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From the Washington Post:
On Leadership
A Chick-fil-A is paying $18 an hour to retain fast-food workers
By Jena McGregor
May 29 at 3:52 PMBy 2022, the minimum wage in California will rise to $15. But the owner of a Chick-fil-A restaurant in Sacramento plans to go ahead and raise the wages of his employees now, offering a huge bump to $17 to $18 from the $12 to $13 he pays now.
The sizable raise represents a possible new high-water mark for fast-food workers, say restaurant industry analysts, at a time when competition for even unskilled labor is rising amid low unemployment, greater immigration scrutiny and fewer teenagers seeking to work in fast-food jobs. …
Eric Mason, owner of the Chick-fil-A location in Sacramento, told a reporter for the local ABC news affiliate KXTV that he would be raising his workers’ pay from $12 to $13 an hour to $17 to $18 an hour starting June 4, referring to the increase as a “living wage.” In California, the minimum wage is $11 for employers with 26 or more workers and will go up $1 a year until 2022.
“As the owner, I’m looking at it big-picture and long-term,” Mason said in an interview with a local news station. “What that does for the business is provide consistency, someone that has relationships with our guests, and it’s going to be building a long-term culture.”
This boss is likely making a mistake in hoping his high wage strategy pays off for him. But even if he is erring on the high side, it’s good to see somebody finally doing that after years of near universal penny-pinching on low-end pay.
And it’s not surprising it’s a Chick-fil-A taking the lead. I’ve only been to the one in the ultra-prime location on Westwood Blvd. directly across the street from UCLA, but it delivers good food, good service, and a clean establishment.
But the high cost of turnover in the restaurant business — the turnover rate in the restaurants and accommodations sector was 73 percent in 2016, according to Bureau of Labor Statistics data — could mean a raise is canceled out by savings in retraining and hiring new workers, said Warren Solochek, senior vice president of industry relations for the food service practice at NPD Group.
I know Warren from my marketing research days. Good guy.
That’s particularly so for a chain like Chick-fil-A, which has a reputation for its customer service and prides itself on friendly employees, he said: “You can’t have that high level of service when you continually hire people and have to train people. You need people who’ve been in their job for a while. That’s Chick-fil-A’s reputation, and that’s very true across the country.”
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Their new jingle:
Chick-fil-A, less gay, more pay.
Chick-Fil-A was in the news a year or so ago and then, as now, all the iSteve commenters had much to say. But not me. I tried to go to a local Chick-Fil-A . But there are no Chick-Fil-A's in Oakland. Nor are there any Walmart's.
In many areas Oakland marches at the front of the social revolution. We gave the world Ebonics. Our mayor conspires with the criminal element against the police. But in the vital field of controversial retail store dimension - we are not to be seen.Replies: @Daniel Chieh, @J.Ross, @dr kill, @Achmed E. Newman
The long-term problem with overcompensating fast food and similar jobs is that you create a class of people who think that fast food is a career. In the past everyone knew that it was a ahort-term job you passed through on the way to a real job. You learned about a business environment, cooperating with others, showing up on time, and presenting yourself well, and in turn you got some pocket change.
There’s no career there, however. If you want a career in fast food, you don’t “work your way up.” You quit, go to college, earn or raise some money, and buy a franchise.
With career fast fooders, you get 50-year-old men and women who complain that they haven’t gotten raises, for that job they mastered within six months of being hired, and do no better now, but do worse in their customer-facing attitude because they are bitter. Or you get 30-year-olds who complain that the wages don’t allow them to buy a home and have two kids. Duh.
Actually, lots of people work their way up in fast-food franchises. The path to store manager is pretty obvious.
After that, someone who has demonstrated he can run a successful operation clearly has an advantage when it comes to finding partners or investors for that first purchase of a franchise. There is also going to work for the franchisor and getting into regional management, etc.
I used to be in franchising, and what I got from it was the idea that the person interested in purchasing a franchise should go to work for another franchise in the same or a similar system. Learn the operation from the inside while getting paid, although not perhaps all that much.
At the end of a year or so you will be infinitely better prepared to be successful with your purchased franchise, or, perhaps nearly as likely, you'll have decided you really don't want to do this, which is also a very valuable insight.
There few real jobs any longer. Fast food service will have to become one.
It is this transactional mind-set that results in seeing people in these jobs as merely economic units, like draught animals, that can be replaced with cheap foreign units when convenient. It's why the country is splintering along racial and class lines. It's also why the waitstaff spits in your food.Replies: @Achmed E. Newman, @ScarletNumber, @Corvinus
You are talking about jobs that no longer exist.
Not too long ago many union jobs were available...the Teamsters dominated warehouse positions and trucking while even the cashiers at the largest American retailers were unionized into the 1980s....this is one reason Walmarts were kept out of the Northeast until 1992 , they waited until the unions were destroyed before opening stores in Pennsylvania, New Jersey and NY.
My father was a teamster, worked loading trucks and boxcars and earned $95,000 per year in 1980 and had better benefits than teachers. Today a warehouse worker in New Jersey earns just $14 per hour at Amazon and cannot work more than 30 hours per week while my father averaged 45 hours per week, getting time and a half for all his overtime hours...his average hourly wage was equal to $40 per hour in todays dollars...
My Aunt was a unionized cashier at the local A&P from 1960-1980 and retired with a pension...she earned the equivalent of $25 per hour when she retired and had 2 weeks paid vacation each year. Imagine if Walmart and Amazon had to pay the same wages we paid our retail and warehouse workers in 1980 ? or the local grocery stores had unionized cashiers earning $20 per hour with full benefits ?Replies: @RadicalCenter, @RadicalCenter, @ben tillman, @Ivy
And don’t fool yourself that your education and skills are so special you can’t be replaced by a non White immigrant.
“This boss is likely making a mistake in hoping his high wage strategy pays off for him.”
I wouldn’t be surprised if this caught on and became a very popular thing for him and other middle-end eateries like Chic-fil-A. Offering higher wages increases the qualifications of the candidate pool. More applications from guys like Marcus and Kenneth get through while fewer ones from guys like J’Marcus and Keith make it. Clever strategy to get “the right people.” Star Bucks surreptitiously scared away lower class types by locking their bathrooms, Chinese restaurants play Chinese music to scare off undesirables, and lots of places focus on takeout so middle class patrons don’t have to see the other types of people they serve.
all the non chain take out places run by blacks are great money makersReplies: @Anonymous
Paying a smaller number of employees a higher salary may help to immunize future proprietors from racial discrimination lawsuits while also serving as a means to attract better employees, especially in run down multicultural urban areas. Imagine being sued because your restaurant in inner Cleveland is mostly white with a smattering of Asians and Hispanics: “Oh, no your honor. My employees were hired solely on merit. Some of them have business degrees. All the whites and Asians just had better qualifications than the black applicants.”
Meanwhile, lost income is made up through greater numbers of high-paying whites being attracted to your business in urban areas (Star Bucks has a similar strategy to attract higher-end customers in diverse areas), fewer racial discrimination lawsuits, employees that work harder and are nicer to the customers – increasing customer retention, and less theft.
Don’t be surprised if in 2025 it’s revealed that chicken joints in Baltimore, Memphis, and Birmingham are found paying a small team of pretty white girls $20/hour to look over their semi-automated franchise and black + middle class white patrons.
Kinda funny story about a franchise. So a couple of years ago, next to a certain federal facility that trains certain federal workers, a Chick-fil-A opened up. My kids and I visited it as soon as possible (it’s the only fast food my wife allows the little kids in the family to eat).
Turns out it was black-owned and had majority black workers, completely unlike any other Chick-fil-A I patronized in my area. Service was terrible (not rude or hostile – those black kids were actually friendly – but it was just interminably slow and incompetent with mixed orders, missing items, etc.). This happens several times. My wife and I finally look at each other and go, “Hmmm. Maybe we’ll just go back to the previous location we patronized even though it’s a bit farther from us.”
We stop going there for a while and then stop by again some months later. The workforce changed completely, about three quarters white and the rest East Asian. Service back to the usual Chick-fil-A standards. Twinkie family very happy. Wife and I found it a bit amusing that the black franchise owner apparently fired all his black workers and replaced them with whites and East Asians.
In n Out is often packed too, but more with HS students and parents while the kids at CfA are usually 5-10. They also do a better job of serving big crowds quickly. Both places are more likely to hire young whites, who almost never work at other drive thru chains in California.
I’m legitimately curious about Chick-fil-a’s hiring tactics. At least around where I live, they seem to consistently have more pleasant workers than all the other fast food places around (they also seem to be generally better looking younger ladies than seems standard for a fast food restaurant).
I suspect that might be because getting Sunday off is a nice perk when you’re hiring fast food level workers.
I also wonder whether they explicitly try to get referrals going through church youth groups, (or maybe giving everyone Sundays off, and they’re generally Christian reputation causes that to happen naturally).
Idk, the difference in workers between them and everyone else is pretty noticeable though.
- They don't specifically recruit Church kids, but they do knowingly attract them, and when there is an opening they make a point of asking current workers if they can recommend a friend, instead of just sticking a sign in the window. So de facto they do often wind up with multiple kids from the same church/ family/ neighborhood, which in turn cultivates positive peer pressure to do well on the job.
- The number one thing they look for on applications are kids that are involved in something extracurricular. Church involvement is great, but it can be sports, clubs, music, whatever. They ask about hobbies in the interview process, and video games TV or books are all bad answers.
- They vet their franchisees VERY carefully. The corporate office really does care about employees, they make sure franchisees do too, and they make sure franchisees hire managers who do.
Crazy stuff, right?Replies: @Anon, @ScarletNumber
“I suspect that might be because getting Sunday off is a nice perk when you’re hiring fast food level workers.”
It’s a new fangled breakthrough in progressive labor management concepts: everybody gets a sabbath day off per week to relax with family and friends.
What will they think of next?
“the difference in workers between them and everyone else is pretty noticeable though.”
The other day, I drove by a Chic-fil-A and saw two young, well-kept and pretty girls – one white, one mixed black – delivering bags of food to lines of customers outside as if they were the guys on the decks of aircraft carriers directing incoming fighter jets.
Their employees are noticeably superior to employees of almost every other place save establishments like Panera Bread and Star Bucks. It makes me think that they are purposely engaging in subtle tactics to get affable white (sometimes Asian or even mix-race black) girls to work for them – probably a combination of strategically locating restaurants in middle-class areas and branding themselves as a family, Christian outfit (possibly also due to a bias towards hiring females). Everywhere else, I get non-communication and passive aggressive hostility from lower class blacks.
Honestly, this is the kind of thing I would have expected from enterprising Jews back before they lost their desire to appeal to middle-class American whites: “Hasbara’s Habanero Khicken, Best Kosher Khicken in Town. God Bless America.”
When did Chic-fil-a change its business model? Do they do franchises now?
There's no career there, however. If you want a career in fast food, you don't "work your way up." You quit, go to college, earn or raise some money, and buy a franchise.
With career fast fooders, you get 50-year-old men and women who complain that they haven't gotten raises, for that job they mastered within six months of being hired, and do no better now, but do worse in their customer-facing attitude because they are bitter. Or you get 30-year-olds who complain that the wages don't allow them to buy a home and have two kids. Duh.Replies: @Sean c, @eD, @Logan, @Anon, @The Z Blog, @Chris Mallory, @Travis, @E. Rekshun, @27 year old, @JerseyJeffersonian, @Alden
I believe that at In n Out you can have a career that pays very well , 6 figures, once you reach the store manager level. They also promote from within.
