Yesterday’s big news that 3% of workers quit their jobs in August, mainly in retail and food, has inspired all sorts of speculation about the ongoing “great resignation”. As a full service blogger, I provide far more than empty speculation — I have anecdata!
This sign is from a men’s room toilet in a Cenex in Western Minnesota, but it could have been from any small business on the two lane highways I traveled in Western Michigan, Wisconsin, Minnesota and South Dakota. Help wanted signs were everywhere. I wish I had taken a picture of one in the convenience store in Michigan that promised a wage under $10/hr with a promised $0.50 raise after working there a few months. Another memorable one was on a farm in the middle of nowhere in Eastern South Dakota: “Manual Labor – $15 – 20 Hour”. I’m sure that farmer was going to pay for transportation from anywhere populated to his place for that wage.
What’s the mystery here about folks quitting shit jobs like these during a pandemic? The closeness and ubiquity of debilitating illness and death brings clarity about precious time, and these quitters don’t want to waste it on a job that provides no benefits, no security, and slight, if any, enjoyment.
To employers, I say: welcome to the wild world, brother, sometimes it’s gonna rain on you. Sometimes applicants don’t want to take a drug test for a part-time shit job where they could be maimed or killed because they ask a Trumper to put on a mask. Perhaps your desire to never have a full-time employee, and never pay benefits, with your 35 hour a week jobs that occupy all the hours a parent can spend with their child, clashes with a potential employee’s desire to have their kid remember their name and smile when they walk into the room.
So, if you work HR at a billion dollar corporation that pays so poorly that your employees are all on Medicaid, and those employees have almost nothing left over after they pay for daycare, maybe you should take the advice of one of your motivational posters and walk in your employees’ shoes for a few days.
MisterForkbeard
Back in May or so, there were studies that suggested up to 35% of employees might resign in the next 6 months.
That hasn’t happened, though more people have left than normal. I work for a Big Tech company with 100k+ employees, and our employee losses are up pretty significantly in the last 6 months to the point where VPs regularly talk about it in team and company meetings.
I have a few people who’ve left my team and they were reasonably happy in their jobs – paid well, could work from home, good job security, reasonable hours. But they’re leaving because they feel like the pandemic has opened their eyes to what’s possible in the job world, as well as encouraging them to take some risks that aren’t related to catching a terrible virus. A new job or career is less of a jump when you know that people are dying – it’s a less significant problem. So they’re encouraged to move into jobs they’d like to do more.
ETA: It’s got to be even worse for retail and shitty jobs than people that work in good jobs, and we’re seeing it even in the good jobs.
Cameron
https://youtu.be/EzGoDtmTllg
oldster
Look, the problem lies with the lack of incentives. Why are people going to get off their fat asses if they aren’t in danger of starving?
This is why we need to tax every millionaire and billionaire until they have no more wealth than the median American. Maybe if the Walmart heirs and heiresses have to do a day’s work for a day’s pay, they will finally enjoy the rewarding experience of working the register at a truck-stop.
JaneE
Has anyone done a study on the distribution of employers/businesses who are having trouble finding people? I don’t see a shortage of workers at Costco. The restaurants with help wanted signs in the windows are the same ones that had signs in the window before Covid-19, at least around here. We even have the same landscaper crews that we have had for years, probably one-man or family businesses.
I can easily believe that 35% of workers in some types of business might quit, but I think it is high for all workers. The grandkids are still doing the same jobs for the same companies they did before. Actually, the granddaughter did so well working from home during the lock downs that she got a promotion. Of course, she liked her job, before, during, and with any luck she will like the new one too.
MisterForkbeard
@oldster: The sad thing is that I see a lot of this reasoning. And it’s not true – we even have recent great evidence to show it’s not true.
Lots of Republican states ended their covid assistance early and… surprise, their employment rates didn’t get any better. I see a lot of people digging in and saying that we need to lower minimum wage even MORE or get rid of other government assistance to drive people back to the job market.
Instead of understanding that maybe the assistance isn’t the problem – the jobs are. People don’t want stressful, shit-paying jobs that expose them to Covid.
Suzanne
I don’t know why it’s so hard for so many people to understand incentives. If you want someone to do something for you, like work, you have to incentivize them to do it. If no one’s doing it, you’re not offering enough incentives. I don’t know why this seems to be a mystery. Then you have people saying that they can’t afford to raise prices because then customers will stop coming. Well, yeah, that’s a possibility. Or, you know, you could compete on a different axis than price. Or your business could fail. But the survival of your business is not a critical issue for governance.
If you cannot find someone to do the job you want done, it is because you are not paying enough to incentivize someone to do the job, and that is really the bottom line. I don’t care if you’re offering the “market rate”, or “competitive wages” or that you’ll have to raise prices or cut the boss’s pay to make things pencil out.
Hkedi [Kang T. Q.]
Digby has an interesting take on part of this problem today: https://www.salon.com/2021/10/13/the-economic-cost-of-tantrums-customers-are-chasing-workers-out-of-their-jobs/
Doug R
From November 2020:
Walmart and McDonald’s have the most workers on food stamps and Medicaid, new study shows
Betty Cracker
The “great resignation” is the most positive labor market influence for workers I’ve ever seen. It’s a shame it took a pandemic for people to push back on the bullshit they’ve had to swallow for decades.
New Deal democrat
Okay, you’re talking economic statistics here, which is in my wheelhouse.
The statistic you are discussing is called “voluntary quits.” Over the 20 year history in which they have been measured, these quits go up as the economy gets better, and down when it gets worse.
It isn’t just an absolute decision, as in “this job sucks!” But a weighing of alternatives, as in “how much is another job that I might get (or just staying home) going to suck compared with this one?”
The record number of quits in August suggests to me that (1) customer-facing job suckitude has increased as employees have to deal with rude MAGAts, and (2) everyone knows that just about every employer out there is hiring, so if I quit this sucky job, there is a real good chance that I will be able to land a less sucky job shortly.
Jesse
As a born & raised Minnesotan — west central MN — I wonder: was this Morris? There’s a Cenex there.
PS I always appreciate your writing about the Dakotas.
Kay
We all got used to cheap and available labor and we never thought that would change, and I do mean “all” got used to it. There was a seemingly endless supply of people who would work for next to nothing and we were all getting waited on by them.
We just hired a part time person and it took months to find her. She’s retired from a county job (with a pension) but her husband is younger than she is, still working, and she was bored at home all day. I feel lucky to get her- she’s really experienced. We had to meet her needs on hours/days and it was pretty funny in the second interview because she knew it and I knew it- she was getting what she asked for. She has all the leverage, which is fine- it’s competitive to get and keep employees now. That’s just the reality and employers whining about it doesn’t help. A massive, desperate cheap labor force isn’t guaranteed in the constitution. It’s a different market now, better for employees, worse for employers. I think it’s about time that was the case. Employers had it easy for decades. It’s the employees turn to be selective.
