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Who's "they"? I'm not the owner of this business. I'm just a manager. I have no control over payroll. My staff will be paid more when I launch my own business. All I know is that I only make slightly more than what our delivery drivers make, and I live comfortably. Unlike the folks at McDonald's who think they're worth $15/hr. to screw up orders I don't tend to think what we do is rocket science.
Go pound your anti-1% rant somewhere else. I'm in a demographic that's being priced out of the East End, but if me leaving Polish Hill means one more unit can be turned into a showplace, and one more historic gem can be saved from the wrecking ball, then so be it. Sometimes you need to step aside for a healthier city. Nobody is "owed" anything.
THIS isn't my job ad.
I've had people on City-Data impersonate UPMC employees to get me fired from a previous job; impersonate a leasing agent from my prior apartment community to try to derail my relationship with my landlady when I first moved here; threaten my family; etc. Apparently I'm very intelligent or sexy or something, and a lot of people on here are mentally ill and enjoy stalking/harassing me. I'm not spoon-feeding anything else as long as there's so many trolls on here. I won't even meet anyone from here outside the forum anymore for fear of not knowing what may or may not be used against me somehow.
So my solution is to be the only one working at this business since I work hard at a job that everyone else hates in order to provide a comfortable living for me and my roommate? If I'm making it work, then so can others. It's just easier in this country to be unemployed for two years and blame Obama/Bush/Corbett instead of taking a job that's "beneath" you to nobly and honorably pay your bills. My dad worked at a gas station and a grocery store stock clerk when he was laid off from a high-level position with IBM when they moved from Scranton to India. My mom also worked two jobs at the time to support us, and my sister and I also helped out. Whatever happened to anyone "bootstrapping" anything anymore? We've become a nation of lazy entitled pigs asking for handouts.
Sorry, but I think you're really bad at math. If my drivers do three orders per hour in the busier season (which we've just entered), then that's $9/hr. + tips, which average $5/order (up to $24/hr. when combined). That's not bad. Rarely do you just do one order per hour unless it's summer, when we're dead. Smart cookies (such as moi) will bank money in the Fall, Winter, and Spring to tide us over through the lean Summer months, though.
P.S. You people need to stop with assuming I'm the owner of this business. I'm not. I'm just the personnel manager. I have no control over wages/benefits/salary. I've been delegated this duty, and this has been the most difficult time I've ever had securing new talent. Then again our unemployment rate in Pittsburgh is also just ~5.0%---one of the best in the country right now.
My math is fine. Perhaps since you are doing deliveries for multiple eateries you rarely, if ever, have a slack period. We most definitely could go an entire hour or even two without a single delivery either mid day after lunch or late at night before closing. That being the case, an IC is sitting around and not getting paid a penny while he waits for a delivery to come up.
I needed additional information with the hope that I could pinpoint the problem you are having with finding employees. Unfortunately you don't seem interested in analyzing the specifics and only complain that people are lazy and don't want to work. I strongly suspect there is much more to it than that and either you don't know why people are quitting or not applying for the job openings.
I never said anything about meeting you face to face either. Asking for some basic information about the business would have helped me to determine the problem.
7.) Why everyone who works 40 hours per week should earn enough to live like a baller.
8.) Why independent contracting positions are the devil.
9.) Why I'm too stupid to not realize working at PNC for higher stress and less pay wasn't a better idea.
10.) Why I'm an evil Republican capitalist pig for not wanting to throw more money at people to NOT work.
11.) Why I'm not paying my employees more (when I don't own the business).
12.) Delivery drones will make this position obsolete domestically in about a generation or two.
13.) Why people on other message boards make fun of me.
I conducted an interview this afternoon. It went well. The candidate was extended an offer and will notify me tomorrow if he should happen to choose to accept it. I look forward to welcoming him on board if he does choose to accept it. He's in the military, and it makes me very proud to have someone who valiantly served us considering us as an employer. I've posted an ad on CraigsList. I've posted an ad on NextDoor. I've had a status update advertising the positions shared and re-shared on Facebook. I'm going to consider ReddIt, thanks to one of the only helpful responses thus far in this thread.
Well, I was trying to help. It is far from clear why you have employees leaving other than saying they claim it is a stressful job. And it is far from clear why you get so few applicants that want to work at this job.
When I was a manager in fast food and retail I went through the same problems at times. Instead of whining about it I sat down and figured out why people would quit and then also not apply for a job. The problem was solved within six months.
This is why I needed real details about the job, company and work environment. Until you are willing to provide more details I doubt you will be able to get the information you need.
"In Search of Excellence" by Tom Peters and Robert Waterman
I had the above recommended to me by a VP with Paine Webber in Hartford prior to my start as a retail manager. Excellent book. Within four months of starting as an Assistant Manager at a Strawberries Records, Tapes and CD store the company offered me my own store. This book helped me become a better manager. Eventually I moved on to Domino's Pizza and had one of the best stores in the country. Seriously.
"A Passion for Excellence" by Nancy Austin and Tom Peters. Follow up to the above.
