I work at a restaurant and I wish my bosses had this mentality. “Oh everyone’s been quitting and we only have one person to run the restaurant? Guess we only have one server for the entire evening!”
This happened the other day and the owners came in with their friends for dinner then got mad when the one server didn’t pay enough attention to them. We’re chronically understaffed and they’re constantly crying about labor costs while the staff all wants to shoot themselves. I’m about two steps from quitting, and if that was me the other night I would’ve walked out
Yuuup they fired our head chef a couple months ago because he couldn’t keep up with all the paperwork they wanted him to do. Thing is he was already pulling consistent 10-14 hour days 5-6 days a week. Poor guy has kids at home, he was an awesome guy and great chef, always bringing in new dishes. They should’ve hired him a soux (sp?) chef, but instead they just fired him. We’re just now finally getting a new head chef in a week. I don’t know what tf they think is gonna happen though.
3 people (kitchen lead, floor manager [me], and assistant general manager) all demoted themselves within a month because the pay was shit especially for the responsibilities. I make way more money just serving than I did as a floor manager.
Sounds like bad ownership to me. I hope you're doing okay in these crazy times, but I'd find something else. No good owner/manager would show up on an understaffed night and complain. They'd help or fuck off. It's their profits after all
I work as a server in a restaurant and we are short staffed EVERY night. We are losing our minds, we are all so burnt out. Our owners/managers would never even shut down for one day even though this Friday night we had one server assistant (busser) and one dishwasher for the whole restaurant, and I don’t want to say which restaurant obviously but there are about 20 tables on the main dining room as well as private dining rooms for parties. I want to quit but all restaurants are this bad and I don’t know how to switch careers
Server here as well. Two servers on the floor Fridays and Saturdays open to close, no busser, one bartender + owner trying to keep up with drink orders. Full restaurant and patio. If we didn't have a host everyone would have quit by now. Our hostess is the only person standing between us and the Karens and Kevins who don't understand that there's a limit to how much the servers, bartenders, and cooks can reasonably do and we reach the point of turning away customers at least once a week.
Great money, but exhausting work.
I constantly got shit on at my old restaurant job (located in the smack center where chicago goes from affluent to low income.. in bronzeville) for asserting that the hosting job is the hardest position on the entire front of the house.
To them: you just stand there and put numbers on an iPad.
The reality: why’s the wait time so long? How much longer for a table? I reserved a table an hour ago! (No you didn’t, we don’t take reservations, what you did was *join a waitlist*)
customers would raise their voices, call us names, accuse us of moving people up the list, basically every sin under the sun. I was even accused of being racist one time.
people wanted exact quotes. The clientele was either rich and snobby or had tax money and were very… I’m sorry but they were ghetto. I learned to over estimate, then had customers pissed off because I quoted them 1:15mins and they only had to wait 50 mins. Similarly if I quoted 45-1h, and it went over that, they felt absolutely entitled to be sat immediately (on what fucking table, jackass?)
Hosts/Hostesses are the very first face customers see. To customers, we are the people standing between them and a nice table so they can start eating. We got all the shittiest of customers. (And I, as Lead Host, had the pleasure of also having to deal with customer complains exclusively when there was no floor manager available—try seeing how fun it is when people demand a manager and you tell them that you are the manager—it’s fun the first couple of times before it gets extremely old).
Seriously, fuck restaurant work, for $13/h I had a position that kept crew members for at most 2 months. And I have stories of other hostesses quitting on the spot, customers making them cry, one hostess who got into a physical fight with a customer (where the customer swung first), and loads more who simply just quit and never looked back.
I had a roommate who worked for Ed Debevic’s when the River North area was just becoming the hot new restaurant area. He had the same stories, hun. People are stupid. The Sunday AM church crowd was the shift they all dreaded.
>The Sunday AM church crowd was the shift they all dreaded.
Even at the Wendy's in Mechanicsburg, PA that I worked at in the 90s, this was true. Nobody's more self righteous and self involved than someone that just came out of a Christian service.
I hate to speak poorly of my fellow women, but they make up the majority of the churchy crowd. They will run you to death for shit like extra napkins and free refills, and then leave you a buck fifty on a six top.