The Moar You Know
As a veteran of the retail/customer service industry, just let me thank the good Lord that I haven’t had to do that absolute shitshow of a job for 18 years now. It was horrible; I mean soul-crushingly horrible back then. Far worse these days from what I understand.
People truly enjoy abusing retail workers. Not the employers (although them too) but the customers. There is a mammoth streak of sadism in our society that’s never discussed, and it should be. Particularly the abuse inflicted by women to service workers. They’re far more likely to be viciously mean than most men. Not sure what that’s about, although I have some ideas.
The idea that now it’s the sort of job you’re most likely to die from…well, I’d rather be homeless, filthy and starving. Truly. I’m seeing fast food places here in Cali starting people at $20/hour and you know what? NOT NEARLY ENOUGH. Not for that.
Charluckles
We have a shortage of substitute teachers in my kids district. Bad enough it is affecting instruction. The pool of subs was burned badly when the pandemic first hit.
It’s generally a great district, but their bold plan to lure back a pool of substitute teachers is…to pay them the exact same daily rate they did the year before the pandemic started.
Four Seasons Total Landscaping mistermix
@Jesse:
Litchfield, so probably more like Central Minnesota. As I recall, the bathroom was clean. I have another post to make about that Cenex, stay tuned.
Kay
You really can go overboard on the “customer is always right” too. You really don’t have to put up with abusive or threatening people in your place. Catering to the lowest common denominator is not a solid business plan. You can have and enforce standards. That’s permitted.
I wonder if there really is an uptick in belligerents though. I was at my long term family practice office the other day and they have a new sign by the payment window that lists behaviors that will get you tossed.
MagdaInBlack
I love Big Head Todd. Thank you for the “Resignation Superman” reference
Dee Lurker
I live in North Dakota, and the level of whinge about jobs is at the level of Metal Machine Music. The pandemic is revealing problems in the last 40 years of supply side ideology, but it is only increasing the level of noise and ignorance. This is the invisible hand of the free market in the shape of a fist. Suck it up.
Villago Delenda Est
The labor market is a cruel mistress. Employers are finding this out, finally. Suffer, you greedy parasites. Suffer.
cain
@Kay:
I suspect that some employers might decide that hiring immigrants not on valid visas or any visas would be an attractive alternative. But that only works for some labor markets.
cain
Y’alls when are we going to see some of these people get dragged to court? I’m trying to figure out what the politics are to bring some of the Trump administration folks to show up if they are refusing to? Is there some kind of deliberation and planning they need to do or has it always been voluntary all these years?
OzarkHillbilly
HA! I love that shit. If you aren’t getting applicants for your shitty job, the market is saying you aren’t offering competitive rates.
I remember hearing a radio spot years ago with a guy saying that if he couldn’t hire illegal immigrants to work at his seafood processing plant, he’d have to go out of business. My first thought was, “Than you should.”
Kay
Six people! You have to admire it. Talk about David and Goliath.
So does the huge company put more towards employee satisfaction, invest in creating a better workplace? No. They hire and pay a whole seperate group of people to harangue the employees:
Villago Delenda Est
@Kay: These idiots WANT tumbrel rides.
geg6
I work for a major research university and staff have been leaving in a steady stream for the last six months. I don’t quite understand why because we make pretty decent money, we have great benefits, we are allowed (for the most part) to do our jobs flexibly (can work remotely or hybrid or in person, depending on the position and supervisor) and the working conditions are very good. I think for a lot of them, especially those who aren’t retiring but are quitting, they are re-thinking what work means to them and how they want to live the rest of their lives. But I can’t explain the majority of these resignations. And I can’t even explain how difficult it has been to hire people to replace them. When I served on search committees previous to COVID, we would have well over a hundred qualified applicants for every position, regardless for which campus we were doing the search. Now, we are lucky to get 20+. I don’t understand it at all.
Ksmiami
@Kay: omg Kay, I was mulling over some voting rights solutions last night and I was thinking some enterprising Marc Elias types should go after the new restrictions under ADA compliance statutes. All of the new voting restrictions actively harm seniors and disabled persons and it may be a helpful dimension to the voting rights battle. I’d be curious what your take is.
Anonymous At Work
Worth pointing out that this is the most leverage that the average employee has had since the late 90s when a blind ex-convict could get a job as a night watchman. Employers are not used to being on the wrong end of leveraged labor negotiations and it is showing. Masters of the Universe and Economists-Supreme, they are not…and it shows.
Miss Bianca
@Charluckles: Well, at least our district is raising pay for substitutes – they just did it at the school board meeting last night. But no mask mandate, no vaccine mandate for staff…so they can keep begging and begging, far as I’m concerned. This former long-term sub ain’t biting.
I’m heading out east for a spell this fall. May look into employment opportunities out there. My great-niece’s district in suburban DC has a mask mandate. Wonder if they’re looking for subs…
Soprano2
Yep. There’s no mystery what’s going on in my neck of the woods – the county’s unemployment rate is 2.9%. In business school I was taught that unemployment never gets that low! When this is the job market, employers are going to have trouble hiring people, period. Many people in MAGA land still think it’s all about lazy people sitting on their butts, and that when they all get done selling all the stuff they bought with government money they’ll have to get a job. They won’t budge off this idea, any more than some liberals will budge off the idea that it’s all about wages even though employers are raising them! This morning in a meeting our supervisor said our department and streets have 25 vacancies between us, and there are around 10-12 people on the list they hire from. City jobs are usually seen as good jobs, but we have a wage scale that can’t be altered the way a private business can, so we’re probably going to have problems hiring for the foreseeable future. The kind of labor market disruption Covid caused will have long-term ramifications, and not all of them will be good.
Capri
In addition to the pandemic, the labor shortage may be due to years of drastically shrinking the immigrant pool. The American success story is often immigrant parents take crap jobs because that’s all they can get. But they have access to a decent public school and university system. Their sons and daughters become doctors, lawyers, and other upper middle class professions. The most recent arrivals to the country typically have the worst jobs.
My accountant daughter just quit her job at one of the “Big 3” firms. Their business model is to hire tons of new grads, pay them peanuts while working monster hours, and then watch most of them quit within 2 years. That model isn’t sustainable now and they are hurting. What did it for my daughter is that during the pandemic they worked 100% out of office, which suited my daughter as her job was 2 hours away from her husband’s. When they went back to having to come into the office she left for a 100% out of office position – which is standard in tech. industries.
Barbara
@New Deal democrat: Yes, yes, yes. Although I do think there is another phenomenon, harder to measure, in that more potential employees are less willing to work at the outer margins to get that last potential marginal dollar. I think we saw that phenomenon in New Hampshire, where we went for a week this summer. Many businesses that used to be open every day in the summer were just maintaining their winter schedule of weekend only hours. Moreover, it’s expensive to live in New Hampshire, where a high percentage of real estate is given to second homes and vacation rentals for greater Boston. So the calculus of sleeping on your friend’s floor to earn a few more bucks during the summer serving tourists in the White Mountains seems to have changed dramatically this year in favor of not bothering, or just working extra shifts at Costco or wherever else you already are working.
