Marginalium

Bad Service Is A Sign Of A Better World. I’m not so sure I agree? :

These entitled complainers that you absolutely cannot empathize with? The mechanism behind their comtemptible behavior is the same that leads you to tip 18% before leaving the Cheesecake Factory in a huff. The world has moved on, gotten better, and brought Baumol’s inescapable cost disease with it. The time and attention of humans is more expensive than ever. The pandemic brought with it a shock to the hospitality labor market that is still rippling today. A lot of people learned about the market value of their labor and those that got out first have reported that life is often better on the other side, that the pay was better than expected and their work involved immeasurably fewer misogynistic sad dads and spiraling white wine Karens. Wages have of course adjusted, but so has employment. I don’t have the data in front me, but anecdotally I’m seeing fewer hosts and table bussers, more tops per server, more lunch shifts stretched across a single assistant manager and server duo. That means less service on average with a higher variance in quality.