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Restaurant workers quit at record rate

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Re: Restaurant workers quit at record rate

#331

Post by ipaddr »

stevejb wrote: post #319
yepthatsreality wrote: post #4

The restaurant industry has known the solution for a long time but everyone wants to pretend it would be too difficult. Stop the tipping guilt trip placed on the public, raise your prices 20%, and pay your employees a livable wage. The public will still show up to eat in your restaurant.

Guilt trip? I have never felt this ever. I pay a tip proportional to the service. 10% bad, 15% average, 20-25% for very good. As an American living in Australia, I really do miss tipping. I think that on average the restaurant service here is a lot lower. At most restaurants at the medium level (e.g. $25 hamburgers) you pay in advance, and then a waiter will bring the food to you when its ready. Do you need more wate…

25 dollar hamburgers? That sounds so strange.

Re: Restaurant workers quit at record rate

#332

Post by _moof »

WhompingWindows wrote: post #93

I go to a breakfast shop a lot, they lost around 1/2 of their staff permanently due to COVID, It majorly jostled the restaurant sector around here. I asked the owner, "Well, why'd they leave?". He claims "They're getting more on unemployment than if they worked." Well, why is that the case? Don't you provide them with enough to live on? If they're getting $500 a week from unemployment, that would mean you're paying p…

Indeed - and if people are quitting at record rates, that potentially exposes the image of willfully unemployed restaurant workers lazing about on piles of unemployment cash as a myth.

Re: Restaurant workers quit at record rate

#333

Post by sigstoat »

himinlomax wrote: post #241
moate wrote: post #115

Good. Here's my story from the industry I was a part of for a better part of a decade: One time while I was a line cook, I was cleaning a meat slicer and sliced 3/4ths of the way through the tip of my thumb (just the meaty part at the end, not bone or anything). I realized I had 2 options: Leave work, go to the ER, miss my shift/pay, and incur a bunch of medical debt I could barely afford OR; leave work, go to the CV…

This is the most incredible thing about the US. Employers should be responsible for workplace safety and pay for it.

his employer surely had workers comp insurance, and big signs about it in the breakroom, which are required by law.

Re: Restaurant workers quit at record rate

#334

Post by bluGill »

yupper32 wrote: post #321
throwawayboise wrote: post #253

Earlier quoted context omitted.

McDonald's and similar jobs used to be an entry level job for teens and college students. When I was 16 I was happy to work there for minimum wage ($3.35/hr at the time). Nobody other than the mangers did it to support a family. It was never understood to be that kind of job. I don't know how we got to the point where a no-skills-required job that anyone with a pulse can learn to do in a few hours suddenly became req…

> McDonald's and similar jobs used to be an entry level job for teens and college students. When I was 16 I was happy to work there for minimum wage And who worked the day shift?

Spouses who needed to get out of the house while their other half was at work. They loved going to work with the same friends every day, chatting while cleaning up after the lunch shift... There was enough work to not be bored.

There are a lot of people who like having a job, but don't really need the money. Those that need the money move up to management if they can.

Re: Restaurant workers quit at record rate

#335

Post by mortehu »

cratermoon wrote: post #289
throwawayboise wrote: post #253

Earlier quoted context omitted.

McDonald's and similar jobs used to be an entry level job for teens and college students. When I was 16 I was happy to work there for minimum wage ($3.35/hr at the time). Nobody other than the mangers did it to support a family. It was never understood to be that kind of job. I don't know how we got to the point where a no-skills-required job that anyone with a pulse can learn to do in a few hours suddenly became req…

> Nobody other than the mangers did it to support a family. It was never understood to be that kind of job Wrong. "From the beginning, the minimum wage was meant to be a living wage—meaning families could live off of the pay comfortably, rather than struggling paycheck-to-paycheck" https://www.lendio.com/blog/minimum-wage-livable/

The linked article doesn't really substantiate that claim, and even so it doesn't actually contradict GP's claim about the McDonald's job.