Likewise, a small retail/gas outlet we often stop at in semi-rural Virginia is now closed altogether on Sundays. We asked the owner and he said that he just couldn’t find anyone who would reliably work on Sundays, and he didn’t want to work 7 days a week (who can blame him).
I don’t see this as the end of the world, but it’s obvious that there are many people who resent having to make adjustments.
Ksmiami
@Villago Delenda Est: anyone in “bizness” who can’t deign to pay a decent wage without going under has a hobby, not a business.
laura
If workers for this brief moment in time have the luxury to say no to eating shit on the job for shit pay – I say good on ’em.
I’m also glad that so many workers are currently withholding their labor in strikes accross the country be it miners or cereal or nurses, engineers and bio-meds at Kaiser. In case you’re wondering, bio meds are a speciality of engineers who calibrate anaesthesia machines to a standard so that the anaesthetist can safely put you under and bring you out of conscience during and after surgery
It’s a damn shame that these strikes are not getting media coverage, but I’ll leave that angle to the well qualified Villago Delenda Est.
Suzanne
@OzarkHillbilly:
Exactly right. Like, “competitive” against what? The other employers down the street who also can’t find people?! That’s not who you’re competing with. You’re “competing” with potential employees for their time. Their lack of interest in your employment is telling you that you are losing the competition.
Baud
I have a feeling a new set of New Deal-type labor laws would help both businesses and workers. I also have a feeling businesses won’t see it that way. Nor am I the least bit certain that workers will see it that way either.
Benw
Is Cats in the Cradle a more selectively misunderstood song than Born in the USA?
Soprano2
I have never understood this, truly. I guess people like to punch down. I have never wanted to abuse a service worker. I did jobs like that for a few years when I was in high school and college. I think everyone should have to have a job where they work with the public for at least 6 months or a year. I think people would get a lot nicer.
Suzanne
@Barbara:
This encapsulates a lot of our politics.
Baud
@Benw:
The winner may go to “Every Breadth You Take,” when played at weddings especially.
Barbara
@Ksmiami: It’s not a hobby for them — they are making money at it. It’s that they have been able to avoid grappling with the hardship their low-wage employees face. It’s the irony, of course, that people who are aware of every last penny when it comes to running their business are shocked to find that their employees are willing to leave them for what seem like relatively small difference in pay. They seem to think that only the “employer class” are permitted to maximize their profits.
Baud
@Suzanne: It really does, and not necessarily just on the right.
Soprano2
Yep. All of my employees have been told that they don’t have to put up with abusive behavior from the customers. We have barred a few people for things like trying to show the female servers dick pics. I won’t have that in my place, period. Take that crap somewhere else. Same way with rude behavior.
Soprano2
@Villago Delenda Est: It’s really not that simple. What am I supposed to do when unemployment is 2.9%?
brendancalling
@Charluckles:
I’m a substitute teacher in Super-liberal Progressive Bernieland Burlington VT, and the dissatisfaction among my colleagues is palpable.
Maybe that’s because for the past 4-5 years, the city and district knew the high school—Title I, meaning a lot of poor kids—was not only falling apart, but irredeemably contaminated with PCBs and chose to kick the can down the road until the pandemic hit.
Now the kids go to school in an abandoned Macy’s, where the walls don’t even reach the ceilings. Meanwhile luxury apartments are being built next door, during a housing crisis that’s made it unaffordable for people like me (and my colleagues) to live here.
I’m not even sure if I’m going to last the whole school year, and not because of the kids. Working people are tired of getting treated like shit. There are burger places offering more money than we pay our paraeducators, and I am not exaggerating.
And if that’s Liberal Wonderland, I can only imagine how it is in Alabama.
Old School
@Benw:
How is Cats in the Cradle misunderstood? Do some people think it is telling them to work more?
AWOL
@Benw: No. Leonard Cohen’s raunchy and bitter “Hallelujah” is.
narya
@Kay: And the thing is, you’re likely going to get someone who’s worth every penny you’re paying/every hours/days arrangement you made!
@Villago Delenda Est: Yup.
Here’s the thing: I am happy to pay more for something/some service so that the folks providing it are making a living wage. Because then THEY can afford to pay more, too. Poverty is expensive, both for the people who experience and the society that countenances it. A shit job, for shit wages, doesn’t address that.
Fair Economist
@Miss Bianca:
Have you said as much at the school meetings? I think some potential workers saying that could really change the conversation.
Soprano2
@geg6: But don’t you get it, all of this is about wages. /s/s/s/s/s/s I wish people could understand that this situation is a lot more complicated than they think. Covid has upended a lot of things, and how they’re going to shake out is unpredictable.
theturtlemoves
Ok, the headline quote is Big Head Todd and then later in the text you quoted from Dinner With Ivan, which is possibly my favorite BHTM song? Nice. Seen them live 6 times now and this made my morning.
Four Seasons Total Landscaping mistermix
@MagdaInBlack: You’re welcome, they’re a great band.
@theturtlemoves: Yep, we’re a full service BHTM-quoting blog here at Balloon-Juice.
Matt McIrvin
Right-wingers are claiming it’s all because of vaccine mandates, even though this was going on before most places had vaccine mandates. I think a lot of it is because people don’t want to be exposed to the virus all day long.
Benw
@Old School: I know a bunch of people think of Cats in the Cradle as a lovely ditty about a dad and his kid, and the lyric “my boy was just like me” is triumphant rather than sad…
@AWOL: Hallelujah is also high on the list of songs people are very confused about!
Soprano2
You should hear the complaints from customers about us being closed on Sunday. Our manager tells them that if we weren’t closed on Sunday everyone would be so overworked that they would quit, and then we’d be closed for good, is that what they want. I’ve told them that if they could find me several reliable employees we’d be open on Sunday again, but all of them who hire are also having trouble finding people.
OzarkHillbilly
@The Moar You Know:
@Soprano2:
Funny, I started out working in restaurants and never really thought about it. I’m not sure it’s true, as it has been way too long for me to say, but the truly memorable shit customers were all women. That may well say more about 16-18 yo me than them, but eventually I got so sick of taking shitty treatment from customers I refused to work out on the floor.
gvg
I think another aspect of it is demographics. For decades various economic arguments (usually cut SS) have pointed out that when the baby boomers aged into retiring, there would not be enough younger workers to support the older ones. What they usually failed to mention (at least to me) is that there also won’t be enough workers to support certain business models. I think Covid just happened to happen at this time and increase the obvious point. I suspect that the real clue was about 10 years ago when I started to hear about the fight for 15 and such. Stay at home orders gave people time to think, but I think it was coming anyway. In fact, for this to last, there has to be more than Covid behind it.