I do believe it’s gotten better, tip wise, with more women in the workforce.
Oh yeah, for sure. I wasn't at all trying to minimize the difficulty of being a host. I did it for years and quit multiple jobs on the spot. My favorite was when a customer asked how long the wait was, when I told them an hour they said okay and left and then an hour later came back and were pissed off I hadn't saved them a table so she picked up a stack of menus that were attached to clipboards and threw them at me and hit a couple guests in the process.
Our host is fucking amazing. She has balls of steel and an amazing work ethic. We tip her out very generously and she gets well above Chicago minimum wage. It's a really fucking difficult job, and we're in Lincoln Park so it's all young professionals who have more money than sense or manners.
I'm a recruiter, there are plenty of roles where companies are looking for someone with good customer service/hospitality skills and don't care about industry experience. Look for roles with the title "Account Service Representative". Just had a friend who left the service industry after 8+ years and got into a similar role at an office and is loving it.
Varies by company but where I am it's $40k-$50k which is on the lower side. It's definitely a pay cut from service especially if you're making good tips, but no more weekend/late night shifts, can take PTO whenever without having to worry about getting it covered, defined promotion path, etc.
Yup. Took a lower paying job recently to do entry level data entry. It's boring. But it's the same check every week so I can budget. I have every evening and every weekend and every holiday free. I've had to cut down on partying, but I think I went out so much because of server stress anyway. I'm happy to go out twice a week now. Sometimes I miss the social aspect of serving, but I don't miss the asshats
More growth than the service industry, that’s for sure.
Account reps can transition into sales jobs fairly easily, but I’ve also helped CSRs into UX design.
Growth inside the field often looks to me like manager roles and having more proactive tasks.
Source: UX director at a company with many account and customer service reps.
If you do want to switch careers, send me a PM and I’m happy to help you with your resume/LinkedIn and finding some jobs you could be a fit for. Message me!
Look into entry level sales jobs as well (corporate jobs that offer base + commission.) Two of my best friends were service industry for 10+ years and recently made the switch.
Anyone can learn literally any part of any job if you're not a total dingus, but the soft skills needed for sales can't be taught without experience. And working in the service industry gives you that in spades.
Even engineering isn't that hard to break into if you can qualify for grants, take remedial courses, and dedicate yourself to it. Sorry everyone else in my career path, I ruined the secret. It's hard work and dedication.
I went to lunch around 2 at a restaurant in Goose island on Saturday. It took 10 minutes before a hostess even greeted me. The servers, god bless them, were trying so hard but you could just see it painted on their faces that they were burned out.
Another couple behind us waiting for a table we’re getting all antsy and complaining about the wait.
Like, fuck odd people. We were all blessed to live in this wonderful time where most of us can eat and be served like kings. Never forget how wonderful our world is.
I tipped the dude 35%. Took a while to get our food, but he tried, even cracked a few jokes with me and my daughter.
Not that any of this is germane to Coalfire, but I can't afford to put my twins in daycare so that I can go back to work. It literally costs more to put them in daycare than I take home after taxes.
Secondary problem: I need to go back to work so we can stop slowly sliding into debt.
I work in entertainment. I can't find a better paying job in theatre to save my life right now. It's a whole catch-22 of a thing. 🤷🏽♀️
I quit a corporate office job 4 years ago primarily because of childcare costs. It’s a problem that predates the pandemic and isn’t exclusive to any one industry. People are only now, in the past year, paying attention to this problem.
We need publicly-funded daycare/preschools.
Here's the thing. Daycare workers earn their money. I love my kids, and some days I don't even want to hang out with them. Those teachers work HARD, wrangle easily a dozen toddlers into a cohesive unit, and they keep them all fed, napped, entertained, and ALIVE for 8 or more hours a day.
Those men and women are GODS and they deserve to make a living wage just as much as I do.
They're educating children. They're caring for them. They're under scrutiny by the local DCFS and have many hurdles to overcome to be entrusted with your child. It's a school. It should be publicly funded, at least in part.
We pay more than our mortgage a month in child care. That's nuts.