I don’t know how the high-wage policy will work out. I do know, as Twinkie mentioned, that if you’re going to buy fast food a lot, it’s worth it to go to a place where the workers are competent. I think I wrote this before, but one time at a hamburger FF place, things took an extra long time, but I did feel good that the store supported employment for retards. Upon reflection 10 minutes later, I thought “no, those weren’t retards.”
As far as Chick Fil-A in particular, that Truett Cathey, who runs the chain now, is one stand-up guy for not buckling to demands to open on Sunday. I imagine that’s from a small proportion of the customers too, even! The elites HATE HATE HATE the chain in NY City, cause of (one particular) religion and stuff, per Michelle Malkin, as related here by Peak Stupidity
Can you imagine how much money the chain loses in opportunity costs by being closed on Sundays at Atlanta Hartsfield airport? There are at least 2 locations in that big terminal.
From this article on boycotts/buycotts, I discussed Chick-Fil-A and the boycott against the chain that backfired 8 years ago:
Chick-Fil-A opened a restaurant at the new super football stadium of the Atlanta Falcons, but will be closed for about 6 or 7 of the 8 homegames per year, which are on Sundays.
Sports have climbed out of my price range for hobbies, so I haven't been to Benz Stadium and don't know if another Georgia-based business, The Varsity, has a location there. They could clean up, but the owner is old and retreated into North Georgia somewhere and doesn't seem interested in expanding or modernizing the business.
Chick-Fil-A is marvelous. I might spring for a trip to Manhattan just to eat at the CFA there. I'll drink Diet Coke, watered with liberal tears.
go flacons!Replies: @ben tillman
Chick fil-A offers college scholarships to employees who meet the scholarship requirements. This no doubt helps to raise the quality of the people they employ, not to mention being “pro-social,” though I’m sure the SJWs give them no credit for that.
From their website:
I remember going to the State Authority-owned Georgia Dome and the food was absolutely awful. The vendor was a pure don’t-give-a-f*** AA contractor charging for generic hot dogs and hamburgers. I thought you couldn’t ruin hot dogs or hamburgers until I had them at the Georgia Dome. Arthur Blank has pretty high tastes, so I’ve wondered if that was part of the motivation for his Benz Stadium.
Sports have climbed out of my price range for hobbies, so I haven’t been to Benz Stadium and don’t know if another Georgia-based business, The Varsity, has a location there. They could clean up, but the owner is old and retreated into North Georgia somewhere and doesn’t seem interested in expanding or modernizing the business.
Chick-Fil-A is marvelous. I might spring for a trip to Manhattan just to eat at the CFA there. I’ll drink Diet Coke, watered with liberal tears.
It’s almost like he respects his employees as the ultimate source of his wealth and has a human soul, being concerned for his responsibilities to them and sees them as something other than a cog in a machine.
I keep hearing all this noise about ‘entitlement’ amongst the poorest in society and none about the people who have so much they feel that being the richest they’ve ever been isn’t enough, they now deserve to have all the value of living in the USA whilst feeling entitled to a Mexican labour market.
I was the manager of the data entry department of an association management firm. The company treated the department like it was dirt and they assumed that we could hire anybody off the street to do the job. But the job required the employee to be able to enter a complex set of data, for 15 very different clients with very different needs, and make it tie out to the bank statement every month. It would take literally months to fully train somebody and not all people were able to be trained in this work. When one of my employees would leave the company the owners would say to just put an ad in the local neighborhood paper want ads, and that maybe a housewife or a teenager looking for a job will apply.
A great many of them viewed the worker bees as interchangeable units. Unplug one and plug in another.
I got so frustrated I laid out Sherman's Categories of Labor Costs.
1. Worker. Will do simple task if you stand there and watch him do it.
2. Supervisor. Can supervise the worker. Workers are more or less self-supervising.
3. Project Manager. Determines what the simple tasks are and directs Supervisors in coordinating the Workers.
4. Screwups. The costs associated with dealing with failures by one or more of the above.
There is an optimum mix of the first three that reduces your total labor cost to the lowest possible.
If you don't pay the Workers enough, they require more Supervision and Project Manager oversight, so those costs go up, quite probably more than you save by screwing the Workers. If you don't provide the additional oversight, you can pretty much guarantee that Screwups will consume much more than the savings on numbers 1 to 3.
There is also the fact that a new worker requires training and indoctrination. Initially, his cost is much higher than his production, so he's actually losing you money. Only as he learns and his need for oversight and the number and severity of his screwups goes down does he begin to turn a profit for the company.
As I said, a LOT of franchisees simply could not wrap their heads around these ideas. And a lot of them went bust pretty quick.Replies: @Anon
My local Chick-fil-A is staffed mostly by the local high-schoolers, and from the looks of them you can tell it’s the “in-crowd” that works there. At the high school, CFA is considered the “it” place to work and competition is fierce. Kind of reminiscent of the scene from “Fast Times” where underclassmen are begging Judge Reinhold’s character to get them a job at the popular joint he works at.
This is interesting stuff that differs from the usual paradigm. There are none anywhere I experience life, but MSM stories in recent years informs me that this is not your typical fast-food company.
Good service. Imagine that.
Waiters at sidewalk cafes in Paris do not expect tips. Apparently they are properly compensated and think of themselves as professionals. If you’ve seen it, you know that one man there can service an entire corner of customers, remembering what they are having, paying attention, etc.
(And hello Starbucks and Americans: As long as you buy something like a coffee or pastry, you can sit there all day and discuss continental philosophy. Just buy something to pay your rent, and buy another when it runs out. You can’t sit there for free, but you can even take your dog with you and he can sit there all day too. He can’t use the bathroom, which is downstairs, but you can.)
On the other hand, cheap service by young people has an important place in America. Maybe not at Chik-fil-A, but at other places. This is one of the things that have been destroyed by imported Latin American labor.
A short list of my friends in high school who worked low-paying jobs:
Cashier at a convenience store — Now he is what they all a “Distinguished Engineer” at IBM, making $300,000 a year.
Gas station attendant — He now has been the editor of a newspaper for twenty years.
Movie theater employee, did everything from make popcorn to run projectors — He is an engineer at Lockheed Martin with several patents.
Dishwasher at a local restaurant — Now a Ph.D. economist who runs the MBA program at a university.
Forest Service tree cutter, fire crew member — Works in a distinctly white-collar business and has time to write stupid little comments. That’s me.
Fast food jobs, and all those other kinds, should remain the domain of young Americans starting out, who don’t have homes and families to support. Good for Chick-fil-A, but it’s not a model for America.
I’ve listened to some of my local business leaders quietly bragging about how little they paid workers, especially those who’d typically been paid much more in union or industrial environments. Then they’d complain about turnover costs, training costs, recruiting costs, “do-the-minimum-necessary-to keep-your-job” work ethic.
This story is a refreshing change of pace.
Chick Fil-A has done “franchises” for a long time (not sure how long — decades at least), but my understanding is it’s more like the store manager buying in than it is a traditional franchise investment. Chick Fil-A is exposed to most of the upside and downside, with the franchisee only paying a small percentage of the set-up costs. Applying for a franchise is more like applying for a job, and it’s competitive. And you can only have one franchise.
CF is easily the best run ff chain that I can think of. I wonder if it will stay the same now that the founder died and it is expanding beyond the SE?
There's no career there, however. If you want a career in fast food, you don't "work your way up." You quit, go to college, earn or raise some money, and buy a franchise.
With career fast fooders, you get 50-year-old men and women who complain that they haven't gotten raises, for that job they mastered within six months of being hired, and do no better now, but do worse in their customer-facing attitude because they are bitter. Or you get 30-year-olds who complain that the wages don't allow them to buy a home and have two kids. Duh.Replies: @Sean c, @eD, @Logan, @Anon, @The Z Blog, @Chris Mallory, @Travis, @E. Rekshun, @27 year old, @JerseyJeffersonian, @Alden
Again, this is one of those instances where Americans have to be different in ways that make no sense. In other countries, waiters are paid more and it actually is a career. The main effect is to reduce or get rid of tips. Not so much with fast food chains, but that too is mostly an American thing.
I work at a Major Home Improvement Retailer (MHIR) on Long Island. After more than four years on the job I’m earning less than the starting pay at the McDonalds’ in the area (it’s a second job for me so it’s tolerable). Yet despite the poor pay, and a low local unemployment rate, there’s never any shortage of applicants.
I’ve come to the conclusion that it’s a matter of prestige. Working at the MHIR has a reputation of being more dignified than flipping burgers, especially for people in their 30’s and above as many MHIR workers are. Hence it can get away with very poor wages.
There's no career there, however. If you want a career in fast food, you don't "work your way up." You quit, go to college, earn or raise some money, and buy a franchise.
With career fast fooders, you get 50-year-old men and women who complain that they haven't gotten raises, for that job they mastered within six months of being hired, and do no better now, but do worse in their customer-facing attitude because they are bitter. Or you get 30-year-olds who complain that the wages don't allow them to buy a home and have two kids. Duh.Replies: @Sean c, @eD, @Logan, @Anon, @The Z Blog, @Chris Mallory, @Travis, @E. Rekshun, @27 year old, @JerseyJeffersonian, @Alden
If you want a career in fast food, you don’t “work your way up.” You quit, go to college, earn or raise some money, and buy a franchise.
Actually, lots of people work their way up in fast-food franchises. The path to store manager is pretty obvious.
After that, someone who has demonstrated he can run a successful operation clearly has an advantage when it comes to finding partners or investors for that first purchase of a franchise. There is also going to work for the franchisor and getting into regional management, etc.
I used to be in franchising, and what I got from it was the idea that the person interested in purchasing a franchise should go to work for another franchise in the same or a similar system. Learn the operation from the inside while getting paid, although not perhaps all that much.
At the end of a year or so you will be infinitely better prepared to be successful with your purchased franchise, or, perhaps nearly as likely, you’ll have decided you really don’t want to do this, which is also a very valuable insight.
This story is a refreshing change of pace.Replies: @Barnard
They have a point about the work ethic. It doesn’t benefit anyone to pretend like low wages are the only problem with the white working class. Many of them would continue to do the minimum regardless of what they were paid.
Yesterday capitalists got rid of White factory workers, today they’re getting rid of White STEM workers tomorrow who knows? Maybe you.
There's no career there, however. If you want a career in fast food, you don't "work your way up." You quit, go to college, earn or raise some money, and buy a franchise.
With career fast fooders, you get 50-year-old men and women who complain that they haven't gotten raises, for that job they mastered within six months of being hired, and do no better now, but do worse in their customer-facing attitude because they are bitter. Or you get 30-year-olds who complain that the wages don't allow them to buy a home and have two kids. Duh.Replies: @Sean c, @eD, @Logan, @Anon, @The Z Blog, @Chris Mallory, @Travis, @E. Rekshun, @27 year old, @JerseyJeffersonian, @Alden
In the past everyone knew that it was a ahort-term job you passed through on the way to a real job.
There few real jobs any longer. Fast food service will have to become one.
I used to work for a franchisor, with a major part of my job being the training of new franchisees.
A great many of them viewed the worker bees as interchangeable units. Unplug one and plug in another.
I got so frustrated I laid out Sherman’s Categories of Labor Costs.
1. Worker. Will do simple task if you stand there and watch him do it.
2. Supervisor. Can supervise the worker. Workers are more or less self-supervising.
3. Project Manager. Determines what the simple tasks are and directs Supervisors in coordinating the Workers.
4. Screwups. The costs associated with dealing with failures by one or more of the above.
There is an optimum mix of the first three that reduces your total labor cost to the lowest possible.