One business model I think needs to be cut back is most businesses being open late and ordinary ones having late shifts or being 24 hours. Some things like urgent care are worth paying extra for at all hours, but frankly Walmart doesn’t need all stores to be 24 hours and many could cut back a lot. The not being able to see your kids is a big problem.
Businesses will need to figure out ways to not need as many workers, as well as pay them more and treat them well with benefits.
Matt McIrvin
@Benw: In the case of “Hallelujah” there are actually alternate sets of lyrics people use, including some overtly Christian ones with all the sexuality and darkness removed.
NorthLeft12
Up here in Canada we are not in the same position as you, but there are some industries/services and regions that are struggling to find people.
I believe a much under appreciated factor is the unwillingness of businesses to train workers. They are used to hiring people with the exact qualifications and experience that they want, and are loathe to hire inexperienced people.
MisterForkbeard
@Fair Economist: My experience with the school boards in Red areas is that they’re really don’t care what the teachers think. Or rather, whatever is on Fox and what the local neanderthals are screaming about is the order of the day regardless of merit or opposing opinion.
So glad my kid are at a responsible school in a blue area.
OzarkHillbilly
@Baud: Nobody likes to change, especially if they are forced to. Pity my wife as I curse at all the things tech has made “better.”
Soprano2
Those people are idiots who have never actually listened to the lyrics of the song. I mean seriously, the meaning of the song is obvious. It described a lot of how my father was, which was normal for the time I was raised.
Mathieu
Love the Big Head Todd reference. Haven’t though of them for awhile.
theturtlemoves
@Four Seasons Total Landscaping mistermix: As a fellow Dakotan, you’ll appreciate that I was introduced to them by a climbing instructor at a Boy Scout camp I worked at in the Black Hills while I was in college. And I first saw them live at the Gateway Computers Christmas party, back when Gateway still existed in North Sioux City and was still throwing lavish holiday parties.
Barbara
@Soprano2: Of course, people who feel threatened might not take a job no matter how well it pays. It’s a category error to think that every kind of dissatisfaction can be corrected by just paying a bit or even a lot more per hour. Refusing to stand up for civility in your place of business might result in you being unable to hire or retain employees. You might feel hemmed in because your customers have come to expect that beating up employees is part of what they count as the “product” that you are selling. The owner might not have done this consciously, but I used to wait tables and the shit I was expected to swallow from male customers was appalling even before the age of social media and dick pics and digital stalking. It didn’t help that many of the “owners” thought it was funny and would have done it themselves, and sometimes did pull the same stunts.
Benw
@Matt McIrvin: that’s crazy!
Baud
@OzarkHillbilly: Yeah. Unfortunately, that’s not an attitude that is helpful to the political party that is more interested in systemic reforms.
Fair Economist
@Barbara:
This provides a relatively easy way to adjust to a shortage of workers. As people who have traveled know, in Germany pretty much every shop closes by 5 or 6 and has very limited weekend hours. It’s mildly inconvenient buying things sometimes but people work it out and it converts a lot of working time to free time, which the Germans consider well worth the occasional hassle of rushing to the store before it closes.
Fewer hours mean people need higher wages, but that’s doable as the shops do just as much business in the fewer hours they’re open, so they can afford it. Overall, it’s a nicer way to run a country, and maybe we’ll see some of it soon.
narya
@OzarkHillbilly: It’s also possible that experience differs depending on the apparent sex of the worker. Male customers harass female workers in those jobs, in ways that male workers wouldn’t experience.
Soprano2
@gvg: Well, we have been closing at 11 p.m. every night except Friday and Saturday since Covid happened, and I don’t see us going back to being open later even when things are back to “normal”. People have adjusted to those hours, and I don’t think the employees want to work another 2 hours for just a few customers.
Benw
@Soprano2:
Same as the people who play Born in the USA at campaign rallies. Not geniuses.
Rotating tag nominee!
Frank Wilhoit
@NorthLeft12: The unwillingness is universally familiar. The reasons for it are not widely known. The main reason is an accounting rule. Training is an operational expense.
Baud
I wonder if restaurants would benefit if the move to get rid of tipped wages and replace it with the European model gained steam.
Matt McIrvin
@Benw: Not so crazy–they like the tune, they like the repetition of “Hallelujah”, they just take the rest and modify it so it has the message they want. Evangelicals particularly do this kind of thing all the time.
Personally, the meter of the verses just makes me mix it up with “Being for the Benefit of Mr. Kite”…
Soprano2
@Fair Economist: IMHO it wouldn’t be a bad thing if some things adjusted hours. Our economy depends on women working, but it acts like everyone with children still has a wife who stays home with them.
Another Scott
Quits are one of the monthly data-series that CalculatedRiskBlog covers. More quits now is good – it shows that people are looking for better opportunities after being trapped in jobs for too long. It looks like Quits are roughly 55-60% of New Hires, and that ratio seems to be holding.
In other news, RollCall – Social Security checks going up 5.9%.
CalculatedRiskBlog:
“Democrats get you and your grands more money every month. Vote Blue.”
Cheers,
Scott.
catothedog
@New Deal democrat:
The thing that gives Republicans nightmares is why is this even “do-this-shitty-job or stay home”? instead of the holy truth of “do-this-shitty-job or starve” ? Republican Jesus gets upset when poor people have between submit to the rich or starving.
I don’t understand the underlying mechanics of the great resignation. Undoubtedly the pandemic has exposed to the public the banality of work-to-death-for-more-shitty-crap. I jokingly call this the “great awakening”. The millennial were the first to get awake, but the pandemic was like a great reset to people who were on the treadmill .
My guess is that the labor demand is originating at the higher income/better jobs. People in those better jobs who “woke up” are evaluating their life, and many who can afford to retire/downshift (age and young upper middle class), are choosing to retire/work less. This is driving a chain reaction of people moving up to fill the demand in better jobs, leaving the shittier jobs begging for workers
All my totally unfounded wild ass guess, but I hope it is so.
OzarkHillbilly
@Baud: True dat.
@narya: For certain. I remember “rescuing” a waitress or 3 from time to time by taking over their tables.
Soprano2
@Matt McIrvin: This is not a new concept, it’s centuries-old. Lots of sacred songs in early music used tunes that were familiar to people because the music came from secular songs. It was easier to do that than teach people new music. I believe the tune of “The Star-Spangled Banner” came from a common drinking song.
Ruckus
@oldster:
I used to know a fella who worked for a stock broker and one of his clients was a Walton. He did not enjoy that client. Money was by far the most important thing in the world to this person, and they had far more of it than most people. And it was never enough. And this person accomplish actual work? Surly you jest. This person had people for that.
Baud
@Soprano2:
The Star Spangled Banner isn’t a drinking song?
