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[MrRoboto75]

Why do people have to be, y'know... People?

As an autistic man press ganged into the service industry I ask myself that every day.

What is meant by press ganged? Did a local news network coerce you into a customer service job?

Old nautical term.  People would get knocked out or drugged only to wake up on a ship in the ocean, and they'd be forced to be crew.

Point being, they'd only hire me for customer service face jobs over anything more useful.  Like hiring a fish to climb trees, and wonder why the fish struggles to get work done right.

[Naturegirl1999]

Why do people have to be, y'know... People?

As an autistic man press ganged into the service industry I ask myself that every day.

What is meant by press ganged? Did a local news network coerce you into a customer service job?

Old nautical term.  People would get knocked out or drugged only to wake up on a ship in the ocean, and they'd be forced to be crew.

Point being, they'd only hire me for customer service face jobs over anything more useful.  Like hiring a fish to climb trees, and wonder why the fish struggles to get work done right.

what would be great is if they trained you on each possible job, so you and them would find out which job you’d be best at

[Reelya]

Hardly anywhere trains people for anything anymore. Good luck getting them to do even minimal training for the actual thing that you're actually going to be doing. In a service job there are realistically only going to be 2-3 things that untrained people can even do, and they have specialists for everything else. At a burger place for example, what are the opportunities for "training". You can serve customers, you can push buttons on machines and restock the food, or you can clean. These are not skills which are in value, hence why they're putting untrained people in those roles at minimum wage in the first place.

EDIT: I'll also point out that you need to put yourself in the shoes of a manager at one of those places and see things from their perspective. Your #1 priority for staffing is keeping the placed fully staffed. This is much easier when you have a pool of interchangeable staff. The main thing they care about is that you turn up and you don't slack off. The jobs themselves are straightforward by design so that anyone can do them, which makes scheduling much easier since you don't have to worry about balancing who's "good" at whatever.

[ChairmanPoo]

I missed my regular dental cleansing 6mo ago and now I have a cavity

[scriver]

You're supposed to cleanse your teeth at least one time per day, preferably 2

[ChairmanPoo]

Might be due to bruxism..

[MrRoboto75]

EDIT: I'll also point out that you need to put yourself in the shoes of a manager at one of those places and see things from their perspective. Your #1 priority for staffing is keeping the placed fully staffed. This is much easier when you have a pool of interchangeable staff. The main thing they care about is that you turn up and you don't slack off. The jobs themselves are straightforward by design so that anyone can do them, which makes scheduling much easier since you don't have to worry about balancing who's "good" at whatever.

Managers exist to minimize costs in the most penny wise pound foolish way possible.  Which usually means having a minimal skeleton crew manning the place as often as possible, so the schedule can crash as soon as one person can't make it.

[Reelya]

That's only pound foolish if the frequency and scale of the occasional short-staffing outweighs every other week where you're saving a full wage.

I think it's an opportunity cost thing: the sales losses from the occasional week where you can(not) get enough staff are highly visible and memorable events, whereas the weekly savings from running the minimal possible level of staff are ongoing and largely invisible savings.

It's the same reason they always overbook airlines. When too many people actually turn up, they lose some money and it's noticeable and memorable. But they've done the math and they're saving money on most flights enough to make up the occasional fuck up that this causes.

[MrRoboto75]

The real savings are the fact that I have to do the work of two people and never get time off because my coworkers never show up.

[ChairmanPoo]

The tooth is cracked I think.

Also I'm a fucking idiot for unrelated reasons. What was I thinking ffs

[LordBaal]

Thats what a idiot manager would do and in fact those practices end up hurting the bussiness. Is save a peny today lose a lot tomorrow.

A good manager should strive to yes, cover the max with the minimun resources. But minimun is not running the whole store with everyone doing the work of 2 or 3 people.

Is analizing the workload and knowing that if you have an absolute minimun requirement of say 10 people per turn, you try to have at least 11 or 12 people for that shift so in case of emergency or someone dont show up you have a Ace in your sleeve.

Also, a good manager doesnt burn througth human resources for cheapness. Is better to have qualified, motivated and trained people that can actually cover for other people. In the above scenario having someone capable of cover for other people jobs can guarantee that even if you have say, 8 people showing up for the turn, you can shift them around to attend the priority jobs or operations, knowing that no, you probably wont make all the goals but the work in general will not be paralized and productivity wont dip that much, if nothing at all.

As a manager you must strive to train and cherish, keep, those workers and have their welbeing in mind.

[Lord Shonus]

That's only pound foolish if the frequency and scale of the occasional short-staffing outweighs every other week where you're saving a full wage.

I think it's an opportunity cost thing: the sales losses from the occasional week where you can(not) get enough staff are highly visible and memorable events, whereas the weekly savings from running the minimal possible level of staff are ongoing and largely invisible savings.

It's the same reason they always overbook airlines. When too many people actually turn up, they lose some money and it's noticeable and memorable. But they've done the math and they're saving money on most flights enough to make up the occasional fuck up that this causes.

Equally "invisible" is the steady erosion of the capabilities of the "bare minimum" staff due to overwork. People can't run at full performance all day every day.

[Reelya]

However, the proof is in the pudding. People who run things like that have in fact ended up owning everything. There's a reason for that. There are companies out there who take care of the stuff you're talking about, but they're categorically not out-competing the asshole companies.

[Loud Whispers]

truly this is a grimdark future

[Egan_BW]

I propose that we correct this state of things by using painful electrical shocks on the decision-makers of companies which don't prioritize their employees' health over profit.