If you don’t pay the Workers enough, they require more Supervision and Project Manager oversight, so those costs go up, quite probably more than you save by screwing the Workers. If you don’t provide the additional oversight, you can pretty much guarantee that Screwups will consume much more than the savings on numbers 1 to 3.
There is also the fact that a new worker requires training and indoctrination. Initially, his cost is much higher than his production, so he’s actually losing you money. Only as he learns and his need for oversight and the number and severity of his screwups goes down does he begin to turn a profit for the company.
As I said, a LOT of franchisees simply could not wrap their heads around these ideas. And a lot of them went bust pretty quick.
What mistakes did they make?Replies: @Logan
Costco has for many years paid its employees close to double what Walmart pays. A Costco job is sought after. They can pick and choose among applicants and workers tend to stay with them a long time.
Now obviously they are very different businesses. But it’s also clear there are advantages to the Costco approach.
Even my wife notices it.Replies: @Haxo Angmark
I think they recruit pretty heavily from church youth groups. There is a Chik Fil A , a Bo Jangles and a Wendy’s near me. Chik Fil A has great service and friendly and competent workers of all races. Many of the kids wear crosses. Some of the Black girls wear long black skirts and dress modestly. Not sure what the denomination is but it seems likely it is related to some church afiliation. The other two have the usual surly incompetent employees.
From their website:Replies: @Buffalo Joe
black sea, Locally based (Rochester, NY) Wegmans, the number one rated grocery chain and number one rated employer, offers scholarship monies to their employees. Kids start by stocking or bagging while in HS and then through college. Go to work full time when they graduate. Great business plan. They also hire employees who have visible disabilities who often work check out or front end. A commitment to the community pays off for Wegmans. If you have a chance to visit one of their stores do so, hands down the best shopping experience ever.
Wow! Bigoted business proves providing a living wage DOESN’T crash it’s business model, or the economy, as the Reich wing has claimed forever. And their Chicken McBigot customers are too thick to notice.
There's no career there, however. If you want a career in fast food, you don't "work your way up." You quit, go to college, earn or raise some money, and buy a franchise.
With career fast fooders, you get 50-year-old men and women who complain that they haven't gotten raises, for that job they mastered within six months of being hired, and do no better now, but do worse in their customer-facing attitude because they are bitter. Or you get 30-year-olds who complain that the wages don't allow them to buy a home and have two kids. Duh.Replies: @Sean c, @eD, @Logan, @Anon, @The Z Blog, @Chris Mallory, @Travis, @E. Rekshun, @27 year old, @JerseyJeffersonian, @Alden
You’re still trapped in the transactional mind-set of cosmopolitan globalism that says you can only reach your potential in a self-actualizing “career.” Most people are happy to have jobs and get their self-worth from friends, family and community.
It is this transactional mind-set that results in seeing people in these jobs as merely economic units, like draught animals, that can be replaced with cheap foreign units when convenient. It’s why the country is splintering along racial and class lines. It’s also why the waitstaff spits in your food.
You are assuming that this mind-set is a given, that globalists and elitists push this agenda onto their drone workers.
"Most people are happy to have jobs and get their self-worth from friends, family and community."
In reality, people are generally are happy as a result of the extrinsic and intrinsic motivations they receive when employed in their occupation of choice, with self-worth derived from their own levels of success and how others perceive them.
"It is this transactional mind-set that results in seeing people in these jobs as merely economic units, like draught animals, that can be replaced with cheap foreign units when convenient."
Some people inevitably feel this way, especially in the manufacturing sector or the computer industry.
"It’s why the country is splintering along racial and class lines.
In some cases.
"It’s also why the waitstaff spits in your food."
That's being overly dramatic.
That is really praiseworthy. I don’t think there’s a single national shop chain in the UK that doesn’t open on Sunday – not one, whereas even at the height of Victorian capitalism the shops, mills and mines were closed on the Sabbath.
When Mrs Thatcher introduced Sunday opening in the UK we were told that “Sunday will still be special”, people won’t have to work that day if they don’t want to, extra pay for working that day etc etc.
Thirty-plus years on, pay is the same (unless you’re in a unionised national organisation like the NHS) and if you’re not willing to work Sundays you won’t get the job.
They still seem to have ‘proper Sundays’ in Germany and France though, despite Sarkozy’s attempts to abolish it.
I just don't like the hypocrisy of it lots of the time. For example, some bars could stay open through Sunday morning (say till 2 A or so), but they had to pay a fee to the local gov. EVERY TIME. Let me get this right, government. You don't believe in drinking on Sunday, but you do for about 30 pieces of silver? (I think it was about that much, but I can't remember what year, and what spot silver was going for. ;-}
Have some insight into their hiring process via a friend that ran a store. It’s not rocket surgery:
– They don’t specifically recruit Church kids, but they do knowingly attract them, and when there is an opening they make a point of asking current workers if they can recommend a friend, instead of just sticking a sign in the window. So de facto they do often wind up with multiple kids from the same church/ family/ neighborhood, which in turn cultivates positive peer pressure to do well on the job.
– The number one thing they look for on applications are kids that are involved in something extracurricular. Church involvement is great, but it can be sports, clubs, music, whatever. They ask about hobbies in the interview process, and video games TV or books are all bad answers.
– They vet their franchisees VERY carefully. The corporate office really does care about employees, they make sure franchisees do too, and they make sure franchisees hire managers who do.
Crazy stuff, right?
Same way that once you hire a black manager, the staff will slowly become entirely black; mostly bros and homies from the hood.Replies: @E. Rekshun
Chik Fil A pays entry level workers as low as $9/hr, but lots of fast food worker staff make $20/hr+. That’s not new or limited to expensive regions like Sacramento.
https://www.indeed.com/cmp/Chick–fil--a/salaries?job_category=management
I was once told that CF’s business model avoids franchises in order to maintain tighter control of quality, instead paying their managers around $100k annually to keep the places running well.
CF is easily the best run ff chain that I can think of. I wonder if it will stay the same now that the founder died and it is expanding beyond the SE?
I don’t think we Americans do things just to be different from other places, the way some places, e.g. Canada, make an active effort to be different. We do things differently because America is in some ways its own planet. It’s not in our culture to look over our shoulder and give much thought to how other places are doing things. There are advantages and disadvantages to this inclination, and to tipping as a system.
The U.S. (or at least the white parts of it) puts an emphasis on customer service, which I think is a good thing, at least for customers, i.e. most people. Not so much for customer service workers who have to show respect to jerks but, you know, you can always get another job. Now, you can still have a customer service culture that doesn’t tip (e.g. Japan), but I suspect that most non-tipping cultures also have bad customer service by U.S. standards. In the U.S., it’s known that blacks deliver terrible customer service and often don’t tip.
OT from the NY Times via MSN
Your Recycling Gets Recycled, Right? Maybe, or Maybe Not
https://www.msn.com/en-us/money/markets/your-recycling-gets-recycled-right-maybe-or-maybe-not/ar-AAxXNmD?ocid=spartanntp
Mark down the NY Times as recycling skeptics.
There's no career there, however. If you want a career in fast food, you don't "work your way up." You quit, go to college, earn or raise some money, and buy a franchise.
With career fast fooders, you get 50-year-old men and women who complain that they haven't gotten raises, for that job they mastered within six months of being hired, and do no better now, but do worse in their customer-facing attitude because they are bitter. Or you get 30-year-olds who complain that the wages don't allow them to buy a home and have two kids. Duh.Replies: @Sean c, @eD, @Logan, @Anon, @The Z Blog, @Chris Mallory, @Travis, @E. Rekshun, @27 year old, @JerseyJeffersonian, @Alden
Those 50 year olds were working down at the plant. But those jobs were sent overseas. Now it is work fast food or starve.
You are talking about jobs that no longer exist.
Starting in 2010 I worked on the BP spill cleanup til about mid 2013 when all that work dried up. I spent the next 1.5 to 2 years scrounging on unemployment and working at my friends wedding store he ran with his wife. He paid me $4 under the table per hr. Since 2015 when gas prices went Down to their normal rates I’ve you d plenty of work…..all in fast food though. Some permanent some not.
This includes stints at KFC, McDonald’s, Wendy’s, Pizza Hut, Sonic Drive Inn and Dairy Queen. Month or so back I found work as a security guard and finally got out of restaurants….
Anyway, I can understand the exotic appeal of Chic Til A to some. It’s like how Jack in the Box and In and Out and Panda Express are all quite exotic to me….
That being said i worked for Chic Til A in 2007….back then it was still a mall food court joint….the food back then as now is insanely overrated and mediocre….however the notoriety over Chic Fil A began when their rednexk CEO denounced gays who then launched a boycott and kiss ins.
The rednexk did a counter “buycott” and somehow CFA became a cult brand over night with a fake veneer of high quality and class….
I wrote this in another comment, not modded yet, that I don't see why you see this place as high-class. I don't, and Panda Express, really? It's just more sweet/salty/fatty junk food named for Chinese Generals who never won a battle.
People just don't have too many ways of getting listened to, and money talks. Getting Chick-Fil-A instead of McDonalds (24x7x365/6 black, per Paul Kersey) once or twice a week beats hell out of writing an email to the virtual recycle bin of your congressman about how you feel about America's Peak of Stupidity.
BTW, the Rednexk include your ass, Neoconned, I
hate todon't mind telling you! I may be too, but I'll have to read up on it from Jeff Foxworthy to make sure.Replies: @AnonWegman’s has arrived in Massachusetts. Great markets, and their beer & wine section dwarfs most area liquor stores.
There did seem to be a suspicious number of wipipo working there, though.
Chick-fil-A is one of many restaurants with a better quality of worker, as is Costco in the retail space. The Wood Ranch barbecue restaurant chain in southern California has a similar model with clean-cut workers and lines to get in for eating and to apply for work. Funny how serving good food in a friendly atmosphere with nice people can make people want to return.
The gays really screwed the pooch on their kiss in boycott…..churches rallied counter “buycotts” to counter act the measure….with the irony being most Chic Til As weren’t even in Beltway areas but in semi suburban mall food courts or on “grass islands” outside Super Wall Marts in the south and midwest….many gays and sjw types wanted to protest but couldnt…..because there literally wasn’t a Chic Til A near them….rhe best marketing they ever could have asked for because now they are viewed as a cult brand who’s mediocre overcooked food has been reborn as high class…..
Brute, Wegmans makes one wonder how Whole Food exists.
There's no career there, however. If you want a career in fast food, you don't "work your way up." You quit, go to college, earn or raise some money, and buy a franchise.
With career fast fooders, you get 50-year-old men and women who complain that they haven't gotten raises, for that job they mastered within six months of being hired, and do no better now, but do worse in their customer-facing attitude because they are bitter. Or you get 30-year-olds who complain that the wages don't allow them to buy a home and have two kids. Duh.Replies: @Sean c, @eD, @Logan, @Anon, @The Z Blog, @Chris Mallory, @Travis, @E. Rekshun, @27 year old, @JerseyJeffersonian, @Alden
with the collapse in factory jobs, manufacturing jobs, and the vanishing union jobs it seems fast food jobs are an alternative for the sub 100 IQ population.
Not too long ago many union jobs were available…the Teamsters dominated warehouse positions and trucking while even the cashiers at the largest American retailers were unionized into the 1980s….this is one reason Walmarts were kept out of the Northeast until 1992 , they waited until the unions were destroyed before opening stores in Pennsylvania, New Jersey and NY.