Kay
@narya:
She is good. I agree with the people saying it’s not just pay. If you’re a smaller employer you have to think about how you can compete to get employees. One of the ways is to treat them decently and respectfully, and insist clients or customers also meet some standards for behavior when they’re in the building. But it’s good we have to compete. I do think neccesity is the mother of invention. People don’t tend to do things until they have to.
I have a lot of sympathy for small owner-operated restaurants in the wake of covid. That was a fucking bear for them. I might have given up. I admired how they kept plugging. We have one here that is staying take out only. They have a brisk take out business now and they decided table service was not worth the effort. I personally do not think take out is the same. I don’t care about food as much as some people do and I realized I was going to restaurants because they’re nice (different) places to sit in – if I take it out I’m just sort of disappointed and deflated.
Sure Lurkalot
I had a boss in the 90’s who at salary review time would ask employees to itemize their living expenses. He was going to be the one to decide how much disposable income they would deserve and have. He had no concept that people worked to make their lives better, not stagnate.
Jeffro
If a majority of folks would vote for higher, and highly progressive, tax rates, all these workers would have health care and high quality early childcare and paid sick leave. Just like they do in much of the rest of the world.
Baud
@Sure Lurkalot:
Damn.
Nicole
IATSE, the union representing a lot of the technical side of filmmaking is threatening a strike over the new contracts, and it’s not about the money so much as it is the absolutely brutal hours that film crews work. Actors work long days, too, but the second they’re not needed they get to go back to their trailer and nap, while the crew doesn’t get to nap. And now some of the newer streaming services are trying to cut back on break times and rest periods for the crew because the film industry loves to tell people they’re lucky to be here; lots of people want their job! I think the pandemic, and the forced break from work made a lot of people realize they were in an abusive relationship with their job. Props to IATSE; those folk deserve to have a life that’s not on set.
BC in Illinois
@Benw:
@AWOL:
I thought “Hallelujah” was about the 2016 election.
mali muso
On the homefront, I have seen a bit of the great resignation up close. Hubby had been miserable in his job for a decade. Toxic environment, even if the pay was fine. He finally decided to jump ship even without another job lined up. We’re in a financial position to be ok on one income for a while, but it helps that the economy is favorable to job seekers right now so it didn’t feel quite as scary. We are in our mid forties and are definitely evaluating what we want out of our lives and careers. I have to think that we’re not the only ones.
scav
@Baud: Better, even better than that! I just learned this Anacreon poet is all the baudy verse.
Matt McIrvin
@Soprano2: It was the anthem of the Anacreontic Society, sort of a high-class drinking group for well-to-do amateur musicians in London.
Baud
@scav:
I must have been him in a former life.
Brachiator
Every job is a shit job, except mine.
There is a lot of cherry picking going on here, because no one really knows what is going on. Here in Southern California, I recently got an email saying that one of the bus lines I use might experience delays because of across the board labor shortages. This is the first time that I have ever seen anything like this. And a lot of these jobs are union jobs, presumably with good benefits.
I also see stories pointing out that some people managed to save significantly during the pandemic. So if they are currently working, maybe they can afford to quit and be picky about what jobs they want.
But there are also stories that older workers and women are having trouble finding jobs.
Suzanne
@Barbara:
Dissatisfaction can be resolved with incentives. A nicer workplace is an incentive. If business owners could climb out of their mindset, they might start to think about this more holistically.
What are things people want at work? Not just money and benefits, though that’s obviously the core of it. They want some degree of status, comfort, interesting work they’re good at, probably to not be fucking bored, probably to be treated well, to be safe, to have friends. If you can’t compete, as an owner, on price…. try competing on offering these other things.
Soprano2
Yep, I think a significant amount of professionals who were already close to retirement said “fuck it” when Covid upended everything and just retired. I think this especially applies to teachers. Every teacher I know says last year was the hardest year of their career.
misterpuff
This.
Your business model is either flawed or you are a greedy pig who is shifting too much of the cash flow to your pocket. To whine and say I can’t complete in this environment is to really rely on Govmint subsidies to keep your workforce afloat.
Hardly free enterprise and true capitalism.
Geminid
@Soprano2: You may be doing the customers a service by closing early.
Nicole
@Baud:
I think they would. As I mentioned in today’s Covid thread, we just returned from a trip (Iceland) and while we were warned ahead of time that eating out was expensive, I didn’t find the cost, overall, that different from eating out here, especially when I factored in the tip I’d be paying in the US (I generally do 20%). And everyone was just overall happier and nicer, at least in my perception. My husband waited tables for years when he lived in Dallas, and he said, while the tips were pretty good, he’d have preferred a set, living wage, because it would be easier to plan the rest of his day-to-day life, being confident in knowing how much he’d be earning each week.
Jeffro
I had not heard this particular bit of insanity before. MAGAts actually think people bought large lots of stuff (electronics? Beanie Babies? hemp seeds?) and are currently coasting along by eBay-ing it all?
Wow.
Could we at least get an estimated date from them for when MAGAworld thinks that the ‘free riders’ are going to sell their last ‘GoT DVD box set’ on eBay and go get jobs? And hold them to that date, to see if there’s a sudden, mad rush to take McJobs again?
Unreal.
misterpuff
This.
Your business model is either flawed or you are a greedy pig who is shifting too much of the cash flow to your pocket. To whine and say I can’t complete in this environment is to really rely on Govmint subsidies to keep your workforce afloat.
Hardly free enterprise and true capitalism.
Soprano2
@Kay: None of the Hardees here have reopened their dining rooms. I don’t know if that’s just this franchisee or if it’s company-wide. I think some fast food places have figured out that they’re doing enough business through their drive-thru, and leaving the dining room closed means they don’t have to try to hire more people. You’re right, too, eating out is about the experience as much as the food, and getting it take out isn’t the same. Food changes if it travels 15 minutes in a car.
Geminid
@Soprano2: Common! Why, this was the song of the Anacreon Club!
Jeffro
truth
There are so many aides and resource teachers and PE teachers pulled into ‘regular’ classroom teaching positions right now, it’s scary. We’re going to need a sustained, national rebuilding program and big, big $$$ if we ever want to get the PreK-12 system righted again. (Nursing too)
Percysowner
@gvg: The thing is, many of the businesses that people need to be open at night usually aren’t. The best doctor I ever went to was part of a practice that had hours until 9:00 and Saturdays until noon. I never had to miss work or use sick time for a physical or to get my kid looked at. This was a Family practice, so they took care of cradle to grave. They sent us to specialists if they had to, I did go to an OB to deliver my kiddo, but my regular doctor did Pap Smears and even had an X-ray machine in house before they sent me to someone else.
Anyway, well trained, highly compensated doctors want to have nights and weekends off, and I don’t blame them, but boy does the average person need someone who is willing to stagger working hours so that they can get to them after 4:00.
