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I swear this happened to me recently. I gave the cashier $10.47 for a $8.47 order and s/he (couldn't tell their gender) said that they can't process the transaction and called their manager who also seemed confused.
Quote:
Originally Posted by jackalope48
Once went to an Economist lecture where he explained his "iced tea test" to confirm his data. He'd land, rent a car at the airport and drive to a fast food place and order an iced tea. Typically a dollar and change cost. He'd pull up to the window and hand them three ones and like 47 cents in mixed change. He'd time how long it took them to figure it out. The longer it took the better the economy. He said the very best economies were where after five minutes the manager opened the window and handed him both the tea and all his money because no one could figure it out.
My first job was in 2002 working at an event planner company during the recession. We literally had out-of-work engineers and college grads working for $10/hour doing pretty simple tasks. Unemployment was probably around 6% at the time and skilled workers were seeking jobs *below their potential out of need for a paycheck. Fast-forward to 2006 where unemployment was under 4% and business owners struggled to find workers to fill positions. After the Credit Crash, many people found sanctuary in the gig-economy. College educated folks were working odd-jobs here and there to make ends meet until the economy improved.
Well the economy has improved and now employers (including the gig-economy) are struggling to fill positions again with record-low unemployment. Not to be too judgey, but I'm sure we all think of a handful of recent-hires as under-qualified, lack a good work ethic, or are "unemployable." Now we're seeing it in the gig-economy too where we might have hit rock-bottom. There are cases of Uber Eats drivers consuming their customer's food before delivery, ride-share drivers doing horrible things, and now this petsitter inviting relatives/getting naked/and probably having sex all over the client's home:
*I typically hate the idea of being "over-qualified" because too many workers think they are better than their job...which inherently proves them wrong in most cases.
I swear this happened to me recently. I gave the cashier $10.47 for a $8.47 order and s/he (couldn't tell their gender) said that they can't process the transaction and called their manager who also seemed confused.
I was forced to work a crap job as an engineer for a min, I did stuff like this on purpose to see peoples reaction. I eventually gave them their change but I let it drag on longer than was funny to them, but it was hilarious to me. I could do the whole stupid look on my face and call the manager on my phone if he was not there, they thought it was funny too, it's not like the managers were making 6 figures either, no one cared. It was a McJob so I did not care about getting fired.
We did all kinds of stuff like this, I would make people wait in line if I was having a good discussion on linear algebra with some mathematician clients.
One of my touchstones for very low employment is complete morons, walking zombies, in customer service positions. I remember it well in low-unemployment times past. Very frustrating.
Have not seen it this round. I suppose bottom-end CS and gig jobs will start showing some strain, sooner or later.
Even in high unemployment, a mcjob is a mcjob, no one really cares. The manager thinking he is some kind of 5 star general will make threats and the mcworker should just say ok get that other guy I will go sit on the park bench or fly to san deigo and be homeless.
How much leverage exactly do you think you have over people in sub $20/hr jobs? Now if you are paying someone 200k a year, yea they will jump through their own a hole to keep that job and your leverage will be tremendous but thats not what we are talking about.
Where I work it's not only a background check, but also drug screenings. In a society where drugs are becoming increasing legal to use, it's becoming more difficult to find qualified employees that have clean records and are not using some type of recreational drug. It's not good enough not being high when reporting to work, you must have no detectable drugs in your system, also you must not consume alcohol one week out of every four when your on-call.
Even in high unemployment, a mcjob is a mcjob, no one really cares.
Not true, and I read this as the attitude of someone who thinks they're just too too good and successful to ever work behind a counter somewhere.
There's quite a range between people who just do the job, without any particular enthusiasm or dedication past quitting time, and those who are literally too stupid, mentally compromised or emotionally stunted to even do the job to some minimum standard. I don't expect the guy behind the counter at Arby's to be just thrilled to pieces to be there and be serving me - although I had exactly that yesterday - but I do expect them to handle the basic flow of take my order, get it correct and get it to me with a reasonable amount of civility. And the vast majority of fast food workers do. If you expect the schmoozing and obsequy of a waiter in a white linen restaurant, you're in completely the wrong place.
But if you put up with someone too stupid, rude and inept to get you a bag of burgers... Normally I'd say you're in a 3% unemployment zone. But that simply isn't the case this round.
Not true, and I read this as the attitude of someone who thinks they're just too too good and successful to ever work behind a counter somewhere.
There's quite a range between people who just do the job, without any particular enthusiasm or dedication past quitting time, and those who are literally too stupid, mentally compromised or emotionally stunted to even do the job to some minimum standard. I don't expect the guy behind the counter at Arby's to be just thrilled to pieces to be there and be serving me - although I had exactly that yesterday - but I do expect them to handle the basic flow of take my order, get it correct and get it to me with a reasonable amount of civility. And the vast majority of fast food workers do. If you expect the schmoozing and obsequy of a waiter in a white linen restaurant, you're in completely the wrong place.
But if you put up with someone too stupid, rude and inept to get you a bag of burgers... Normally I'd say you're in a 3% unemployment zone. But that simply isn't the case this round.
It is an attitude of self-respect, I am too good to serve someone who thinks he is entitled to a cheap burger at 10 at night. These people make minimum wage and I personally don't think these jobs should exist or if they do exist they should be paid well and you should eat the cost, don't like it, cook your own food.
So who really is the entitled one, the one who refuses to work a McJob or the one who is too lazy to cook his own food?
I think the unintelligent ones are the ones working these jobs and giving customers civility. This is minimum or near minimum wage, you should be thrilled these places even exist and lucky some dummy is willing to waste their time at 10pm to put up with you. Being able to roll up to a drive through and get food is unprecedented in human history ... so who exactly is entitled?
Where I work it's not only a background check, but also drug screenings. In a society where drugs are becoming increasing legal to use, it's becoming more difficult to find qualified employees that have clean records and are not using some type of recreational drug. It's not good enough not being high when reporting to work, you must have no detectable drugs in your system, also you must not consume alcohol one week out of every four when your on-call.
So if you can't smoke weed or drink and have to have a clean record plus skills are these like 80k + a year jobs? Or if you are in one of the high-cost pockets add 100k.
I think the USA is suffering from mass delusion or mental illness, maybe its something in the water? To expect skilled clean people to work for peanuts and then become indignant when they don't is extreme mental illness and delusion.
A lot of fast food/fast casual customers are straight up rude aholes too. Generally the Panera's and such will have a higher caliber customer that talks down/snobbish to the cashier, and the lower end fast food places like McD's have the opposite clientele that are rough around the edges and don't speak English well (ie comes off as very unrefined).
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