PebHmong Discussion Forum
General Category => General Discussion => Topic started by: theking on December 08, 2021, 05:33:02 PM
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..without taking into consideration that there's a staff shortage and how over worked they are in the food service industry in the last couple of years.. ??? It's good that he chose a different path because working in a miserable settings just not good IMO even if the pay and/or benefit is OK :
A veteran Taco Bell worker of 20 years says he quit because customers have gotten so 'unreasonable' and hard to deal with
He says customers have gotten more demanding and abusive since the pandemic started.
Workers are also burnt out and pushed to their limits, he says.
The worker, whose employment was confirmed by Insider and who asked to remain anonymous for fears of impacting his future employment, has been in the fast-food industry for years, putting in six years at McDonald's before his two-decade career at Taco Bell.
"Fast food is pretty much the only thing I've ever known," he told Insider. If customers hadn't become so unreasonable and angry, "I probably would've just kept doing what I was doing. I loved my job until Covid hit."
The employee says that things have gotten especially bad since the COVID-19 pandemic began in early 2020. Customers have become more critical and angry towards workers in the service industry, and suddenly "people think it's perfectly okay to be intolerant, demand things, and just be unreasonable," he said, to the point where his work is "almost untenable."
This shift in customers is in part thanks to the rapid advances in technology used by fast-food chains, like online ordering, and people becoming accustomed to being at home and having everything delivered, the worker said. Many customers are "starting to treat fast food as their personal catering service," the worker said, with extreme modifications to every item and no empathy or understanding for overwhelmed workers.
Understaffed stores and burnt-out workers exacerbate these problems, the worker told Insider. He was a senior shift manager at the time he left, regularly working 60 hours a week, but all crew members were scheduled for at least 45 hours a week, he said. The effects of angry customers and overwork are evident in the restaurant: in the last two weeks, he has had three separate workers break down and need to leave during their shifts, and he also had his first
panic attack
in 27 years, he told Insider.
"That was when I realized, it's time for me to get out."
Fed-up workers are leaving food service jobs across the country. A group of five workers, including a general manager, quit their Austin Chipotle jobs together earlier this month over endless digital orders. Chipotle, Taco Bell, and the broader restaurant industry have seen instances recently of workers walking out and quitting as a symptom of what's referred to as a labor shortage. Business owners say they're unable to find staff, and some even cite a lack of desire to work. But workers say they can demand better pay and benefits in the tight labor market. This mismatch has led to restaurants decreasing hours and closing dining rooms.
According to restaurant workers surveyed by Lightspeed, 62% said that customers are more demanding than ever before. This fits with other data coming out of the industry, including a majority of restaurant workers reporting emotional abuse and disrespect from customers. Of restaurant operators, 72% agree that customer behavior has gotten worse over the past year.
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eff the entitled culture.
If it was me, as their CEO, I'll put a mandate to give every one of my employees to ban any customers that gave them a hard time.
Make it known that people needs fast food and not fast food needs the common joe. This puts ownership in every employee and keep customer's on their toes.
If I need something, I wouldn't burn my bridges.
When I was working as a young sale's guy for toyota dealership, I had the blessings from upper managements to do whatever we like because we already know the behavior of some of these customers. They will yank you around, take you on a joy ride in different vehicles, waste your time and then walked off. Man, you just don't know what me and a co worker did as we role play the management role in them booth. Congratulation, you just bought a car at full pop. Their surprised reaction was priceless. We laughed our way as the sour customers be running so fast out that door and never came back.
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Yep..
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American workers leaving their jobs in droves, companies struggle to hire
American workers are quitting their jobs by the millions every month taking advantage of new opportunities created by the pandemic recovery, and creating an unprecedented labor shortage for companies.
In October, 4.2 million Americans resigned, after 4.4 million in September and 4.3 million in August, according to data from the Labor Department.
There are 11 million job openings, and the number of vacancies is peaking as demand picks up in bars, hotels, restaurants and other service industries.
The economy remains about four million jobs short of the pre-pandemic level, and even though job gains have averaged 555,000 a month this year, hiring, especially unskilled staff willing to work in person, has become a headache for many employers.
"We've never had a gap like that where there's just so many more openings and there are unemployed workers," said Curtis Dubay, economist at the US Chamber of Commerce.
The pandemic is changing attitudes to work, he told AFP.
"Jobs that are traditionally less pleasant and with less skills are having a harder time retaining workers. Workers are just not putting up with it anymore."
- The great resignation -
Since April, a record number of workers, the overwhelming majority in low-skilled jobs in the service sector, have quit, no longer concerned that they will struggle to find a new position.
The hashtag #GreatResignation is trending on Twitter, with one post offering this explanation: "We're leaving jobs because we have nothing to lose."
The author called on companies to show "more human kindness and compassion," and step up their offers on remote work, health care and retirement savings. "Bring your best to the table and maybe we will too."
Erik Lundh, economist at The Conference Board research center, said the current environment definitely gives workers "more bargaining power, in terms of negotiating for benefits and wages."
There are signs employers are raising pay and improving benefits to try to attract workers.
The share of job offers offering signing bonuses in addition to the base salary has more than doubled since March 2020 at the start of the pandemic and October 2021, according to a study by The Conference Board published on Wednesday.
And the prevalence of bonuses is more marked for manual work that does not require a university degree and cannot offer telework, as well as for jobs in industries facing the greatest labor shortages, notably education and healthcare.
The trend is expected to continue next year.
"Most companies are looking at almost a four percent jump in wages next year," Lundh said.
Lydia Boussour, economist for Oxford Economics warns that the tight labor market could "exacerbate current inflationary dynamics."
The rapid turnaround in the labor market following the damage inflicted by Covid-19 came as a surprise to most forecasters and policymakers.
Unemployment peaked in April 2020 at 14.8 percent -- the highest since the government started measuring the data in 1948 -- but by last month it had dropped to 4.2 percent.
Policymakers have welcomed signs employers are willing to pay more since wages had stagnated for years.
Dubay notes that Americans forced to stay home during the pandemic built up a stockpile of savings -- helped by massive government aid -- and therefore can afford to quit their jobs and take time to get back to work.
But he expects the situation to get back to normal in coming months.
In the current dynamic, however, "It's very risky for firms to let go staff unless they have no other choice, because re-hiring people later will be difficult and likely expensive," said Ian Shepherdson of Pantheon Macroeconomics .
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let's go brandon! ;D