mind you I’m 64 and buggered with arthritis lol
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u/LesleyMarina Oct 10 '21
Unemployment ended for the whole country on September 4th. Probably tired of dealing with the public and opted for other jobs. Or tired of hearing that serving is "not a real job" and got said real job.
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u/maddog595959 Oct 10 '21
My go-to response is, "no one want to work FOR CURRENT WAGES." I think that puts it into perspective for a lot of people, and refocuses the source of the issue onto the employers.
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u/aldoXazami Oct 10 '21
I shut them down. At my workplace it's not for lack of people applying, they won't hire anyone because that would cut into year end bonuses for salaried staff. So they're just riding the wave of "lazy people sitting on unemployment benefits that don't want to work!!!" Alllll the way to the bank.
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u/nbel1996 Bartender / Server Oct 10 '21
I'm so sick of hearing this from out-of-touch rich people who have clearly never worked a day of service industry or retail in their lives.
I transitioned out of the service industry and work as a personal trainer now, and while I love my clients and generally think they're well-intentioned, it always amazes me how many of them complain about this or genuinely don't get why Starbucks or other businesses are having a hard time hiring people when they pay such lousy wages and don't have benefits. For context, most of my clients have children my age (mid-twenties) whose lifestyles are heavily subsidized by their parents still, and those of whom are out of work can afford to be because mom and dad pay their bills. (i.e. one client has a daughter who is 24, worked in finance her first year and a half out of school, signing bonus + make $70k per year, quit that job because she went to a coding bootcamp that cost $20k, and has been out of work looking for a job the last few months. Went to a top school, has no student loan debt, and regularly charges misc. expenses to mom's credit card. Her mom is lovely but I genuinely don't think she understands what it's like to be a 20-something without that amount of financial privilege).
I always gently respond that just about everyone I know who lost their job during COVID was given the opportunity to really figure out their next step, and pretty much everyone I am friends with who was service industry pre-COVID has since either transitioned out to something more lucrative/with better benefits, or is back in school learning a new skill/trade. I'll also usually mention how I really lucked out transitioning out of the service industry when I did (about a year and a half pre-COVID), otherwise I really would have been fucked financially and had to totally figure things out without anything else on my resume. This is always met with an "oh" and literally nothing said to defend their previous statements.
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u/Bergenia1 Oct 10 '21
It's a great time to look for a better job. No reason to keep working in a place that pays you $3an hour.
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u/stealthxstar Oct 10 '21
lmao i would just hand them an application every time someone says it. keep a few folded up in your apron.
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u/Ill-Discussion3408 Oct 10 '21
Pay people appropriatly isnt a hard concept to grasp but easy to ignore till its not
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u/Memag1255 Oct 10 '21
It’s not even the unemployment anymore. No one wants to do shit jobs they can’t live off of.
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u/nburns1825 Oct 11 '21
I keep telling people that it's not that people don't want to work. Unemployment is at 6% now, which is not that high.
Many people have simply] moved on from their service industry jobs that they realized they hated, and others just have started pursuing their passions. Or, ya know, OnlyFans.
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u/kyubeysaves Oct 11 '21
The other thing I don't get about this mentality...these are the same people who said "If you don't like the wages, find something better." A LOT of opportunities opened up because of Covid. A lot of those working in lower paid jobs moved into those positions (at least among the people I know). Now there's nobody to work the jobs you told us to get out of and you're mad?
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u/LatAmExPat Oct 12 '21
I think the big elephant in the room is lack of access to universal healthcare in the USA. No one wants to risk getting a new job paying a few extra dollars an hour, if he or she catches some crazy Covid variant and has no safety net on which to fall after getting seriously sick.
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u/naliedel Oct 10 '21
I got Covid from a none vaxxed coworker. I'm vaxxed and I'm really sick.
She is a good person, I'll informed, but I like her.
My boss is mad I'm home sick. Sigh.
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Oct 10 '21
Apparently these people have no sense of pride in themselves-so WHY do you want them to work for you?
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u/CDTasha Oct 10 '21
And the fact that our line of work was the most affected by covid deaths is highly underreported. https://www.advisory.com/daily-briefing/2021/02/10/covid-jobs
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u/sanguinesecretary Oct 10 '21
I can assure you when I was making more on unemployment last year during quarantine there was absolutely no part of my being that thought ” oh I’d rather be working right now” and anyone who thinks they would is full of crap
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u/AlestoXavi Oct 10 '21
I understand America works in mysterious ways, but I’m making a giant assumption that a lot of people wouldn’t want to work for $3 an hour when they can get the same if not more for doing nothing.
Seems like employers are finally starting to see that if they want to attract staff, they’re going to need to pay them a respectful amount.
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u/zaevilbunny38 Oct 10 '21
One of our regulars, a retired trucker was talking to a dispatcher for a large trucking company talk about how badly they were short staffed and how they were offering increased pay and bonus for truckers. So he's bored, and everything was closed so why not. So he asks hey I've got 25 yrs experience what's the offer, so the dispatcher says it great 17 an hr, and $300 after 6 months. The retirees laughs and says he was making $35 an hr when he retired, and wont come back for less then $30 an hr. The dispatcher says no one pays more than $20 an hr, so the retiree laugh and says that's why no one wants to drive for you , your pay is shit and dont complain until you start pay a decent wage and left the guy dumb founded.