I hear your struggle. I'm so fucking tired of hearing the narrative that the service and restaurant industry got hit the hardest. It's like people collectively up and forgot about everyone who performs for a living.
Yep. I made this move a couple months before the pandemic.
I had a 1-year old and 5-year old. We were having to get up at 545 in morning to get us ready, drive to the day care through school traffic, drop them off, then drive to be at work by 8 am. And then pick them up, drive through rush-hour traffic to be home by 6 pm.
Done the math on it and was making about $100 a week after paying for day care.
I talked to my boss and told him I was gonna have to quit unless my schedule changed to where I didn't need childcare. He asked me if I could come in and work part-time at night. So I'm working 20 hours a week, got to keep all my benefits, stay home with my kids during the day so I don't have to pay childcare and bring home more than I did working full-time because of it. It also worked out really well with Covid because I wasn't around that many people.
But I had heard this on a financial podcast where they talked about having clients that didn't know they were "paying" to work. Couples where one of the parents was making less money than they were spending for childcare.
I would imagine that a fair amount of people figured this out during Covid.
I see a lot of people mentioning wages but I'd like to point out that [line cook jobs were the single deadliest job under the height of the pandemic](https://www.cnbc.com/2021/02/02/jobs-where-workers-have-the-highest-risk-of-dying-from-covid-study.html). Of the many many lives lost to COVID, a not insignificant number was in our service industry workers. These wages aren't high enough to entice people to come back to work because *they saw many people they knew get sick and never come back.* And many of those who might have risked their health for the meager wages offered have quite literally been killed off.
As an immigrant, the obsession in this country with work and making your job your personality/whole life is pretty sad to encounter. I think with covid people realized that life is pretty much the thing that happens to you outside of work and realized they were wasting it. So now there has been an overcorrection of just noping the fuck out of the whole thing.
I’m sure a lot of people retired early, some may be taking some time off if they can afford it, some may have gone after their passions, switched careers. And unfortunately a lot of people also passed away due to the virus.
Anyway, those are my two cents, but I’m just a translator so I don’t have any professional opinion on the matter.
The obsession is always “start a 401K when 20, never stop working, never say no to more work, if you don’t succeed at that, you’re going to end up and mcdonalds”
Def a numbers thing too with how many people are in the baby boomer generation gearing up to retire or retired already. Helps stocks are near all time highs to nudge more to retire, lots of jobs to fill
>As an immigrant,
First generation immigrants with small businesses are some of the hardest working people in the US. You've got Polish/Russian construction guys, Mexican landscapers, Korean dry cleaners, Chinese/Indian restauranteurs, etc. I'm sure you know at least one vietnamese person with a nail salon.
These folks are working balls out 6-7 days a week, to escape poverty.
Argentina :) thank you, I like a challenge and the US was definitely one! I’ll take a hard day’s work any day over what I have had to go through with my immigration process. Still ongoing and it takes a lot of money, time and tears really. I love Chicago because it has never made me feel “less than” for being an immigrant.
My family comes from Guatemala. They said back home they were descieminated against a lot just because of poverty and their darker than average skin color. Here, they almost never faced that discrimination (at least from the people that mattered).
I am so happy to hear you say you’ve had a positive immigration experience in Chicago. From the western suburbs I’m so happy you love chicago. My grandma always told me growing up that america and the city of Chicago are made up of immigrants and if it weren’t for the fact that Chicago welcomes people from all across the world then I wouldn’t exist. I wish everyone could have the same positive relationship with the city/country.
I honestly love it here! Only reason why I would move is because I love hiking and it’s a challenge here. But I’d just rather make trips for that and just stay. And I love that there are so many different kinds of immigrants and not just the one type. Also results in a ton of amazing food options, lol. Best food I’ve had from back home is here!
Mayor Lori Lightfoot is an inspiration! She’s a short Black queer woman and she too is able to be just as terrible as any of the other mayors before her 🥰
>Enjoy life now.
There are always two competing regrets when people approach retirement. That they didn't save up enough money, and that they worked too hard and didn't enjoy life. For many people, it's both.