My father was a teamster, worked loading trucks and boxcars and earned $95,000 per year in 1980 and had better benefits than teachers. Today a warehouse worker in New Jersey earns just $14 per hour at Amazon and cannot work more than 30 hours per week while my father averaged 45 hours per week, getting time and a half for all his overtime hours…his average hourly wage was equal to $40 per hour in todays dollars…
My Aunt was a unionized cashier at the local A&P from 1960-1980 and retired with a pension…she earned the equivalent of $25 per hour when she retired and had 2 weeks paid vacation each year. Imagine if Walmart and Amazon had to pay the same wages we paid our retail and warehouse workers in 1980 ? or the local grocery stores had unionized cashiers earning $20 per hour with full benefits ?
Do you think perhaps three hundred grand is a bit much for that job?
Does that add to the cost of goods beyond what's needed for the workers to be very well compensated and have very good lives?
Your Recycling Gets Recycled, Right? Maybe, or Maybe Not
https://www.msn.com/en-us/money/markets/your-recycling-gets-recycled-right-maybe-or-maybe-not/ar-AAxXNmD?ocid=spartanntp
Mark down the NY Times as recycling skeptics.Replies: @Buzz Mohawk, @ben tillman
They are late to the party. A lot of smart people, including one Cal Tech scientist as I recall, have proven that most of recycling is wishful farce that actually costs more and uses more resources than not doing it.
You can mentally throw recycling into the same bin as all the other hippy do-gooder bullshit we live with now, like tabula rasa humans who are diverse but the same, affirmative action, and court judgements based on the logical fallacy of disparate impact.
Aluminum may be the only substance it makes sense to recycle, because a lot of electricity is used to produce it.
(And, if you care about electricity as a resource and coal-fueled power plants as a source of smog, then you should be in favor of nuclear energy and the development of thorium reactors. Do that and you can throw away your soda cans too.)
Here's my post from the beginning of this year called "Toward Sustainable Stupidity".
There's no career there, however. If you want a career in fast food, you don't "work your way up." You quit, go to college, earn or raise some money, and buy a franchise.
With career fast fooders, you get 50-year-old men and women who complain that they haven't gotten raises, for that job they mastered within six months of being hired, and do no better now, but do worse in their customer-facing attitude because they are bitter. Or you get 30-year-olds who complain that the wages don't allow them to buy a home and have two kids. Duh.Replies: @Sean c, @eD, @Logan, @Anon, @The Z Blog, @Chris Mallory, @Travis, @E. Rekshun, @27 year old, @JerseyJeffersonian, @Alden
Yes, probably mostly true. Though I’m familiar with a reasonably pleasant and competent black female that started working part-time at age 16 in a fast food restaurant. Over the years, she’s worked in about four of them, generally gaining a slight raise and more responsibilities. After dropping out of community college because she couldn’t pass the introductory math courses (because the Hispanic teacher was racist), she focused on her fast food career. After almost 20 years, she made it to store manager and makes $40K per year with full benefits for about 40 – 50 hours per week.
She picked up a pharmacy technician certificate along the way but couldn’t find a better-paying job with that offered full-time hours and benefits. Her government housing aid, EBT, and annual EITC put her and her two illegitimate children at a not-uncomfortable lifestyle, though her net worth is probably $0 and she’s pushing 40 y/o. She will, however, have a somewhat decent social security at age 62 unlike most of the never-employed.
I’ve spent a good deal of time outside the USA, in Latin America, Europe, and the Middle East, and really haven’t noticed any difference in customer service. If there is any difference at all, the Americans seem to be less efficient and more likely to screw up your order.
I’m glad to see someone paying more money instead of complaining about uncooked chicken rotting in the fields.
Paying higher than minimum wage is a dynamic process–obviously you need to get productivity out of it. You can’t just pay the same people more to do the same thing.
“I don’t think we Americans do things just to be different from other places, the way some places, e.g. Canada, make an active effort to be different. We do things differently because America is in some ways its own planet. It’s not in our culture to look over our shoulder and give much thought to how other places are doing things. There are advantages and disadvantages to this inclination,”
There is a good deal of truth to this, but the implications dual advantage of being a continental sized country with no real need to interact with other places (as you noted) plus being the most powerful country in the world that unique ways of doing things that are actually pretty backwards and lead to a lower quality of life are not corrected. There is no need to and people are proud of their unique ways.
So over time under these conditions the culture gets filled with all sorts of crap, which gets exposed for what it is when the empire eventually goes away. And more crap gets added during the imperial phase. Incidentally, this is something of a feature of every continental empire in history (they have all been on the Asian mainland).
Some of this applies to both maritime style empires and to continental sized countries that are pretty powerless, but not to the same extreme.
So, no American style tipping brings no benefit and its something we do because we can, same with restaurant wages that are only bearable because of the tipping.
What are some examples of this "crap"?
A great many of them viewed the worker bees as interchangeable units. Unplug one and plug in another.
I got so frustrated I laid out Sherman's Categories of Labor Costs.
1. Worker. Will do simple task if you stand there and watch him do it.
2. Supervisor. Can supervise the worker. Workers are more or less self-supervising.
3. Project Manager. Determines what the simple tasks are and directs Supervisors in coordinating the Workers.
4. Screwups. The costs associated with dealing with failures by one or more of the above.
There is an optimum mix of the first three that reduces your total labor cost to the lowest possible.
If you don't pay the Workers enough, they require more Supervision and Project Manager oversight, so those costs go up, quite probably more than you save by screwing the Workers. If you don't provide the additional oversight, you can pretty much guarantee that Screwups will consume much more than the savings on numbers 1 to 3.
There is also the fact that a new worker requires training and indoctrination. Initially, his cost is much higher than his production, so he's actually losing you money. Only as he learns and his need for oversight and the number and severity of his screwups goes down does he begin to turn a profit for the company.
As I said, a LOT of franchisees simply could not wrap their heads around these ideas. And a lot of them went bust pretty quick.Replies: @Anon
As I said, a LOT of franchisees simply could not wrap their heads around these ideas. And a lot of them went bust pretty quick.
What mistakes did they make?
thank goodness the dome hosts all kinds of college football games, including the kickoff classic (auburn v. u wash.), the sec title game (bama v. some huge underdog), the peach bowl, then likely one of the ncaa fb playoff games, too.
go flacons!
There is a good deal of truth to this, but the implications dual advantage of being a continental sized country with no real need to interact with other places (as you noted) plus being the most powerful country in the world that unique ways of doing things that are actually pretty backwards and lead to a lower quality of life are not corrected. There is no need to and people are proud of their unique ways.
So over time under these conditions the culture gets filled with all sorts of crap, which gets exposed for what it is when the empire eventually goes away. And more crap gets added during the imperial phase. Incidentally, this is something of a feature of every continental empire in history (they have all been on the Asian mainland).
Some of this applies to both maritime style empires and to continental sized countries that are pretty powerless, but not to the same extreme.
So, no American style tipping brings no benefit and its something we do because we can, same with restaurant wages that are only bearable because of the tipping.Replies: @Anon
So over time under these conditions the culture gets filled with all sorts of crap, which gets exposed for what it is when the empire eventually goes away. And more crap gets added during the imperial phase.
What are some examples of this “crap”?
I've come to the conclusion that it's a matter of prestige. Working at the MHIR has a reputation of being more dignified than flipping burgers, especially for people in their 30's and above as many MHIR workers are. Hence it can get away with very poor wages.Replies: @Anonymous
I think there are greater cognitive demands on Home Depot employees. They seem to be much more knowledgeable than fast food employees. The Home Depot employees tend to know about all the products and applications in their specific departments, and if you ask them about whatever you’re trying to fix or project you’re doing, they’re pretty good at figuring out what you’re looking for and need based on that.
In addition to general storewide training new Major Home Improvement Retailer employees have to go through "product knowledge" training in the departments to which they are assigned. Within 60 days they have to pass a department certification test - granted, it isn't too difficult - and are encouraged to get training and certification in one or two other departments. Depending on the department they are either required or strongly encouraged to get certified in operating forklifts and sometimes other types of power equipment. Skills-specific training - carpet and blind cutting, operating lumber saws, making keys, cutting and threading pipe, mixing paint, and so on - is once again either required or strongly encouraged.
Add to all this the fact that the work can be physically exhausting and there's a non-insignificant injury rate, the lower-that-McDonalds pay is especially obnoxious.Replies: @Daniel Chieh, @Lot
Now obviously they are very different businesses. But it's also clear there are advantages to the Costco approach.Replies: @ATate, @Hibernian
My local Costco must have the most sexist hiring manager around. ALL of the women are large breasted, it’s almost comical. Most of them are also attractive. There’s a few sourpusses in the bunch, but again stacked and racked.
Even my wife notices it.
working at Costco?
I suppose it's possible...
today I saw one driving a cement truck.
but probably she was just researching
a story for NPR.
I believe Chik fil A is more hands on with its franchisees and a lot of the franchisees tend to be practicing Christians. And many franchisees tend to recruit their employees through church, which might explain their employees.
The Entertainer (a toy shop) is closed on Sundays because the owner has religious beliefs.
Chick-Fil-A is run on Christian rather than Capitalist economic principles so they don’t share the Capitalist mania for paying the lowest wages they can get away with.
As a counter-example, take the two Shake Shacks at JFK airport, Terminal 4. Both are staffed entirely by blacks, mostly young (this 100% black policy is, however, not “discrimination” for some reason). The service is surly and very slow. You can just watch them working and see how inefficient they are, and how they really couldn’t care less.
On the upside, they do seem to be actual American blacks, whereas 99% of the other shop staff at JFK seem to be either over-the-border or off-the-boat types. It’s pretty amazing how some airport terminals run almost entirely on immigrant labor, at least on the customer facing side.
Immigrants may have a hard time getting jobs on the secure side of airports because of federal background check requirements. IINM there's a ten-year review period, listing all jobs held and places lived, I'm not sure if people who have been in the country for a shorter period can meet those standards. There also may be US citizenship requirements.Replies: @Achmed E. Newman
One of my subordinates used to work at In and Out and he said they did pre shift muster to inspect uniforms before starting the shift, like an LE org.
Yeah, Steve, I had heard about that, but forgot while making my comment above. I didn’t think that it was only 1 game out of the season! That leans toward downright stupidity, but I wonder if the people that run concessions reckoned that Chick-Fil-A would back off the Sunday closing just for them. Or, did the board of Chick-Fil-A figure the owner would relent? For one game a year (but maybe other events, that you may know about more than I) it seems silly. You may as well take all the equipment out and use it somewhere else the rest of the year. Mechanical stuff doesn’t do well just sitting around, and even stainless steel doesn’t last forever.
Having said that, I thought that CFA would make an exception to their Sunday rule for this.
Not too long ago many union jobs were available...the Teamsters dominated warehouse positions and trucking while even the cashiers at the largest American retailers were unionized into the 1980s....this is one reason Walmarts were kept out of the Northeast until 1992 , they waited until the unions were destroyed before opening stores in Pennsylvania, New Jersey and NY.
My father was a teamster, worked loading trucks and boxcars and earned $95,000 per year in 1980 and had better benefits than teachers. Today a warehouse worker in New Jersey earns just $14 per hour at Amazon and cannot work more than 30 hours per week while my father averaged 45 hours per week, getting time and a half for all his overtime hours...his average hourly wage was equal to $40 per hour in todays dollars...
My Aunt was a unionized cashier at the local A&P from 1960-1980 and retired with a pension...she earned the equivalent of $25 per hour when she retired and had 2 weeks paid vacation each year. Imagine if Walmart and Amazon had to pay the same wages we paid our retail and warehouse workers in 1980 ? or the local grocery stores had unionized cashiers earning $20 per hour with full benefits ?Replies: @RadicalCenter, @RadicalCenter, @ben tillman, @Ivy
Really? As that’s nearly forty years ago, that $95,000 would be at least $250,000 in today’s dollars — closer to $300,000 according to an inflation calculator.