Another Scott
@geg6: I work for a research institution as well, and we’ve also seen a lot of people leave in the last year or two. In our case, I think a lot of it is people being tired of all the extra burdens in trying to do research in a lab these days. Ever increasing paperwork, ever decreasing numbers of support staff, ever increasing demands to bring in more money, ever increasing overhead (because people are leaving and expenses are being spread over fewer people), ever increasing mechanical plant problems because of lack of maintenance for decades. (E.g. old buildings that had no air conditioning in the DC summer for 6 weeks.)
COVID has made it worse, of course (backed up supply chains, reductions in people on-site, etc.).
People who are able to stick it out until their full retirements do so. Motivated youngsters with a few years under their belts look for new opportunities. People in the middle get disillusioned.
Lots and lots of chickens are coming home to roost now, and it’s going to take a lot of sustained investment to reverse it.
Every institution is different, but that’s what I’m seeing here.
:-(
Cheers,
Scott.
misterpuff
Lets also remember, part of these job market conditions are due to TFG and henchman Stephen Miller turning off the immigrant spigot, that use to water this economy (and lowered the floor for wages in the workforce).
You wanna keep those “dirty immigrants” out, you are going to end up with shortages in the farm, restaurant and hospitality labor markets.
“Real” Americans don’t want those jerbs, just to supervise them.
Just Chuck
@Kay: And if they do vote to unionize, then dollars to donuts corporate will just close the store. Walmart has done exactly that before.
Ruckus
@Suzanne:
When I owned my business that required specially trained employees, I found that paying well above “normal” wages got people that worked hard and seemed to like showing up. I belonged to an industry group that took a wage survey twice a year, in every state. My business was in CA so upper end wages, and I paid more than that, in a business where some people moved on if the coffee pot was empty. (Once had a guy who complained that the pot was empty and that I should make more. I asked him if he’d ever seen me drink coffee – no, he hadn’t. I told him, here’s the pot, the high end coffee and there’s the water. He quit. I made out his last check and bid him au revoir. Replaced him with a more skilled person in less than a day.) Some people are very much worth the effort and money, some are not. But when people make the business work, which is always, you pay what it takes to draw and keep them. If you don’t….
.
Doug R
@gvg:
Here in Canuckistan, we don’t have many 24 hour places except some drug stores in major cities.
But the large grocery stores open 7 or 8 and close 9,10 or 11 every day.
And that drug store chain does try to have a midnight or 10 pm store in each large town/small city.
Fair Economist
@catothedog:
Truth is we’re all throwing out educated-at-best guesses because there’s been no actual published data on this. I find it shocking that when the labor market is *this* tight nobody’s bothered to do surveys to find out what’s *actually* going on.
Unless, of course, some businesses *have* and are suppressing the results because they don’t like them (e.g. supporting the pro-labor positions).
Fair Economist
@Soprano2:
YMMV, obviously, but generally I’ve enjoyed takeout as much as eating in. Eating in has an ambience, at least at a decent place, but it’s nice when nobody has to wait except the person driving, and home has its comforts too. I acknowledge food doesn’t always travel well, but overwhelmingly what I order does. In some case the restaurants make special efforts when packaging, separating components that can’t be mixed too long, and that helps.
Benw
@Baud: good one!
Doug R
@Nicole: I’ve heard that wages are about 20% of costs. My math tells me you could DOUBLE wages, raise prices by about 20% and cut out tipping and it would be roughly the same end price.
Felanius Kootea
@geg6: COVID-19 clarified a lot of things for people in all kinds of jobs. My university had some people move back to their state of origin to be closer to family/help take care of loved ones who are ill (not sure whether it’s a long-COVID issue). We convinced one person to work remotely in California from his new Midwestern state because he is such an amazing person. It ended up working out for that person.
My husband and I have a friend who gave up a great job with a pension to move to Portugal permanently. She’s not Portuguese. The election of 45 and the US response to the pandemic convinced her that there are better places to live and she left the US with her extended family’s blessing (her parents have been active in Dem politics for years).
Kay
@Soprano2:
I had this ridiculous experience where my son in law wanted me to try this fancier place, but covid, so we had to take it out. He loves food and I don’t care as much but I’m completely on board with people who are passionate about it. I like that they decide where to go and what to order. I’ll eat anything. Part of the meal was “small batch” beer so I was juggling this big wobbly container of beer that seeped out all over my car and I just thought “omg, too hard” :)
narya
I’ll add my personal experience, too. I make decent money, I’ve been working from home since March 2020, I work for a non-profit so am on the side of Good rather than Evil, I have a great team and a decent boss . . . and I want to retire, not least because I am so fking bored. And I’m tired–just very very tired of all of it. I’m trying to figure out if I can do it in two years, and support myself until I’m eligible for full SS 18 months after that, w/o dipping too much into any other retirement dollars. I’d retire today if I could.
Miss Bianca
@Fair Economist: No, because I’m also the local government meetings reporter, so I don’t talk during school board meetings unless it’s to ask a clarifying question. I have thought about saying it privately to the superintendent and the principal.
Soprano2
I’ve heard this from more than one person at work when I ask them why we still have a terrible labor shortage even though the pandemic unemployment ended in June. They think all those lazy poor people bought huge TV’s, cars, and other “luxury goods” with the pandemic unemployment and stimulus checks (or it went to drugs and alcohol). There are currently billboards here that were put up by a few local businesses (for obvious reasons only one of them has even been willing to be identified) that say “Get Off Your Butt! Get.To.Work Apply Anywhere”. I don’t blame them for staying anonymous, who wants to work for an employer who has an attitude like that toward employees? Never mind that both Amazon and Costco opened warehouses here, Bass Pro raised their wages and are now trying to hire 350 more employees, unemployment is 2.9%, and so on. Nope, in their minds it’s still lazy people sitting on their butts refusing to work. Some people are never going to stop believing this.
Nicole
@Doug R:
And, extra benefit, no need to do any math after having had a cocktail or two! I swear to god, trying to calculate the tip when I’m tipsy can absolutely take the glow off my meal.
Baud
Wasn’t the end to federal unemployment supposed to cure all labor shortages?
Frank
I own a tiny ghost restaurant which is all takeout and delivery. We couldn’t handle amount of orders in the pandemic. Now that things are back to the new normal, only getting about 1/3 the business that we had during the pandemic and costs have gone up about 135% for food on the Average. Although wings about 325%.
Been sustaining by using my regular job but still missing payroll here n there. Opening 1 month before COVID hit has been a bear. Only thing that has been helping is that outdoor vendings at Music Fests and Specialty Fairs are making a difference. But COVID weirdness has hit here too. People are hurting financially in general, so less disposable income. About 1 in 3 events are successful, when it used to be 2 in 3. But that’s good enough to not be as stressed.
Employee wise I hire people who are on the fringes and overpay and treat decently and try to have as much flexibility as possible which adds to loyalty and stickiness but you can do so much. but hasn’t been sustainable for months. thats why i am getting out…
Getting out of this mess end of December hopefully not getting kicked out of my rented house. I guestimate it will take about 4-5 months to get bills caught up from the restaurant. my regular job pays well, will be glad to get out of this financial death spiral and have some stability.