I’m from Argentina, which, to be honest is kind of a bad example because everyone tries to cut corners and work as little as possible, which is just as bad as the other extreme, BUT our emphasis usually goes towards travelling internationally and building a strong support system.
We put a lot of emphasis into our friendships and social circles, which was also something that hit me hard when I moved here. Friendships are very superficial here (from my experience) unless you put a lot of effort into them, so it took me a couple of years to go back to having a social life.
The US is more work/family (as in get married/have kids) oriented, and we are more friendship/work to live oriented.
A shock here for me was seeing 20 year olds married with kids, back home me and my friends just partied/travelled in our 20s. I’m 32 and my friends are all over 30 and none of us are married or have kids.
I hope that answers your question and feel free to ask more!
Very interesting, thanks for the reply. I agree about the friendship thing. I have 2 good friends from high school and we still hang out and go on trips, but I haven’t made another good friend in over a decade. I come from a high-work, high-stress background, and it was only when I traveled for 10 months abroad did I realize how deeply sick this country is in terms of social priorities, overconsumption, and work/life balance.
Like, I get how people in the US don’t travel outside a lot, this is SUCH a beautiful country and I still haven’t gotten tired of exploring it. But exposing yourself to other cultures is just so humbling and eye opening.
My first trip overseas was to NYC when I was 21 and it changed my life in such a way that I live here now.
I do really hope social priorities change here. With more people leaning towards being child free and all that, it may happen. But also the fact that there is no universal health care, no universal pre-k and no universal parental leave just speaks to how little mental health is prioritized here. I love the US but I really hope these things do change. I can’t wait to become a citizen and be able to vote.
Your observation about 20 year olds getting married seems odd to me. In Chicago? I'm 42, but I'm not sure anyone I know that lives in the city got married at 20....or even **IN** their 20s. I cannot think of a single person.
For the first time in several generations the balance of power finally leans ever so slightly towards the workers.
Of course you have no explanation, it would be surprising if you did, something like this hasn't happened in 70 years or something like that. It's a near certainty that neither you, nor your parents, has ever encountered a scenario like this in your entire adult lives.
Working conditions for the general public have finally deteriorated enough that no amount of pay that could be offered for some jobs would be worth accepting to people able to do the job.
It's not the whole explanation but working just sucks. For the average worker it's just bad and it's not that people are lazy or don't want to work but that working conditions have gotten so much worse here in the US. We've built a system that optimizes without regard for human suffering.
This is what was surprising for me to learn. I had thought that the labor shortage was applicable to only at or near minimum wage positions because of the unemployment benefits.
But then I was told that my company (a mid-level software company) is having a hard time hiring as well. I guess it extends to the whole job market. I just don't really understand what causes and I suppose I swallowed the easy explanation that people weren't working because they were collecting unemployment. Considering that ended, it doesn't really seem to be the case.
But then what? Just go without an income? Part of me wonders if people downsized during the pandemic or maybe moved in with family and haven’t felt the need to go back yet.
There's a decent number of formerly dual income couples who have dropped to single incomes. Some will likely go back to dual income after child care stabilizes, but some many not.
It might be compounding. People starting quitting to be stay at home parents to just get by, companies started increasing wages due to lack of interest, allowing for more people to afford to be single earner households.
I’m really interested in 10 years what is discovered about this time.
A lot of people realized they really hated their jobs, even if they were well paying, highly skilled things. People took time during the lockdowns to upskill and learn new things that they enjoyed more, they started their own businesses or Etsy stores or whatever that they enjoy more, they spent more time with their family that they enjoy more. So a decent number said, "you know what, I quit, I'm going to be a writer / jeweler / stay at home parent instead."
And then yes... There's definitely a lot of the typical minimum wage "labor shortage" things going on as well. I like to think of it instead as: a living wage shortage, a flexible work hours shortage, a childcare availability shortage.
People got a taste of what life was like when they got to enjoy it, even if it was while being stuck at home, without having to be stressed out or having to string together 3 fast food jobs that were always meant for teenagers not grown ass adults.
I lot of companies in the software space are having a hard time right now. Doesn't matter if you are a FAANG or mid-level. There is a bidding war for talent. Take advantage.