Do you think perhaps three hundred grand is a bit much for that job?
Does that add to the cost of goods beyond what’s needed for the workers to be very well compensated and have very good lives?
Yep, I agree completely, Neoconned… except for the last part. Have you tried the spicy chicken sandwich? Of course, it’s still just fast food, so I don’t see it as high class at all. For your arteries’ sake, you’re better off not eating this stuff but once a week, along with the rest of the sugary, salty, fatty junk (yes, I know, it tastes great!)
There's no career there, however. If you want a career in fast food, you don't "work your way up." You quit, go to college, earn or raise some money, and buy a franchise.
With career fast fooders, you get 50-year-old men and women who complain that they haven't gotten raises, for that job they mastered within six months of being hired, and do no better now, but do worse in their customer-facing attitude because they are bitter. Or you get 30-year-olds who complain that the wages don't allow them to buy a home and have two kids. Duh.Replies: @Sean c, @eD, @Logan, @Anon, @The Z Blog, @Chris Mallory, @Travis, @E. Rekshun, @27 year old, @JerseyJeffersonian, @Alden
The long term problem is you have a class of people who think that it’s acceptable for there to be full time jobs that don’t pay enough to support a family.
That’s the same in the South too, YAA. This was done via legislation, as before there were the old “blue laws”.
I just don’t like the hypocrisy of it lots of the time. For example, some bars could stay open through Sunday morning (say till 2 A or so), but they had to pay a fee to the local gov. EVERY TIME. Let me get this right, government. You don’t believe in drinking on Sunday, but you do for about 30 pieces of silver? (I think it was about that much, but I can’t remember what year, and what spot silver was going for. ;-}
It is this transactional mind-set that results in seeing people in these jobs as merely economic units, like draught animals, that can be replaced with cheap foreign units when convenient. It's why the country is splintering along racial and class lines. It's also why the waitstaff spits in your food.Replies: @Achmed E. Newman, @ScarletNumber, @Corvinus
Hey, Z-man, some guys have been looking for you here.
Not too long ago many union jobs were available...the Teamsters dominated warehouse positions and trucking while even the cashiers at the largest American retailers were unionized into the 1980s....this is one reason Walmarts were kept out of the Northeast until 1992 , they waited until the unions were destroyed before opening stores in Pennsylvania, New Jersey and NY.
My father was a teamster, worked loading trucks and boxcars and earned $95,000 per year in 1980 and had better benefits than teachers. Today a warehouse worker in New Jersey earns just $14 per hour at Amazon and cannot work more than 30 hours per week while my father averaged 45 hours per week, getting time and a half for all his overtime hours...his average hourly wage was equal to $40 per hour in todays dollars...
My Aunt was a unionized cashier at the local A&P from 1960-1980 and retired with a pension...she earned the equivalent of $25 per hour when she retired and had 2 weeks paid vacation each year. Imagine if Walmart and Amazon had to pay the same wages we paid our retail and warehouse workers in 1980 ? or the local grocery stores had unionized cashiers earning $20 per hour with full benefits ?Replies: @RadicalCenter, @RadicalCenter, @ben tillman, @Ivy
P.S. But the bulk of people aren’t earning enough to support their families well and have any sense of security, that’s true. Cashiers and everyone you mention should indeed be paid more.
But where is the employer going to get the money from for the higher wages? Typically, some substantial part of the employer’s logical response will be some combination of raising prices and — if the wage increases are big enough relative to profits — cutting employee hours (perhaps by increasing automation).
I’d support a gradual LARGE increase in the minimum wage, but we need to offset the increased labor cost, especially for smaller employers. Lowering their income tax rates could do it. Employers would pay more to the people doing the work, and less to the government. A win-win.
I am coming to agree with you on this.
This includes stints at KFC, McDonald's, Wendy's, Pizza Hut, Sonic Drive Inn and Dairy Queen. Month or so back I found work as a security guard and finally got out of restaurants....
Anyway, I can understand the exotic appeal of Chic Til A to some. It's like how Jack in the Box and In and Out and Panda Express are all quite exotic to me....
That being said i worked for Chic Til A in 2007....back then it was still a mall food court joint....the food back then as now is insanely overrated and mediocre....however the notoriety over Chic Fil A began when their rednexk CEO denounced gays who then launched a boycott and kiss ins.
The rednexk did a counter "buycott" and somehow CFA became a cult brand over night with a fake veneer of high quality and class....Replies: @Achmed E. Newman
The guy did not “denounce” gays. He was talking about them in private conversations or interviews. That’s not the same as denouncing. All fast-food is about 1.5 x pricier than just 8 years ago, BTW. I don’t think Chick-Fil-A is too much higher, but I try to avoid all of it .. till I give in.
I wrote this in another comment, not modded yet, that I don’t see why you see this place as high-class. I don’t, and Panda Express, really? It’s just more sweet/salty/fatty junk food named for Chinese Generals who never won a battle.
People just don’t have too many ways of getting listened to, and money talks. Getting Chick-Fil-A instead of McDonalds (24x7x365/6 black, per Paul Kersey) once or twice a week beats hell out of writing an email to the virtual recycle bin of your congressman about how you feel about America’s Peak of Stupidity.
BTW, the Rednexk include your ass, Neoconned, I
hate todon’t mind telling you! I may be too, but I’ll have to read up on it from Jeff Foxworthy to make sure.… the New Yorker hates this chain – objects to an apparent Christian bias somewhere in the organisation…
Right you are, Buzz. This is right in my wheelhouse, and I may have been earlier than you and the NY times to this party. Actually, I remember thinking of this 15 years ago, when, where I lived, big cans of “recycling” went to the transfer station, just creating more work, to separate most of it into stuff going right into the landfill.
Here’s my post from the beginning of this year called “Toward Sustainable Stupidity”.
Your Recycling Gets Recycled, Right? Maybe, or Maybe Not
https://www.msn.com/en-us/money/markets/your-recycling-gets-recycled-right-maybe-or-maybe-not/ar-AAxXNmD?ocid=spartanntp
Mark down the NY Times as recycling skeptics.Replies: @Buzz Mohawk, @ben tillman
From the linked article:
Because no one ever tells people what is and isn’t recyclable.
On the upside, they do seem to be actual American blacks, whereas 99% of the other shop staff at JFK seem to be either over-the-border or off-the-boat types. It's pretty amazing how some airport terminals run almost entirely on immigrant labor, at least on the customer facing side.Replies: @prosa123, @Buffalo Joe
“99% of the other shop staff at JFK seem to be either over-the-border or off-the-boat types. It’s pretty amazing how some airport terminals run almost entirely on immigrant labor, at least on the customer facing side”
Immigrants may have a hard time getting jobs on the secure side of airports because of federal background check requirements. IINM there’s a ten-year review period, listing all jobs held and places lived, I’m not sure if people who have been in the country for a shorter period can meet those standards. There also may be US citizenship requirements.
Not too long ago many union jobs were available...the Teamsters dominated warehouse positions and trucking while even the cashiers at the largest American retailers were unionized into the 1980s....this is one reason Walmarts were kept out of the Northeast until 1992 , they waited until the unions were destroyed before opening stores in Pennsylvania, New Jersey and NY.
My father was a teamster, worked loading trucks and boxcars and earned $95,000 per year in 1980 and had better benefits than teachers. Today a warehouse worker in New Jersey earns just $14 per hour at Amazon and cannot work more than 30 hours per week while my father averaged 45 hours per week, getting time and a half for all his overtime hours...his average hourly wage was equal to $40 per hour in todays dollars...
My Aunt was a unionized cashier at the local A&P from 1960-1980 and retired with a pension...she earned the equivalent of $25 per hour when she retired and had 2 weeks paid vacation each year. Imagine if Walmart and Amazon had to pay the same wages we paid our retail and warehouse workers in 1980 ? or the local grocery stores had unionized cashiers earning $20 per hour with full benefits ?Replies: @RadicalCenter, @RadicalCenter, @ben tillman, @Ivy
No, it was equal to $40 per hour in 1980 dollars.
go flacons!Replies: @ben tillman
If there were ever a time or place to call it the Chik-Fil-A Bowl, surely it would be this thread.
“I think there are greater cognitive demands on Home Depot employees. They seem to be much more knowledgeable than fast food employees. The Home Depot employees tend to know about all the products and applications in their specific departments, and if you ask them about whatever you’re trying to fix or project you’re doing, they’re pretty good at figuring out what you’re looking for and need based on that.”
In addition to general storewide training new Major Home Improvement Retailer employees have to go through “product knowledge” training in the departments to which they are assigned. Within 60 days they have to pass a department certification test – granted, it isn’t too difficult – and are encouraged to get training and certification in one or two other departments. Depending on the department they are either required or strongly encouraged to get certified in operating forklifts and sometimes other types of power equipment. Skills-specific training – carpet and blind cutting, operating lumber saws, making keys, cutting and threading pipe, mixing paint, and so on – is once again either required or strongly encouraged.
Add to all this the fact that the work can be physically exhausting and there’s a non-insignificant injury rate, the lower-that-McDonalds pay is especially obnoxious.
Immigrants may have a hard time getting jobs on the secure side of airports because of federal background check requirements. IINM there's a ten-year review period, listing all jobs held and places lived, I'm not sure if people who have been in the country for a shorter period can meet those standards. There also may be US citizenship requirements.Replies: @Achmed E. Newman
Nah, there are recent immigrants all over the Minneapolis airport including out on the ramp. The TSA or whoever did a background check may find no unpaid traffic tickets and no arrests for the last 3 years. Before that back in Somalia, who knows WTF went on with these guys? It’s security theater my friend, and if you try to bring up these little loopholes, you’ll get mean looks, as it’s NOT VERY NICE!
Paying higher than minimum wage is a dynamic process--obviously you need to get productivity out of it. You can't just pay the same people more to do the same thing.Replies: @Daniel Chieh, @Hibernian
The central idea is that it helps with turnover, so that training isn’t lost. The general argument against that for low-paying work is that there isn’t much training to it.
In addition to general storewide training new Major Home Improvement Retailer employees have to go through "product knowledge" training in the departments to which they are assigned. Within 60 days they have to pass a department certification test - granted, it isn't too difficult - and are encouraged to get training and certification in one or two other departments. Depending on the department they are either required or strongly encouraged to get certified in operating forklifts and sometimes other types of power equipment. Skills-specific training - carpet and blind cutting, operating lumber saws, making keys, cutting and threading pipe, mixing paint, and so on - is once again either required or strongly encouraged.
Add to all this the fact that the work can be physically exhausting and there's a non-insignificant injury rate, the lower-that-McDonalds pay is especially obnoxious.Replies: @Daniel Chieh, @Lot
IIRC Home Depot was considered a good job because of its health/vacation benefits, which I imagine are completely absent in fast food. I don’t really have any personal knowledge to contribute to this, however.
On the upside, they do seem to be actual American blacks, whereas 99% of the other shop staff at JFK seem to be either over-the-border or off-the-boat types. It's pretty amazing how some airport terminals run almost entirely on immigrant labor, at least on the customer facing side.Replies: @prosa123, @Buffalo Joe
Pete, on a long layover at O’Hare I sat near a kiosk which sold ice cream cones. People would walk up place their order and the young black girl was pleasant and prompt. Most gave her a tip, but when two or more business suit guys would order and pay with a ten or twenty she would be more pleasant and chatty and palm a buck or two which she immediately slipped into her pocket. The customers never once counted their change.Probably palmed a hundred or more per day, plus tips.
