So...the food service industry is one in which I feel very mixed and conflicted. On the one hand, I'm pro worker. I sympathize with workers who work in these industries, believe they are entitled to a living wage and good working conditions, but I'm going to be honest, I find dealing with food service workers frustrating in practice.
I'm on vacation right now which is why I'm not writing as regularly, about to go home. When I'm home, I rarely if ever eat out. Maybe on a holiday, but other than that, it's mostly fast food and takeout, I rarely dine in. But on vacation, I eat out constantly. It's something we ONLY do on vacation. But...I'm going to be honest, eating out is...frustrating. We're paying what I consider to be insane money for our food, but then they don't even get our orders right a significant portion of the time, and yet we're supposed to tip on top of paying like $60-70 for a party of three? Quite frankly, it's kind of ridiculous.
It sucks for the workers. Workers who work in such industries often do so because of a lack of better alternatives. It's difficult, grueling work that is quite unpleasant to do, and you either make it or you don't. A lot of places I'm going to seem to have high rates of turnover, with a majority of workers quickly moving onto better opportunities if they can find them. They're putting up with way too much crap for way too little money. Heck, being in Myrtle Beach right now, it seems like they largely seem to rely on immigrant labor to stay afloat.
At the same time...again, if I wasn't on vacation with someone else paying, I'd never pay to eat at most of these places. I mean, again, the prices are insane, I can buy freaking starfield for the price of a single meal. And then they have the gall to tell us to tip? Where the hell is this money going? My meal alone costs like what several employees' wages are for a single hour. PAY YOUR EMPLOYEES YOU CHEAP FRICKS!
And again....on top of that...I kinda gotta sympathize with the conservatives who complain about these workers not getting peoples' orders right. I mean, let's be blunt...they don't. You ask for one thing and they often give you something else. One night I was at an italian place and asked for ziti once and when asked I specified I didn't want it baked...I got baked. Texas cheesesteak with no onions in waffle house? Hope you like onions. Spaghetti and sausage? Hope you like meatballs. Like really, the amount of screw ups is baffling. Like holy crap sometimes these employees are disturbingly incompetent.
But...at the end of the day, let's be honest about the food service industry. It's one of those industries I've discussed before where we have poor people working to provide cheap luxuries for middle and upper class people. And look, I get it, even if I am the middle class karen in this case, I do understand it. The fact is, you probably dont wanna be there serving me stuff, but you need to make a living yourself, and that's what's available. So...how do we solve this?
Well, I dont really overly value employment as much as I value freedom, and I tend to support a basic income.
Perhaps everyone should get a UBI. And then the workers in these industries would be better taken care of. First of all, because of the UBI, and second, because in order to draw workers into the industry businesses would have to pay and offer good working conditions. And maybe we would see something like the great resignation in the service industry, but ya know what? I'm all for that.
Because let's face it, vacations, tourism, what I'm engaging in right now, it's a luxury. It's one I appreciate, as I'm here on someone else's behalf and I'm grateful to that person for inviting me. It's not something that has to exist. It's something that is nice to exist. Dont get me wrong, but honestly, the dynamics here seem screwed. People are grinding and working hard just to provide entertainment or food in conjunction with entertainment. From their perspective, they're likely not making much money. On my side, we're paying a metric crapton (again, average dinner costs as much as FREAKING STARFIELD it seems...) for food. And again, the service workers themselves? Often the weakest link of the experience.
But let's think about this for a second from another angle. Right now everyone HAS to work. It's an informal requirement of society. We expect everyone from their late teens through their mid 60s to have a job more or less. And part of the reason I would argue the service industry is full of so many less than stellar workers is because....they tend to get the workers the other industries don't. Front line service workers are considered some of the lowest tier of workers in our society. And while we like to soften that with the "dignity of work" crap that some of the pro work and pro labor left tries to pull...yeah no. Let's face it, very few people WANT to work these positions, and society does a good job basically trying to brainwash and gaslight people into it. And sadly the labor movement is complicit in this. For as much good as the labor movement does, they have this attitude of "sure, you should WANT to do this crap job and don't let anyone tell you that this job is crap and that it's undesirable". Because let's face it, it's crap. It's not most peoples' first career choice. It's just what's available.
But if we had a UBI, and people weren't FORCED to work these jobs...then again...what would happen in these industries? Again, either the pay and conditions would improve to draw people in to do it voluntarily. This might raise prices, but given the prices are already absurdly high I can't see an extra 15-20% (what they expect from a tip anyway) to be world ending. If you'll pay $15-20 for an overpriced meal, you'd probably pay $18-24. Or maybe they'll automate the work or otherwise streamline it. Innovate, thinking, gee, how can do get the most work done with the least number of people? Or maybe things will reach a point where people dont wanna work those jobs at rates people wanna pay. Maybe the costs to run a restaurant is too high to be sustainable when workers are paid and treated properly. Well, again, I'm fine with that. These experiences are, to me, an absurd amount of luxury. I only see this stuff on vacation. Most of the year my family scrimps and saves and only buys takeout and mostly we cook our own food. I'm fine if this industry experiences a reckoning. My enjoyment shouldnt come on the back of slaves, and if we're gonna pay, then maybe we should actually get proper service.
Which gets me to the point of this whole discussion. If we had a UBI, then all of the less motivated workers could just...quit. They wouldnt play this game in society of pretending to wanna work and then doing the minimum to get by. If you wanna do the minimum and dont wanna work then dont fricking get a job in the service industry and screw up everyone's orders. I suspect if we had a UBI, and we did see a work reduction response, it would occur mostly in the least motivated and productive workers. The ones who have no ambition and are only there because they have to be and just wanna slack off and do the minimum. The ones who are motivated will stay and do their job well, and the ones who aren't, well, they can quit. UBI will separate the wheat from the chaff. And again I'm fine with this too. All people deserve a decent living regardless of whether they work or not, workers deserve a decent wage and decent treatment, and the karen in me thinks that customers spending their money deserve to get a good experience for it.
Right now, the experience is sullied by people being forced to work, a lot of workers not being...the best, and people spending good money only for their experience being overpriced and sub par. It's not a pleasant experience for everyone. And this is why our society is as screwed up as it is. You got karens in the middle class demanding insane amounts from low waged workers, low waged workers putting up with way too much crap for way too little money, and no one being happy. With UBI, I think the experience would be more positive from all angles. it might be more expensive, but it already costs an absurd amount anyway, so who cares? those who can pay it will, those who won't wont, the experience will be better for those who pay, and unmotivated workers wont have to work there any more, and motivated ones will likely be paid in accordance to their real value.
Seems like a win for everyone except for the rich fricks hoarding all the profits. Which is kinda the point.
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