And the wait staff that's still around is terrible. They have zero motivation to work for a better tip. I went out to lunch with my daughter yesterday and the waitress dropped off our food and never came back. We had to request the check. I've gotten this kind of service over and over in the past few months. It's bad enough to stop going out.
Nearly everyone I’ve met in the service and hospitality industry - on their job - has been there for like 2 weeks
It’s been like this all year
I’ve gotten used to noticing
No brand or experience is able to keep their refined allure because the workers have not had time to practice it
Very interesting reality
I’ve mostly resigned to tolerating it by just assuming that the remaining people actually working really were desperate for either greater cash flow or were mandated by a court/parole officer or missing human interaction, making their greetings and smiles that much more contrived and illusory with most of these assumptions. But its fine, I am hoping that a reduction in other options reverts a large population back into what they know.
> just assuming that the remaining people actually working really were desperate for either greater cash flow or were mandated by a court/parole officer or missing human interaction
Pre-Covid, finding work was insanely difficult for people w/o a job history or w/ even the most minimal of criminal records. The dining sector was a tiny bit better.
As in: Pick a spot on a map here - of the closest 100 biz, maybe one (or maybe zero) would hire someone w/o a job history. Much of that is due to hiring portals which overwhelmingly auto-discard all of these applicants.
Hopefully the employee shortage will pressure businesses to walk back some of these poorly considered hiring practices.
ref: I've a son who spent years trying to get his first job (w/ state cook certs & clean record). He first wasted a great deal of time on endless hiring portals (food and non) that never, ever, ever responded. He then visited businesses in person, working his way further out. He was eventually hired by a buffet - miles away & the closest biz to even consider him. They were also the vanishingly rare biz that hired folks with any criminal record at all - a service that communities sorely need.
He continued applying for jobs and 1 month later he was picked up by a worldwide ALF. They're a good employer and he still cooks for them.
In Canada, this is pretty normal. We don't request the check, we pay at the till on our way out. You get used to it, and learn to enjoy the peace & quiet. I'd rather pay a 20% increased base price and abolish tipping, personally.
Yeah, the transition period is sure to be awkward. Lots of places these take orders at the till, and if you need anything more, you walk back up to the till. I prefer not to be waited on hand & foot, personally. But many restaurants haven't fully adopted this model, so they and their customers are going to experience some friction until a new normal settles in.
The business model is spreading, I've encountered it in a few American cities. One reason for its popularity is that it takes a lot less skill and training. You're seeing unskilled servers as a problem, and it sounds like the restaurant didn't capture your full order. That's friction that will eventually drive a change, and business owners will take note of alternative approaches in their industry.
The alternative appears to be paying staff a living wage so they'll stick around long enough to gain the skill you find lacking. My money is on cheaper, lower skilled, commodity jobs.
We have cafeteria style restaurants like this. It's not going to spread to most American restaurants because we do like being waited on. Even crappy mid level restaurants like Applebee's and Chili's pretend to be classy. But it sure seems like the bottom has fallen out of the labor pool for these jobs, which have always had terrible pay.
I think one reason we're seeing this change isn't necessarily even about the money°. Teens and young adults are far less interested in acting nice and chipper when they're not feeling it, even for the money. That attitude was visibly increasing in the 90s, and today's kids are being raised by increasingly disaffected parents. Add the ubiquitous distraction of smartphones, and folks (even the waitresses who've been around since non-smokers were relegated to a section) just don't seem have the capacity for attentiveness that they used to. You might like getting waited on, but as supply drops, you might find yourself paying steep premiums and still be disappointed.
° though, income for these jobs seriously lags inflation which is why tips have gone from 10% pre-tax to 25% post-tax in my lifetime
I remember during the peak of the dot-com bubble around 2000 service in Bay Area restaurants got noticeably worse because so many of the wait staff found higher paying jobs in the tech industry. Then when the bubble popped they all got laid off and suddenly service was good again.
(I'm not blaming the workers here. Nothing wrong with pursuing better opportunities.)
There's a lot going on with restaurants in the US, and unfortunately the end result is going to be even more small businesses closing while the McDonalds and Applebees persevere and contniue to spread like the plague.
I don't see a way out of it either. Raise wages? Small businesses have to raise their (already elevated because they can't compete with Chipotle on scale) prices to compensate, people will look elsewhere. Eliminate tipping? Still have to raise prices, which leads to customers leaving.
Starting a restaurant is just plain fucked in the US.
The commercial real estate market is a major factor. Most new restaurants lease space. If they become popular and have to renew the lease after a few years the landlord will typically raise the rent enough to capture most of the profit.
Larger chains have more flexibility in that they can often take on longer term leases, purchase real estate outright, or move locations without losing customers. McDonald's in particular takes an extremely savvy approach to real estate portfolio management.
Starting to think that the guys on Twitter saying "everything is a housing issue" sort of have it right. I didn't know that even in major industries, real-estate had become one of the dominant expenses and a major threat to the viability of businesses.
21 comments
[ 3.0 ms ] story [ 61.8 ms ] threadIt’s been like this all year
I’ve gotten used to noticing
No brand or experience is able to keep their refined allure because the workers have not had time to practice it
Very interesting reality
I’ve mostly resigned to tolerating it by just assuming that the remaining people actually working really were desperate for either greater cash flow or were mandated by a court/parole officer or missing human interaction, making their greetings and smiles that much more contrived and illusory with most of these assumptions. But its fine, I am hoping that a reduction in other options reverts a large population back into what they know.
Pre-Covid, finding work was insanely difficult for people w/o a job history or w/ even the most minimal of criminal records. The dining sector was a tiny bit better.
As in: Pick a spot on a map here - of the closest 100 biz, maybe one (or maybe zero) would hire someone w/o a job history. Much of that is due to hiring portals which overwhelmingly auto-discard all of these applicants.
Hopefully the employee shortage will pressure businesses to walk back some of these poorly considered hiring practices.
ref: I've a son who spent years trying to get his first job (w/ state cook certs & clean record). He first wasted a great deal of time on endless hiring portals (food and non) that never, ever, ever responded. He then visited businesses in person, working his way further out. He was eventually hired by a buffet - miles away & the closest biz to even consider him. They were also the vanishingly rare biz that hired folks with any criminal record at all - a service that communities sorely need.
He continued applying for jobs and 1 month later he was picked up by a worldwide ALF. They're a good employer and he still cooks for them.
The alternative appears to be paying staff a living wage so they'll stick around long enough to gain the skill you find lacking. My money is on cheaper, lower skilled, commodity jobs.
° though, income for these jobs seriously lags inflation which is why tips have gone from 10% pre-tax to 25% post-tax in my lifetime
(I'm not blaming the workers here. Nothing wrong with pursuing better opportunities.)
I don't see a way out of it either. Raise wages? Small businesses have to raise their (already elevated because they can't compete with Chipotle on scale) prices to compensate, people will look elsewhere. Eliminate tipping? Still have to raise prices, which leads to customers leaving.
Starting a restaurant is just plain fucked in the US.
Larger chains have more flexibility in that they can often take on longer term leases, purchase real estate outright, or move locations without losing customers. McDonald's in particular takes an extremely savvy approach to real estate portfolio management.