Tim Hortons is big in WNY and huge in Southern Ontario. Almost every Dunkin Donuts locally has closed. Hortons, however, has a terrible store set-up and customer flow and you often see 8 to 10 employees working the counter and take of window, not counting kitchen staff. No way they could pay $17 to $20 per hour and they all have a “now hiring” banner in their windows.
Turns out it was black-owned and had majority black workers, completely unlike any other Chick-fil-A I patronized in my area. Service was terrible (not rude or hostile - those black kids were actually friendly - but it was just interminably slow and incompetent with mixed orders, missing items, etc.). This happens several times. My wife and I finally look at each other and go, "Hmmm. Maybe we'll just go back to the previous location we patronized even though it's a bit farther from us."
We stop going there for a while and then stop by again some months later. The workforce changed completely, about three quarters white and the rest East Asian. Service back to the usual Chick-fil-A standards. Twinkie family very happy. Wife and I found it a bit amusing that the black franchise owner apparently fired all his black workers and replaced them with whites and East Asians.Replies: @Anonymous, @Lot, @MBlanc46
Black employees think that because the boss is black he won’t mind if they slack off and steal from the store.
- They don't specifically recruit Church kids, but they do knowingly attract them, and when there is an opening they make a point of asking current workers if they can recommend a friend, instead of just sticking a sign in the window. So de facto they do often wind up with multiple kids from the same church/ family/ neighborhood, which in turn cultivates positive peer pressure to do well on the job.
- The number one thing they look for on applications are kids that are involved in something extracurricular. Church involvement is great, but it can be sports, clubs, music, whatever. They ask about hobbies in the interview process, and video games TV or books are all bad answers.
- They vet their franchisees VERY carefully. The corporate office really does care about employees, they make sure franchisees do too, and they make sure franchisees hire managers who do.
Crazy stuff, right?Replies: @Anon, @ScarletNumber
“They don’t specifically recruit Church kids, but they do knowingly attract them, and when there is an opening they make a point of asking current workers if they can recommend a friend, instead of just sticking a sign in the window”
Same way that once you hire a black manager, the staff will slowly become entirely black; mostly bros and homies from the hood.
Same with Indians in IT departments throughout America.
Part time workers get some relatively minor benefits such as dental and vision coverage but actual health insurance is only for full timers. At the store where I work about 80% of the workers are part time. It’s not as bad as it seems because most part time workers either have other jobs that provide full benefits (like me), are retirees on Medicare, or are young people still on their parents’ health insurance.
There's no career there, however. If you want a career in fast food, you don't "work your way up." You quit, go to college, earn or raise some money, and buy a franchise.
With career fast fooders, you get 50-year-old men and women who complain that they haven't gotten raises, for that job they mastered within six months of being hired, and do no better now, but do worse in their customer-facing attitude because they are bitter. Or you get 30-year-olds who complain that the wages don't allow them to buy a home and have two kids. Duh.Replies: @Sean c, @eD, @Logan, @Anon, @The Z Blog, @Chris Mallory, @Travis, @E. Rekshun, @27 year old, @JerseyJeffersonian, @Alden
The comment from @ 27 year old hits the nail square on the head. Props also to the other commenters who pointed out the outsourcing (and illegals) driving down wages, and also to those who remarked the degradation of the dignity of labor as the capitalist pricks suck up all of the profits, profits largely derived from their labor practices and their avoidance of every other sort of externality that goes with their businesses that should legitimately be their expense.
And you, Anon[133], can go suck it, you soulless, petty, cheapskate S.O.B.
Turns out it was black-owned and had majority black workers, completely unlike any other Chick-fil-A I patronized in my area. Service was terrible (not rude or hostile - those black kids were actually friendly - but it was just interminably slow and incompetent with mixed orders, missing items, etc.). This happens several times. My wife and I finally look at each other and go, "Hmmm. Maybe we'll just go back to the previous location we patronized even though it's a bit farther from us."
We stop going there for a while and then stop by again some months later. The workforce changed completely, about three quarters white and the rest East Asian. Service back to the usual Chick-fil-A standards. Twinkie family very happy. Wife and I found it a bit amusing that the black franchise owner apparently fired all his black workers and replaced them with whites and East Asians.Replies: @Anonymous, @Lot, @MBlanc46
The CfA by me has slow service because of the routine 20-50 people lines. At peak times you will wait 45 minutes to order then 10 more to receive your food. It is a large location that has someone dressed as a cow mascot outside frequently and UMC white kid birthday parties.
In n Out is often packed too, but more with HS students and parents while the kids at CfA are usually 5-10. They also do a better job of serving big crowds quickly. Both places are more likely to hire young whites, who almost never work at other drive thru chains in California.
It is this transactional mind-set that results in seeing people in these jobs as merely economic units, like draught animals, that can be replaced with cheap foreign units when convenient. It's why the country is splintering along racial and class lines. It's also why the waitstaff spits in your food.Replies: @Achmed E. Newman, @ScarletNumber, @Corvinus
I don’t think this is a true statement.
- They don't specifically recruit Church kids, but they do knowingly attract them, and when there is an opening they make a point of asking current workers if they can recommend a friend, instead of just sticking a sign in the window. So de facto they do often wind up with multiple kids from the same church/ family/ neighborhood, which in turn cultivates positive peer pressure to do well on the job.
- The number one thing they look for on applications are kids that are involved in something extracurricular. Church involvement is great, but it can be sports, clubs, music, whatever. They ask about hobbies in the interview process, and video games TV or books are all bad answers.
- They vet their franchisees VERY carefully. The corporate office really does care about employees, they make sure franchisees do too, and they make sure franchisees hire managers who do.
Crazy stuff, right?Replies: @Anon, @ScarletNumber
Why are books bad answers?
In addition to general storewide training new Major Home Improvement Retailer employees have to go through "product knowledge" training in the departments to which they are assigned. Within 60 days they have to pass a department certification test - granted, it isn't too difficult - and are encouraged to get training and certification in one or two other departments. Depending on the department they are either required or strongly encouraged to get certified in operating forklifts and sometimes other types of power equipment. Skills-specific training - carpet and blind cutting, operating lumber saws, making keys, cutting and threading pipe, mixing paint, and so on - is once again either required or strongly encouraged.
Add to all this the fact that the work can be physically exhausting and there's a non-insignificant injury rate, the lower-that-McDonalds pay is especially obnoxious.Replies: @Daniel Chieh, @Lot
Home Depot seems far more laid back than fast food. Mine has several sweet 70+ ladies who very slowly work the register, many store-adopted cats in the outdoor section who’ve been there for years and food dishes for them, floor staff that chat with customers for 10 mins at a time. The young guys get to work the giant lumber saws and keep the 3D printer demo in working order, the girls can spend 30 relaxing minutes watering the garden section plants.
There are more events than Falcons football at MBS. They host Major League Soccer on a full-time basis, college football on a sporadic basis, plus the Falcons host two pre-season games which are generally NOT held on Sundays.
Having said that, I thought that CFA would make an exception to their Sunday rule for this.
I don’t see how that is a problem. One should be able to support oneself with a full-time job, but a family is asking too much.
To clarify – my father earned $12 per hour as a teamster in 1980 , and most weeks worked another 5 hours of overtime at $18 per hour. Thus his average wage in 1980 was $12.75 which is equal to earning $40 an hour in 2018 dollars…in 1980 dollars he earned about $33,000 per year, which is about $95,000 today (according to the government but actually equal to earning $120,000 today)
In 1980 the average home in America could be purchased for $65,000 , while the average car sold for $7,400 (Japanese cars were actually less costly than domestic cars)…the min wage was $3.00 per hour…thus a teamster earned 4 times the min wage back in 1980….today the min wage is $11.00 in New Jersey yet the warehouse workers at Amazon earn just $12.50 per hour.
everything costs more than 4 times what things costs back in 1980, yet workers salaries are much less today than in 1980, mostly a result of importing 50 million hispanic workers from Latin America.
The overuse of pretty abusive “part-time” jobs to hide the actual underemployment rate in the US is criminal. Thanks for the information.
Here's an article on this topic:
https://www.stlouisfed.org/publications/regional-economist/july-2014/is-involuntary-parttime-employment-different-after-the-great-recession
http://www.clearonmoney.com/dw/lib/exe/fetch.php?w=480&media=public:pter_normd2014-07.png
I don't think people with two part time jobs adding up to 35+ hours who'd prefer one full time job are included. Maybe they should be tracked with their own category.
Krugman thinks employers are willing to offer more non-wage concessions because during the Great Recession they were hurt by sticky wages, basically the view that it is easier to fire someone than even a small cut to their nominal salary or hourly wage, which is awful for morale.
This implies obnoxious behavior by employers toward lower skill employees will decrease first before wages will increase, because the employer can bring back the obnoxious policies* later more easily than it can revoke raises. (*For instance, ending shifts early without notice when business is slow).
There's no career there, however. If you want a career in fast food, you don't "work your way up." You quit, go to college, earn or raise some money, and buy a franchise.
With career fast fooders, you get 50-year-old men and women who complain that they haven't gotten raises, for that job they mastered within six months of being hired, and do no better now, but do worse in their customer-facing attitude because they are bitter. Or you get 30-year-olds who complain that the wages don't allow them to buy a home and have two kids. Duh.Replies: @Sean c, @eD, @Logan, @Anon, @The Z Blog, @Chris Mallory, @Travis, @E. Rekshun, @27 year old, @JerseyJeffersonian, @Alden
Since the Regean amnesty more than 25 years ago fast food has become a life long career for Hispanic immigrants
Fast food and most of the food industry refuses to hire Americans
MacDonalds S&W and other places stared by hiring American teens and people needing crap jobs to keep a roof over their heads.
Fast food stopped hiring Americans decades ago and prefers adult illegal aliens whose children are supported by welfare and live in government subsidized housing.
Every time we go to any kind of restaurant we are supporting the displacement of Americans by employers who won’t hire Americans.
There are now and always have been plenty of life long adult workers in all kind of restaurants.
The homeless are the kind of people who once found life long employment and kept a roof over their heads by working in restaurants.
The entire food industry, from farms to food processing factories to warehouses to supermarkets to every kind of restaurant is the biggest employer of Hispanic illegal aliens and Hispanic low IQ criminal immigrants in the country
The illegal alien Hispanic workers are not the problem. The problem is the food industry itself. Put the CEOs and top executives of Tyson Macdonald’s and the rest of the food industry in jail and fine then for every illegal they’ve ever hired.
Capitalism and industry are the enemies of Whites. You think affirmative action was imposed on the business community by a racist government?
Think again. Capitalism loves affirmative action because it can get rid of White workers thru affirmative action
And don’t fool yourself that your education and skills are so special you can’t be replaced by a non White immigrant.
Tim Hortons is the worst f*%$*^% employer in Canada for bringing in “Temporary Foreign Workers” from places like the Philippines and paying them minimum wage. They actually held seminars advising other companies how to do the same thing, and donated money to former Prime Minister Stephen Harper (the northern George W. Bush) to get him to expand and extend the program.
I wouldn't be surprised if this caught on and became a very popular thing for him and other middle-end eateries like Chic-fil-A. Offering higher wages increases the qualifications of the candidate pool. More applications from guys like Marcus and Kenneth get through while fewer ones from guys like J'Marcus and Keith make it. Clever strategy to get "the right people." Star Bucks surreptitiously scared away lower class types by locking their bathrooms, Chinese restaurants play Chinese music to scare off undesirables, and lots of places focus on takeout so middle class patrons don't have to see the other types of people they serve.Replies: @Alden
Black neighborhoods specialize in take out to avoid all the fights running out without paying harassing the employees and the rest of it.
all the non chain take out places run by blacks are great money makers
My first guess at why food orders are messed up, kitchen staff’s poor command of the English language.
