The Great Resignation, Part 4
I take a call at our pizza place.
Customer: “My pizza is fifteen minutes late! I was told you might be taking longer, but this is ridiculous!”
Me: “Yes, sir, I am sorry. We are receiving a lot of orders tonight, and we’re short-staffed, so we’re trying our best with the backlog.”
The truth is that we’ve been short-staffed for a year, but it’s been difficult to retain staff and now the cracks are showing.
Customer: “Then hire more people! That’s not my problem! Get my pizza to me in five minutes or I’m demanding a refund!”
I hand the phone over to my manager, who apologizes and tries to explain the situation. As he’s listening to the customer rant and rave, something inside him snaps, and he decides he has had enough. This is the conversation as relayed to us:
Customer: “Ugh, it’s because no one wants to work anymore!”
Manager: “No, sir. At the moment, I am the longest-serving manager here, and I have been here for fifteen months. I am singlehandedly holding the store together, but I am overworked and tired of losing employees because Corporate won’t allow me to give out raises. Any raises.”
Customer: “Well, you’re fine! I was talking about—”
Manager: “My assistant manager is part-time because he found a better job and the only reason he’s sticking around at all is to help me out as some kind of favor, which I hate asking of him, but I have no other options. And I know he’s leaving soon. The other two assistant managers have said that when he leaves, they leave, as they know what a s***-storm is going to be coming our way when that happens, and we can’t retain staff because of s***ty wages.”
Customer: “Look, I didn’t mean to—”
Manager: “And as far as our drivers go, we have one closer and one other who is possibly sticking around but who also will need to leave if their current schedule isn’t honored after the mass exodus, which it won’t be because, again, I can’t hire anyone, and who expects them to prioritize this job over college?”
Customer: “I’m sorry, I was just ven—”
Manager: “You were just venting. Yes, well, so am I! The next time you walk into a place or call a place and say, ‘No one wants to work anymore,’ what you should be saying is, ‘No one wants to be a slave for minimum wage, but that’s all that Corporate is allowing us to offer, and those that are left are trying to keep going with fewer and fewer people.’ Unless you’d like to come and do twelve-hour shifts for $7.25 per hour?”
Customer: “I’ll… be sure to tip my driver when he gets here.”
Manager: “Thank you” *Click*
The mass exodus happened two weeks later. We all walked out, apart from one assistant manager who was desperately retained by Corporate with a raise, but he told us in our old chat group that, a month later, they still can’t reopen the store because they won’t budge on minimum wage.
Related:
The Great Resignation, Part 3
The Great Resignation, Part 2
The Great Resignation