Re: Restaurant workers quit at record rate

#336

Post by abawany »

pphysch wrote: post #22
yepthatsreality wrote: post #4

The restaurant industry has known the solution for a long time but everyone wants to pretend it would be too difficult. Stop the tipping guilt trip placed on the public, raise your prices 20%, and pay your employees a livable wage. The public will still show up to eat in your restaurant.

I don't think higher wages alone will do it. Profit sharing, on the other hand...

Blackstar Co-Op in Austin (https://blackstar.coop/) is a great example imo. The service is great and the missing begging bowl is a great relief. Hopefully there are more examples.

Re: Restaurant workers quit at record rate

#337

Post by acomjean »

vishnugupta wrote: post #63
sethammons wrote: post #11

> rude customers, whose abuses restaurant staff are often forced to tolerate Service workers in general, I'd love it if more managers and companies would support front line workers in refusing service. The customer is not always right. People should not have to put up with literal abuse. The Alamo Drafthouse theater is famously known for kicking someone out who was using their cell phone and other customers appreciat…

This . "Customer is king" mentality should die. Far too often it leads to disgruntled frontline workers and customers walking around as if they are doing a business favour just by being their customer. Even something seemingly as simple as "smiling" is tiring if done all day. In a business transaction all parties are equal. No one is doing anyone else a favour. I quite liked it when I saw signboards in Singapore that…

I saw someone try to return 5 subs and get them replaced with 5 wraps.

The store worker "If we made the mistake, we'd fix them, but your wife watched us make these and didn't say anything" words were exchanged and the customer left, leaving sandwiches behind without a refund.

Not knowing they're were dealing with one of the brothers that owned that sandwich shops led that customer to think they could bully the employee.

Employee owned shops are the way to go. They really care but don't have to put up with crap.

Re: Restaurant workers quit at record rate

#338

Post by oliv__ »

"Food service jobs have been 'plagued with low wages for an extraordinary long period of time'"

Plagued? Isn't that just how supply and demand work, ms "economist"?

The only reason workers are quitting at record rates is because a new business opened up in town with unlimited resources handing out free dollar bills.

Re: Restaurant workers quit at record rate

#339

Post by bluGill »

lrdswrk00 wrote: post #190
falcolas wrote: post #132

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Skilled work is not the antonym of hard work. You can work hard doing skilled work. Knowledge work does look different from physical work, but you can work hard at both; you need to work hard at either to be successful. As for why hard physical work is so valued - only a century or two past, it was the only practical method to prevent the starvation for yourself and your family. Knowledge work being a viable means of…

I worked in a restaurant through high school and have been coding professionally for 20 years. After a certain point, programming becomes less hard. It becomes a set of very familiar syntax snippets to copy/paste around. Rushing around a kitchen in the heat, and often toxic, juvenile environment all week never changes… versus programming in your house? Give me a break. You’re not coming close to putting the same real…

There are different hards. I've worked construction: you come home at night tired, but your brain is awake and ready to think (which is why so many veg on the couch - it keeps the brain busy and body resting). In software the hard jobs leave your brain tired, but your body is ready to go - this is a hard place to be in as your brain can't figure out how to get the needed exercise your body wants.

Programming can be copy/paste, but the hard days when you have to figure out how to eliminate some mutex across some threads so the whole performs without a race condition - that will always be hard.

Re: Restaurant workers quit at record rate

#340

Post by oliv__ »

oramit wrote: post #135
ericbarrett wrote: post #73

Wages/insurance/tips are an ongoing concern of food service work, but I want to set that aside and talk about the other half of the article. Customer entitlement is out of control and anybody who works with the general public will tell you it’s gotten even worse since the pandemic—and it wasn’t trending in the right direction before. Flight attendants, park rangers, government clerks, the anecdotes are everywhere, in…

I think there has been a general rise in selfish behavior now that pandemic restrictions are being lifted. You have people who never took the pandemic seriously and now that things are back open, but are not the same, they are lashing out. That's one part of this. I also think you have another camp, which I'll admit to being a member of. I did everything I was supposed to do. I stayed at home, used masks everywhere,…

As I write that I know intellectually how self-centered, selfish, and delusion it is but I feel it intensely.

Almost as if there was some kind of flaw in the initial premise...

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