Felanius Kootea
@Brachiator: Quite a few bus drivers died from COVID-19 in LA. That’s probably a factor.
Soprano2
@Nicole: I round up to the nearest $5, then think “20% of $10 is $2” and extrapolate from there. I always round the tip to an even amount – I would never try to calculate it exactly, too much of a PITA.
Ksmiami
@Barbara: but good employees and low turnover is always a net positive for a single business. I’d rather have three good, stable cooks than a parade of low wage and disgruntled ones. The issue is mbas started looking at labor as only expense, not as critical infrastructure for an organization and this thinking has permeated all corporate levels…
Simon Taverner
Oh, yes, that one is widely misunderstood, some might even say broadly!
Booger
Customers are shit and good customers are easier to find than good employees. BITD the company where I used to work voted on which customer to fire annually. It was cathartic and really helped morale.
New Deal democrat
@Matt McIrvin: “Right-wingers are claiming it’s all because of vaccine mandates, even though this was going on before most places had vaccine mandates.”
Correct. The JOLTS data released yesterday was for August (and I believe the survey period ended before August 15). Widespread vaccine mandates didn’t start until Pfizer’s vaccine got final approval on August 23rd. There’s simply no way vaccine mandates were a significant factor in this number.
Brachiator
@Felanius Kootea:
Nope. This transit agency has a surplus of bus drivers. And in general bus and rail ridership has not recovered to pre pandemic levels.
JML
Turnover at my uni is accelerating. We’re losing a lot of good people, often for lateral moves. We’ve had an enrollment decline and they’ve hacked down a lot of staff to cover the bill, with no lowering of expectations in service delivery. We have so many 1-person shops now with no backups it’s scary. Our hiring pools have gone from regularly being 20-30 qualified applicants to 5-6, with it being a struggle to find candidate that meet the preferred and not just the minimum (and in some cases, we can’t even get the minimums). They leave positions vacant for months and months without starting a search while some VP “thinks about what they want to do with a position” and then complain when people request extra duty pay for additional assignments.
So far the solutions I’m hearing involve such brilliance as: re-titling the HR Director position (vacant since March), telling us to lower qualifications for positions, and blaming the unions (it’s apparently our fault that they can’t offer competitive pay when they’ve been screwing us for 10 years straight on pay increases in the contract, unless we give up things like notice period)
Ksmiami
@AWOL: or “Democracy” for all the bitchin that goes on in every kitchen…
Brachiator
@Soprano2:
These fools simply refuse to look at and believe the actual data. The Federal Reserve banks are just one of the many entities that analyze this data and regularly report on it.
Also, many of these MAGA fools received stimulus checks. But somehow they are the exceptions who used the money wisely.
Nicole
@Soprano2: I do various math tricks, too, to try to make it easier, but as I am an extremely cheap date, two drinks can be enough to leave me worrying the rest of the evening if I did the math right.
It was easier, as an NYC’er, when standard tip was 15 percent, because I could just double the (8.75%) sales tax and feel okay. Now I got more steps to do!
Starfish
@Charluckles: This happened everywhere. A lot of the subs were retired teachers. No one else was going to do that for $100/day. Anyway, they doubled the pay on Fridays, the retired teachers don’t want to catch COVID from the little darlings, and the need for substitutes is higher than ever with people having to either isolate due to COVID or quarantine due to being COVID adjacent.
My child had a stomach bug for two days so he is out to get a COVID test before he can return to school. He can’t return until the test results come back
Another Scott
@cain: Relatedly? GovExec:
Maybe we’ll be seeing more FAAFO stories about unscrupulous employers soon.
Cheers,
Scott.
JustRuss
That makes a lot of sense. Combine that with The Former Guy’s anti-immigration policies and it makes sense we’re short of workers for the worst jobs.
Baud
@Another Scott:
?
Anotherlurker
@Nicole: I am a proud IATSE member . I work in TV Sports, rather than film, so a strike will not effect me. However, if this strike happens, it is a long time coming.
The abuses from the producers have resulted in death among crew members. The most common cause of which is falling asleep at the wheel due to 15 to 20 hour days with no adequate rest between calls. Other hazards are depression and failed relationships.
Streaming services like Amazon, HBO, Netflix were at one time brand new vehicles with uncertain futures. Now they are a proven source of revenue and profits. They benefited from what I call “low budget” contracts, which made concessions to the producers in the area of pay and benefits. Now, with HBO, Amazon, Netflix and others making bank , it is time to pay the people who actually do the work . Further, it is past time for health and safety issues associated with this industry to be addressed. Workers need respect. Workers need not fear falling asleep at the wheel because they are being driven too hard.
jonas
Pay and benefits are one thing, but I think a lot of people are just fed up working in toxic environments with shitty, incompetent managers and shitty, incompetent coworkers who create more work for everybody and never get called on it because, well, see nr. 1 about shitty management. If people thought “hey, the pay’s not great but I’ll get a good mentor who will show me how to advance, create a positive work environment, and keep the team moving, I can deal,” maybe we wouldn’t be in this mess.
I’ve also seen a lot of stories/anecdata about qualified professionals desperate for work being unable to find any, or even get interviews, for months on end despite applying to dozens of jobs that they appear well-suited for. It’s popular now to blame this automated HR screening services like Indeed that supposedly nix tons of qualifying applications because they don’t use some particular keyword or something, but I have no idea if that’s true.
Soprano2
IMHO this is one of the biggest reasons for the labor shortage. It’s hard to work when this is your reality, unless you’re the lucky person who has a job they can do from home, and even then it’s not easy to work at home when your kids are there too.
Another Scott
@Soprano2: Back in the early-mid ’80s when silicon electronics was exploding (cash registers were being replaced by computers, etc.), companies would recruit at universities, poach from other companies, set up new divisions in desirable places, offer lots of incentives for people to join their firms. They did what they had to do to get the people they needed to get the job done.
And engineers would change jobs every 3 years to rapidly increase their wages and move up the chain.
When labor has power, companies adjust.
Repost – DeLong at EquitableGrowth from 2015:
It can be done, because it has always worked that way.
(It seems clear to me that the NAIRU (the minimum inflation rate before inflation accelerates, if such a thing actually exists) is below 3% – probably closer to 2.5%. The Fed has been strangling the economy for decades over stupid inflation fears and people have suffered for it.)
Good luck.
Cheers,
Scott.
Brachiator
@Another Scott:
I don’t recall seeing a single story about the Trump administration ever, ever, ever prosecuting employers who used undocumented workers.
Previous administrations were also pretty lax about this, but Trump was just a pure racist hypocrite.
The language used by the Biden administration moves the goalposts. It is supposedly illegal to hire undocumented workers for most jobs. Apparently, the Biden administration doesn’t care about this. They just want to make sure that the employees are not exploited.