Finally, I just told her to give me $10.00 worth of "food" and a Coke. I don't recall what I got, but it was okay. I'm guessing the last employee off the boat has to work the window.Replies: @Achmed E. Newman, @ScarletNumber
Chick-fil-A, less gay, more pay.Replies: @Pat Boyle
I feel really out of it (or should I phrase that as ‘culturally disenfranchised’?). It’s like that fifties pop song “Green Door” – All I want to do is join the happy crowd behind the Green Door.
Chick-Fil-A was in the news a year or so ago and then, as now, all the iSteve commenters had much to say. But not me. I tried to go to a local Chick-Fil-A . But there are no Chick-Fil-A’s in Oakland. Nor are there any Walmart’s.
In many areas Oakland marches at the front of the social revolution. We gave the world Ebonics. Our mayor conspires with the criminal element against the police. But in the vital field of controversial retail store dimension – we are not to be seen.
http://www.nowtheendbegins.com/chick-fil-a-banned-from-opening-new-restaurant-in-denver-international-airport/Replies: @sayless
Green Door? Do you mean Green Day? They are one of those new combos that just came out. From the album Green by REM here's one of the very few songs from the genre of Geography Rock:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AKKqLl_ZEEYReplies: @Jenner Ickham Errican
Chick-Fil-A was in the news a year or so ago and then, as now, all the iSteve commenters had much to say. But not me. I tried to go to a local Chick-Fil-A . But there are no Chick-Fil-A's in Oakland. Nor are there any Walmart's.
In many areas Oakland marches at the front of the social revolution. We gave the world Ebonics. Our mayor conspires with the criminal element against the police. But in the vital field of controversial retail store dimension - we are not to be seen.Replies: @Daniel Chieh, @J.Ross, @dr kill, @Achmed E. Newman
Maybe they just banned the construction of Chick-Fil-A?
http://www.nowtheendbegins.com/chick-fil-a-banned-from-opening-new-restaurant-in-denver-international-airport/
Even my wife notices it.Replies: @Haxo Angmark
Jewesses?
working at Costco?
I suppose it’s possible…
today I saw one driving a cement truck.
but probably she was just researching
a story for NPR.
Chick-Fil-A was in the news a year or so ago and then, as now, all the iSteve commenters had much to say. But not me. I tried to go to a local Chick-Fil-A . But there are no Chick-Fil-A's in Oakland. Nor are there any Walmart's.
In many areas Oakland marches at the front of the social revolution. We gave the world Ebonics. Our mayor conspires with the criminal element against the police. But in the vital field of controversial retail store dimension - we are not to be seen.Replies: @Daniel Chieh, @J.Ross, @dr kill, @Achmed E. Newman
You are also sadder for the lack of Zaxby’s (spicy fried chicken, mainly in the south) and Culver’s (ice cream and quality fast food, in the midwest).
In California at least community colleges have math and English entrance exams, and you’re placed in remedial classes if you don’t pass. Very many students don’t, even those who “passed” the courses in high school. So I think a racist teacher may not be the problem. Taking her first standardized math test is the problem.
Ultimately the problem is that too many jobs require a college degree that don’t really need college-level education, so people who are not really college material go to college, on loans.
Math above algebra is difficult, and studying won’t fix the problem. High schools graduate students by narrowing the course material and teaching cookbook recipe style problem solving, which you can cram on before a test and pass a test with without really understanding the math. You need an IQ of about 100, 110, and 120, respectively, to really understand algebra, algebra 2, and differential calculus. Most high school students should not be taking these courses to begin with.
OT:
https://www.wsj.com/articles/mike-meru-has-1-million-in-student-loans-how-did-that-happen-1527252975
Everything wrong with the student loan industry in one article. The comments are mostly outraged, at the borrower , as they rightly should be.
This boss is likely making a mistake in hoping his high wage strategy pays off for him.
In college I worked for an office products retail store in Century City. The owners tried paying minimum wage for the delivery people and order filling staff. It was one loser after another. One of our drivers even showed up shit-faced drunk. The company started paying the few people worth a damn enough to keep them there with regular good raises. Soon they had a smaller and better crew that ran themselves so the owners could spend their time trying to get new clients. Their nrevenue took off and thei constant worries about paying their investors off was gone. They sold the business for a lot of money.
My Dad used to be a foreman managing people in a fab shop in south central LA. He had a similar situation. With low pay people don’t care if they have the job or not and quit at the drop of a hat.
Chick-Fil-A was in the news a year or so ago and then, as now, all the iSteve commenters had much to say. But not me. I tried to go to a local Chick-Fil-A . But there are no Chick-Fil-A's in Oakland. Nor are there any Walmart's.
In many areas Oakland marches at the front of the social revolution. We gave the world Ebonics. Our mayor conspires with the criminal element against the police. But in the vital field of controversial retail store dimension - we are not to be seen.Replies: @Daniel Chieh, @J.Ross, @dr kill, @Achmed E. Newman
Brother, spare a thought for Your Black Muslim Bakery. Perhaps they were not controversial enough for y’all.
Chick-Fil-A was in the news a year or so ago and then, as now, all the iSteve commenters had much to say. But not me. I tried to go to a local Chick-Fil-A . But there are no Chick-Fil-A's in Oakland. Nor are there any Walmart's.
In many areas Oakland marches at the front of the social revolution. We gave the world Ebonics. Our mayor conspires with the criminal element against the police. But in the vital field of controversial retail store dimension - we are not to be seen.Replies: @Daniel Chieh, @J.Ross, @dr kill, @Achmed E. Newman
Yes, you are out of it, Pat, because it was 6 years ago, not 1! Haha, don’t feel bad, I’d estimated 3 years when I wrote a post about it, but then Michelle Malkin’s column set the date of that boycott/buycott thing at summer of 2012.
Green Door? Do you mean Green Day? They are one of those new combos that just came out. From the album Green by REM here’s one of the very few songs from the genre of Geography Rock:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zk15b2HJh2oReplies: @Achmed E. Newman
I think you should check the current definition of Full – Time, son. That is to say, there isn’t one. It looks to me like the Deep State is in on this, too.
Yes, this would be a Peachy spot for such an observation.
The government has long kept track of the share of workers who are part time but want to be full time.
Here’s an article on this topic:
https://www.stlouisfed.org/publications/regional-economist/july-2014/is-involuntary-parttime-employment-different-after-the-great-recession
Here’s a long term graph of involuntary part timers
I don’t think people with two part time jobs adding up to 35+ hours who’d prefer one full time job are included. Maybe they should be tracked with their own category.
Krugman thinks employers are willing to offer more non-wage concessions because during the Great Recession they were hurt by sticky wages, basically the view that it is easier to fire someone than even a small cut to their nominal salary or hourly wage, which is awful for morale.
This implies obnoxious behavior by employers toward lower skill employees will decrease first before wages will increase, because the employer can bring back the obnoxious policies* later more easily than it can revoke raises. (*For instance, ending shifts early without notice when business is slow).
Now obviously they are very different businesses. But it's also clear there are advantages to the Costco approach.Replies: @ATate, @Hibernian
Costco is markedly more urban than Wal-Mart and I’m sure that accounts for at least some of the wage difference.
In all seriousness, I always wondered how chick-fil-a managed to find fast food employees that were so darn motivated. I mean, MY PLEASURE?? Jesus, I had to work a shitty job at McDonald’s coming up, and I was on the fast track because I spoke English and could count money. How Chick-fil-a was getting and holding on to what look like Salt Lake City’s premiere AP students in every town in the country, I just don’t know.
Paying higher than minimum wage is a dynamic process--obviously you need to get productivity out of it. You can't just pay the same people more to do the same thing.Replies: @Daniel Chieh, @Hibernian
It’s what Henry Ford did.
Not too long ago many union jobs were available...the Teamsters dominated warehouse positions and trucking while even the cashiers at the largest American retailers were unionized into the 1980s....this is one reason Walmarts were kept out of the Northeast until 1992 , they waited until the unions were destroyed before opening stores in Pennsylvania, New Jersey and NY.
My father was a teamster, worked loading trucks and boxcars and earned $95,000 per year in 1980 and had better benefits than teachers. Today a warehouse worker in New Jersey earns just $14 per hour at Amazon and cannot work more than 30 hours per week while my father averaged 45 hours per week, getting time and a half for all his overtime hours...his average hourly wage was equal to $40 per hour in todays dollars...
My Aunt was a unionized cashier at the local A&P from 1960-1980 and retired with a pension...she earned the equivalent of $25 per hour when she retired and had 2 weeks paid vacation each year. Imagine if Walmart and Amazon had to pay the same wages we paid our retail and warehouse workers in 1980 ? or the local grocery stores had unionized cashiers earning $20 per hour with full benefits ?Replies: @RadicalCenter, @RadicalCenter, @ben tillman, @Ivy
Teamsters were good to me as part of the Brotherhood, contributing to my college savings and providing some decent work at the time. I made double what my non-union pals made, not a big windfall but very helpful.
My brother worked in those kind of jobs when he was a teen and has both BA and MBA from a top 20 university, Northwestern.
Many HD employees are knowledgeable about their products and departments, but I found that you may need to ask a few of them a few times to get good answers. Some are retired contractors with a wealth of knowledge while others may be just a You Tube how-to video or two ahead of the customer.
Been reading the WSJ, The Atlantic and Keith Williamson’s “White working class deserves die” have you?
Yesterday capitalists got rid of White factory workers, today they’re getting rid of White STEM workers tomorrow who knows? Maybe you.
IIRC, In-n-Out restaurants are corporate owned, and the founder started expanded partly so he could offer opportunities to longterm employees.
Malcolm Gladwell: “I mean, closing on the Sabbath is an idea that was invented a couple thousand years ago. How many other social-policy ideas from back then do we still use? Not a lot.”
This problem crosses all lines, racial, ethnic, age, sex, etc. Your statement that focuses only on white workers does a disservice to the white working class, which is probably the most abused group in America now.
I’ve managed all kinds of employees (though only in office environments):
A lazy, middle-aged Jewish man from Greenwich, Connecticut did the bare minimum, slowly. Not a go-to guy for anything, and certainly not a good example of great achievers. But there was also a young Jewish woman who did a good job and learned quickly.
Blacks were often more trouble than they were worth. Seriously the worst type of employees you can have. (One of the worst was a Haitian man who is now the minister of his own church!) But there were other blacks who were fine, and some very good.
A smart Muslim college guy had a good work ethic and became a go-to kid for many things, but a lazy Bangladeshi Muslim girl called in sick all the time and was listless and disinterested when she actually came in.
Some women wandered off constantly and didn’t work much (the worst was an Albanian) and there were men who came in late and pushed the envelope — with an attitude about it (the worst was an American).
Crappy employees come from all demographic groups.
Overall you can just assume the 80/20 rule: 20% of your people will do 80% of the work. Another 20% will cause 80% of your problems… and so on. If there were no laws and you didn’t have a conscience, you would shoot the troublemakers, fire the middle ones who don’t do much, and keep your top 20%. That would be workplace eugenics, and it would revolutionize our economy.
If my stepson can hold a job there, they must be laid-back.
Thing is, the minimum wage is increasing to $15 an hour.
Chick-fil-A, like Costco, Trader Joes, and similar establishments wants to hire shiny employees. You know, the kind that are friendly, diligent, functional, and show up to work every day on time and have enough intellectual horsepower to be flexible enough for the way their employer rolls when they experience a surge in business. I’ve seen just how fast Chick fil A can move their lines—they like Disney World actually study, practice, and innovate in queuing theory.