"How to Win Friends and Influence People" by Dale Carnegie.
My main rant is that I've seen dozens and dozens of people come and go from this business just since I took this promotion early last year. It's starting to take its toll on me emotionally because now I'm at the point where I wonder "what's the point?" when I'm training new hires, thinking they'll just stop showing up for work two weeks later without notice, saying they "can't handle the stress". What stress? I work at this position because it's easy---very easy---and it's decent (not great) money.
The problem is you haven't identified your ideal candidate. You're probably looking for higher caliber people, and those people quit because they have other employment options. You need to find people who are truly downtrodden and trying to get back on their feet. You need someone who needs this job to literally put food on the table.
WILW, do you think drivers are more flaky than the average retail/food service individual? My experience says yes and that delivery is generally a revolving door. The longest term people I remember were the ones who flunked out of college and were treading water trying to decide what to do next; they were usually high in their free time. They could stay on for a couple years. The waiters I worked with could be there for months or years.
WILW, do you think drivers are more flaky than the average retail/food service individual? My experience says yes and that delivery is generally a revolving door. The longest term people I remember were the ones who flunked out of college and were treading water trying to decide what to do next; they were usually high in their free time. They could stay on for a couple years. The waiters I worked with could be there for months or years.
As far as food delivery I've worked with a variety of people from different socio economic backgrounds. I don't think it is as simple or even fair to call people that work in food delivery as flaky.
Some examples:
The store I managed for Domino's in Cromwell, CT was comprised mostly of high school and college students looking for some spending money. Some used their parents car but a couple owned their own vehicles. Half the staff were students. The other half were a variety. Had two while collar office workers that would go out and make $100 a night on Friday and Saturday night to supplement their income. Had another guy that was a factory manager that worked two or three nights a week making some extra money. We had one guy that was full time and drove our company Isuzu Pup for 40 to 45 hours a week. He was in his 40's and had no real ambition to do anything but delivery work. Had another guy that was in his early 20's that also worked full time and mostly used his own car but would also use the Pup if the other guy was not working.
When I managed at stores in the Minneapolis-St. Paul area I saw a similar breakdown along those socio economic lines. Roughly the same kind of people with the same kind of background. Mostly students but yes, also office workers and a few people that called Pizza delivery a career.
Personally I think people that work in the food industry in general are a bit quirky. I've been in it on and off since I was a kid and still like it. I would rather be around a few quirky people that are a bit off beat than a bunch of robots.
Turnover is usually high. Though after I took over the store in Cromwell, CT from the owner who was wise enough to see I knew what I was doing, we got the turnover to abate. The vast majority of the workers stayed on once they saw what was going on and their wages started to improve simply because the quality of the product and service improved. I actually got a couple of delivery drivers a wage increase and also got our indoor pizza makers and phone girls a wage hike as well after a year. Rare for this kind of work.
Once upon a time there was a city who had a labor dispute due to terrible working conditions. Pinkerton agents were brought in to break up said dispute. A violent battle ensued and 9 people had died because people wanted to stand up for better working conditions. When the Pinkerton agents were captured they were not embraced by open arms by the people in the city. No one said, "good job Pinkertons, those lowly steel workers need to get more bootstrappy!" Instead the people brutally beat the Pinkertons in public.
If only I could remember the name of the city in this story.
Once upon a time there was a city who had a labor dispute due to terrible working conditions. Pinkerton agents were brought in to break up said dispute. A violent battle ensued and 9 people had died because people wanted to stand up for better working conditions. When the Pinkerton agents were captured they were not embraced by open arms by the people in the city. No one said, "good job Pinkertons, those lowly steel workers need to get more bootstrappy!" Instead the people brutally beat the Pinkertons in public.
If only I could remember the name of the city in this story.
Right at the entrance to Polish Hill, there's a marker commemorating the Railroad Strike of 1877 where the state militia fired on strikers killing twenty of them:
Quote:
Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania became the site of the worst violence. Thomas Alexander Scott of the Pennsylvania Railroad, often considered one of the first robber barons, suggested that the strikers should be given "a rifle diet for a few days and see how they like that kind of bread." However, local law enforcement officers refused to fire on the strikers. Several militia units did turn out, including the 3rd Pennsylvania Infantry Regiment under the command of Colonel George R. Snowden.[5]
Scott's suggestion came to pass on July 21, when militiamen bayoneted and fired on rock-throwing strikers, killing twenty people and wounding twenty-nine.[6] Rather than quell the uprising however, this action merely infuriated the strikers who then forced the militiamen to take refuge in a railroad roundhouse, and then set fires that razed 39 buildings and destroyed 104 locomotives and 1,245 freight and passenger cars. On July 22, the militiamen mounted an assault on the strikers, shooting their way out of the roundhouse and killing 20 more people on their way out of the city. After over a month of constant rioting and bloodshed, President Rutherford B. Hayes sent in federal troops to end the strikes.
Those men gave up their lives so that we could have jobs with safe working conditions, shorter work weeks and living wages but now we're giving all that up without so much as a whimper.
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