Ruckus
@geg6:
People are waking up to the value of their work. For the last several generations employers have set all the wages and working conditions and a lot of business found out they could screw their employees and make a higher profit margin. And people didn’t have the opportunity to find that out. Covid gave them that, the opportunity to find out. They found out.
Low Key Swagger
One other antiquated business approach may be the “manager as all things” approach. My daughter used to work for a Red Lobster franchise that was notorious for cutting shifts. The reason? The manager was bonused on labor costs (among other things, but this and food costs were the biggies) so he would cut staff and fill in himself. he would seat people, make drinks at the bar, jump on the line to cook an order, answer the phones, etc. This particular manager made very good money because his various percentages were quite low. But it the turnover had to offset those profits because hiring/training is expensive. Myopic to say the least.
Brachiator
@Another Scott:
I doubt that such a thing actually exists.
Treasury and the Fed have been much more relaxed about inflation than previous administrations. This upsets conservatives greatly, who are stuck on old ways of thinking.
Mai Naem mobile
@Kay: i think Dollar General is David Perdue’s old company. Hope the whole company unionizes.
taumaturgo
@Another Scott: Please send a copy to Pelosi and Schummer.
LeftCoastYankee
Childcare seems like a big issue in this conversation. Even with school age children, there’s the potential for longer unplanned absences with an outbreak or an infection. That will probably be the case until children can be safely vaccinated.
I imagine another factor is people having cut certain expenses related to working (childcare, travel/transportation, restaurant/fast food, replacement of clothes and electronics, etc.) during the pandemic. In order to restart paying for these expenses there needs to be some “seed money” to begin a new job.
There are so many reasons not to take a shitty job!
Mai Naem mobile
I have to believe part of this is just baby boomers retiring when they would normally have retired and older boomers who had made up for the financial setbacks of the Great Recession and could now afford to retire.
cain
@Another Scott:
I hope so. We should create general angry sentiments against employers who try to manipulate the market by exploiting undocumented workers so that they can get cheap labor.
This really should be something that unions should also get behind. Hell, they should start inducting undocumented workers into the union in order to fuck with these folks.
Ruckus
@narya:
I couldn’t retire till 3 months ago. After my 72nd birthday.
It’s not like I’m going to be taking trips and buying a new car but it is so refreshing not to have to get up to an alarm, go to work all day and come home to rest up and do it all over again tomorrow.
I wonder if some people are looking at some way to climb off that work not so merry go round? A way to maybe, possibly enjoy more than 2 or 3 weeks of planned vacation that saps as much out of you as actually working. A better life that isn’t as stressful, that is actually rewarding in some way other than a paycheck. When I went to NZ nearly 20 yrs ago we were warned that there is no tipping in restaurants but that people got paid properly. The service was good the food was good the staff in every place I went for the 3 weeks I was there was excellent. Better pay, better hours, less stress, what an amazing concept for work.
Ruckus
@Ksmiami:
You do understand that MBA stands for must be asshole, don’t you?
J R in WV
@Kay:
No issues at our Family Doc’s office so far. Receptionist “A” has been there for decades and doesn’t need any list to toss anyone who gives her a hard time!! Fortunately she knows me pretty well and used to date my cousin (yes, a small town!) so we get along great.
But the Vet clinic we use is now closed to human clients. When It’s time for a vet to see your pet, a Vet Tech comes to your car to fetch the patient. All communication with the Doc is via your cell phone. There’s a big sign in the window over the parking lot “Aggression will not be tolerated — and we are NOT Talking about the pets!”
But they want to work to treat the cats and dogs, and don’t want to be exposed to Covid, so New Rules. I’m OK with that, although it would be better ( for me, not the Vet Doc ) to be with my critter to discuss the options for treatment.
But I surely understand our Vet Doctors not wanting to have unvaccinated careless potentially infected MAGA M-Fers right there beside them in a tiny exam room. I wouldn’t be willing to do that either, so I’m all over the new world of remote Vet Doctoring.
Ruckus
@Brachiator:
I use the MetroLink and Metro systems in LA simply because it’s easier than driving 45 miles across town and actually runs on time, which the freeways almost never do. Especially during rush hours, which seem to run from 6am till 11am, 11:30am till 2pm, and 3pm to 8 or 9pm. I find it hard to call it driving to be stopped on the freeway for 5 minutes at a time and to never reach over 25 mph.
Captain C
@Kay: “The customer is always right” is a design and marketing slogan, not a customer service slogan like seems to have turned into (and it never should have). Originally it meant if your customers want avocado-colored cars with tailfins, or pineapple pizzas, that’s what you sell them. It does not, nor should not mean “I, the customer can abuse you the employee as I see fit and you should thank me for it”, and I think any customer who takes that attitude should be booted from the establishment and banned.
(You probably already know this, but I think it bears repeating as often as possible.)
Ruckus
@Brachiator:
I nominate this for understatement of the decade.
Ruckus
@Mai Naem mobile:
You just described me to a tee.
Tony Gerace
Thirty five hours a week is a cute trick by these employers. Just under full time. I’m not a professional economist, but my Econ 101 background tells me that if these people start offering better, full-time jobs at better pay, their staffing problems might mysteriously go away.
J R in WV
@Sure Lurkalot:
There’s an ass I wouldn’t work for for one more day. I’d be out of there before he expected that meeting to end. My living expenses are exactly none of his business whatsoever.
How does an ass like that retain any employees who can even count?
A woman from anywhere (formerly Mohagan)
@Baud: Ah yes, the stalker song.
A woman from anywhere (formerly Mohagan)
@Kay: You’re right – takeout is NOT the same. It’s much better than nothing, since you don’t have to cook it yourself, but apart from foods and cuisine which are still good when tepid (Chinese food leaps to mind), a lot of food is much better freshly served.
A woman from anywhere (formerly Mohagan)
@misterpuff: Truth!
A woman from anywhere (formerly Mohagan)
@Nicole: I don’t do math in general, but I can figure a 20% tip. (can you tell I’m proud of myself? :-)) Ten percent is just moving the decimal point on the bill total, and then double that. I usually round up to make it easier, and give the server a little more. I was shocked to learn about what the base pay for most tipped serving jobs was ($2.00/hr!?!).
StringOnAStick
We retired early last year mainly because of Covid; I never cease to be grateful that we were in a position to do so.
We now live in a town with a heavy tourist/lifestyle cachet, and they are screaming for food service workers, truck drivers, construction workers, etc. The core problem here is lack of affordable housing; according to Zillow our house has gone up nearly 20% in value in less than 1 year because demand is so high and supply so constrained. Prices were accelerating when we bought, and have only gone farther, faster ever since. Housing is a huge issue everywhere and it seems that builders don’t want to build anything other than upper middle to just plain upper, so starter homes just aren’t worth their time now. I don’t know what young people who have yet to buy a house are supposed to do given that rents are higher than a mortgage would be, if they could qualify for one.