When the minimum wage becomes $15 an hour, they may actually need to offer 18 so they can continue to get the shiny employees. Likely the corporation is using a pilot to see whether they can run a busy store with slightly fewer but shinier employees.
Hobby Lobby stores are closed on Sunday as well. Stores opening on Thanksgiving evening really gets me torqued. Almost as much as my nieces and nephews heading out to shop in them.
We were just subjected to a very stern lecture delivered by an exasperated lady at work. The subject of her harangue was Chinese dissatisfaction with the purity of American recycling streams. I’m pretty sure the response to her speech by my coworkers will please neither her nor the objects of her concern.
all the non chain take out places run by blacks are great money makersReplies: @Anonymous
Some Japanese restaurants, mostly of the fast food variety with limited menu items, have vending machines inside or outside of the restaurant selling tickets for food items that you give to the workers inside.
This has the advantage of having no cash handling for the staff. In Japan this is mainly for efficiency purposes, but in the U.S. it would also reduce pilfering of cash by staff.
One problem in implementing this in the U.S. is that paper money reading machines in Japan (and also change machines, paper money slots on drink vending machines, subway ticket machines) are extremely reliable and do not require the money to be inserted in any particular orientation. Also, Japanese don’t wad up bills and the banks change out bills with any wear.
In the U.S. I’ve never run across a bill reader that wasn’t broken or that didn’t require a dozen attempts at inserting money. Another question is how secure U.S. paper money is. With fewer security features it would be easier to make fake money to fake out bill readers. Only an idiot would risk jail for a fast food meal, but there are plenty of idiots in black neighborhoods in the U.S.
The handful of Chick-Fil-A’s around here definitely employ workers who are a cut above competing sandwich places. They’re right out of a 1950’s TV commercial where the waitress always smiles and the filling station attendant wears a uniform and cleans your windshield. Oh, and the help at Chick-Fil-A is noticeably whiter than most other fast food places, too. Maybe that’s just in this region.
The food is tasty, as well. Politics influences my perception very little. There are other pro-Christian businesses that I’m not impressed with.
To be fair, it’s also my perception that most other fast food places are friendlier and more service oriented than they used to be, white help or not. Contrast that to about 25 years ago when a black ghetto princess at McDonald’s (with hundred dollar fingernails) scolded me and said God was going to get me for reporting her to her manager for rudeness. It seemed like they were really scraping the bottom of the barrel back then.
I wrote this in another comment, not modded yet, that I don't see why you see this place as high-class. I don't, and Panda Express, really? It's just more sweet/salty/fatty junk food named for Chinese Generals who never won a battle.
People just don't have too many ways of getting listened to, and money talks. Getting Chick-Fil-A instead of McDonalds (24x7x365/6 black, per Paul Kersey) once or twice a week beats hell out of writing an email to the virtual recycle bin of your congressman about how you feel about America's Peak of Stupidity.
BTW, the Rednexk include your ass, Neoconned, I
hate todon't mind telling you! I may be too, but I'll have to read up on it from Jeff Foxworthy to make sure.Replies: @AnonWhy do you try to avoid all of it?
Same way that once you hire a black manager, the staff will slowly become entirely black; mostly bros and homies from the hood.Replies: @E. Rekshun
Same way that once you hire a black manager, the staff will slowly become entirely black; mostly bros and homies from the hood.
Same with Indians in IT departments throughout America.
I used to read yachting magazines. In japan , where the yachting community is small its hard to sell a magazine. BUT I noticed that contrary to the american strategy of lowering costs and street price, one magazine greatly increased the quantity of the photography, the paper, and the printing quality and, of course, the selling price. People who like sailboats were willing to pay for quality.
I wonder if american businesses ever consider the hi-quality, hi-price strategy?
I wonder if american businesses ever consider the hi-quality, hi-price strategy?Replies: @Steve Sailer
A guy named Steve Jobs tried the high quality, high cost route. How’d that work out for him?
Green Door? Do you mean Green Day? They are one of those new combos that just came out. From the album Green by REM here's one of the very few songs from the genre of Geography Rock:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AKKqLl_ZEEYReplies: @Jenner Ickham Errican
LOL. Here’s one from another great album of that era:
It is this transactional mind-set that results in seeing people in these jobs as merely economic units, like draught animals, that can be replaced with cheap foreign units when convenient. It's why the country is splintering along racial and class lines. It's also why the waitstaff spits in your food.Replies: @Achmed E. Newman, @ScarletNumber, @Corvinus
“You’re still trapped in the transactional mind-set of cosmopolitan globalism that says you can only reach your potential in a self-actualizing “career.””
You are assuming that this mind-set is a given, that globalists and elitists push this agenda onto their drone workers.
“Most people are happy to have jobs and get their self-worth from friends, family and community.”
In reality, people are generally are happy as a result of the extrinsic and intrinsic motivations they receive when employed in their occupation of choice, with self-worth derived from their own levels of success and how others perceive them.
“It is this transactional mind-set that results in seeing people in these jobs as merely economic units, like draught animals, that can be replaced with cheap foreign units when convenient.”
Some people inevitably feel this way, especially in the manufacturing sector or the computer industry.
“It’s why the country is splintering along racial and class lines.
In some cases.
“It’s also why the waitstaff spits in your food.”
That’s being overly dramatic.
In N Out seems to have tried a similar thing enterprise-wide. They pay more to start and have a career path (rumor has it that store managers can make six figures).
In N Out stands out in SoCal (the only place it has a large number of stores) in that is=ts workforce typically speaks unaccented English and reflects the local demography. In fact, I was at one off the 78 in Northern San Diego county and had the weird experience of a predominantly young, white English speaking staff serving a predominantly Mexican/Latino clientele.
The last time I went to Wendy’s drive through, the lady couldn’t understand me, nor I her.
Finally, I just told her to give me $10.00 worth of “food” and a Coke. I don’t recall what I got, but it was okay. I’m guessing the last employee off the boat has to work the window.
In any event, it is criminal that they would hire someone who can't speak English to work the drive through. She should have worked in assembly or on clean up.
http://www.nowtheendbegins.com/chick-fil-a-banned-from-opening-new-restaurant-in-denver-international-airport/Replies: @sayless
Chick-Fil-A would be out of place at Denver Int’l Airport. That place is full of satanic imagery.
I think the Boston Consulting Group made much use of or popularized the price/quality matrix. Not sure exactly how they used it. But, it’s compelling and simple. Our local inland steel mills occupied the high price/low quality quadrant no later than 1960. Twenty years later they were toast.
Health reasons, Anon-198. I may have not been clear; I meant that I try to avoid all fast-food.
Finally, I just told her to give me $10.00 worth of "food" and a Coke. I don't recall what I got, but it was okay. I'm guessing the last employee off the boat has to work the window.Replies: @Achmed E. Newman, @ScarletNumber
LOL
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zk15b2HJh2oReplies: @Achmed E. Newman
Thanks, Mr. Errican. That band has a sound a lot like that of The Ocean Blue, a band who, to me, sounded British like this band, but were from Hershey, Pennsylvania.
Wikipedia:Can't go wrong with that.
Another great one. Instant nostalgia! When their first single was released I bought the album on cassette.
Wikipedia:
Can’t go wrong with that.
Not great, but low quality and very high prices worked even better for him.
What mistakes did they make?Replies: @Logan
Obviously a wide variety.
This particular franchise system did projects. The most common failure was the inability to see that the single most important thing their company needed to do was to do a good job on every project. Which meant doing a good job on every step of that project.
Instead, many of the franchisees, often ex mid or upper level big-company management types who thought they wanted “their own business,” preferred to sit around at the office and issue directives to the troops. They looked down on their managers and supervisors and quite literally despised the worker bees. “We lose money on every project but we make it up on volume!”
Amost as common was “I must be the big kahuna in every respect.” The franchise system was set up on an insanely complex commission structure. There was no way for an employee to make much money without making even more for the franchisee (and franchisor). But I observed numerous franchisees cutting commission percentages for employees who were “making too much money.” Who of course promptly left, taking their competence and profitability with them.
A side aspect of the “big kahuna syndrome” was the guy who had to make every decision, no matter how small. The functional organizational chart of his business therefore resembled a spider web rather than a pyramid, with every decision having to go through the boss and then back to the field. Choked possibility of growth right down.
In college I worked for an office products retail store in Century City. The owners tried paying minimum wage for the delivery people and order filling staff. It was one loser after another. One of our drivers even showed up shit-faced drunk. The company started paying the few people worth a damn enough to keep them there with regular good raises. Soon they had a smaller and better crew that ran themselves so the owners could spend their time trying to get new clients. Their nrevenue took off and thei constant worries about paying their investors off was gone. They sold the business for a lot of money.
My Dad used to be a foreman managing people in a fab shop in south central LA. He had a similar situation. With low pay people don't care if they have the job or not and quit at the drop of a hat.Replies: @Logan
Used to run a business where the job load was uneven and completely unpredictable. So we tried to keep a core of key employees busy doing grunt work during the slow times, and everybody moved up a step or two when we got busy, bringing in first part-time on call people and then actual temps to do the low-level work.
Interesting thing about temps. We initially took whoever the agency sent us. All the usual problems.
Then we told the agency we’d pay three bucks more per hour if the agency gave half to the employees but sent us their best. This would be something like $7 and $3.50 in today’s money.
BIG difference. The temps we got actually wanted to work hard enough to stay with us and keep earning the extra money. Productivity soared. Screwups plummeted. Supervisors and managers could spend their time actually doing their jobs or contributing to production instead of running around trying to play catchup on problems.
The agencies told us hardly any other company used this approach.
Finally, I just told her to give me $10.00 worth of "food" and a Coke. I don't recall what I got, but it was okay. I'm guessing the last employee off the boat has to work the window.Replies: @Achmed E. Newman, @ScarletNumber
If you were the real Jeff Albertson, $10 would just about cover your drive home.
In any event, it is criminal that they would hire someone who can’t speak English to work the drive through. She should have worked in assembly or on clean up.
It may seem like a bizarre lucky lottery shooting star for an entry level job now to provide a living wage, but before the ramp-up in immigration and the consequent drop in wages, it used to be the norm that young Americans starting out in the world could pay the bills on the salaries they received.
Thanks.
I passed by a Chick-Fil-A kiosk (booth? outlet?) at one of the terminals at Calgary International a little while back. I was slightly surprised to see that it was closed, but then realized that it was Sunday.
Turns out it was black-owned and had majority black workers, completely unlike any other Chick-fil-A I patronized in my area. Service was terrible (not rude or hostile - those black kids were actually friendly - but it was just interminably slow and incompetent with mixed orders, missing items, etc.). This happens several times. My wife and I finally look at each other and go, "Hmmm. Maybe we'll just go back to the previous location we patronized even though it's a bit farther from us."
We stop going there for a while and then stop by again some months later. The workforce changed completely, about three quarters white and the rest East Asian. Service back to the usual Chick-fil-A standards. Twinkie family very happy. Wife and I found it a bit amusing that the black franchise owner apparently fired all his black workers and replaced them with whites and East Asians.Replies: @Anonymous, @Lot, @MBlanc46
Similar to my black next door neighbor, who sacked his black lawn service (with matching tee shirts and a new truck with fancy lettering) and engaged Mexicans, who wore whatever and drove an old truck. The black guys just weren’t reliable.
I discussed Anglo-American analytical philosophy at Deux Magots and they kicked me and my dog out. (Just kidding.)