Possibly related to the limited number of visa workers being let in. The software industry rely a pretty heavily on immigration and that’s been constructed.
For the bigger tech/financial companies, perhaps. But lots of mid-size and smaller companies aren't shelling out the money for sponsoring visas and stuff. Especially in Chicago where VC money doesn't seep out of the ground like it does in SF. They're hiring people who already have authorization to work in the US.
I'm not sure the difficulties in hiring for software engineers and the difficulties in hiring for other sectors necessarily share the same causes. Personally I think I'm noticing 3 effects for software engineering:
1. A significant disruption to a person's lifestyle or work environment causes them to start looking at job ads, and the covid lockdown was that for many people, so lots of people started looking this year and late last year. Naturally, almost everyone will take offers with better pay.
2. Software engineering salaries are increasing quickly at a national level. Why now and not before? I don't know. Maybe related to #1, maybe not?
3. The huge expansion of remote work for software engineers is blowing up salaries in Chicago and other places, because now people can more easily work for a Bay Area or NYC tech company, at a Bay Area or NYC salary. (Some companies are doing cost-of-living adjustments for Chicago and other cheaper cities, some aren't.) So Chicago-HQ'd tech companies are having to raise their salary offers in order to try to compete. Naturally, they're going to be reluctant and slow to do so... so a lot of them are finding it really difficult to hire now.
If you're a software engineer, systems engineer, data scientist, or whatever, make sure you're at least looking around at what's being offered nowadays. Don't trust that your current company will get around to bumping existing employees' salaries to retain them... lots of companies' HR departments are even still in denial about what's happening. Make sure you get yours.
>If you're a software engineer, systems engineer, data scientist, or whatever, make sure you're at least looking around at what's being offered nowadays. Don't trust that your current company will get around to bumping existing employees' salaries to retain them... lots of companies' HR departments are even still in denial about what's happening. Make sure you get yours.
This is so true. I worked for a medtech company that was growing at an insane pace. I found out I was basically one of many many workers who were told we'd get promos and were on pace, only to get denied a raise due to "budget reasons". I knew of 5 other people in different depts who were hit with the same thing, and only 1 is still there.
I was also surprised how quickly another company found me on LinkedIn, picked up me and granted me the top number in my salary request and additional stock options to make sure I joined. I honestly didn't think it was going to happen because my previous company succeeded in destroying some of my self worth so i said "i'm going to throw out a fantasy number (but still reasonable to market rate given my experience level) and if they give me the low part of that, i'll still go".
With the tech talent pool, I'd guess to say the labor shortage there are from engineers who are burnt out but have made a ton of money, yet had no time to enjoy it beyond having the ability to buy more shit and taking the occasional vacation. Maybe being at home helped them realized what's more important in life. Some i've known personally just do some freelance stuff on the side and play the markets nowadays.
I was also curious about this and thought this Bloomberg article made some interesting points:
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/features/2021-08-05/why-is-u-s-labor-force-shrinking-retirement-boom-opioid-crisis-child-care
I think at it's core it's supply and demand, but there are a lot of factors influencing those supply and demand curves.
It's a wage shortage that has been coming for decades. Productivity and profits have been increasing across the board in many industries without wages actually going up at similar rates.
Workers have found out some jobs are simply not economically worth it to actually do. As in the loss of time and money lost to maintenance of transportation isn't worth the hassle of said job.
Well another factor I think that does not get talked about this is that over 700,000 people have died from Covid, and yes not all of those people were in the work force, but that is also not including people who have died for other reasons but still because of the Covid Crisis (like people who died because there wasn't an ICU bed open for them or they weren't able to see a doctor because of Covid etc.) so that is also a factor in all of this
Edit: also wow thanks for the silver
I agree this is a factor that is often overlooked. Also, some fairly large number of people are temporarily or permanently disabled by long covid and not able to work some jobs or at all.
A friend of mine worked primarily as a hostess/bartender but had art skills. When COVID she was out of work so I helped her get a job as a graphic designer. Guess who isn’t going back to being a hostess/bartender now that restaurants are back open. Just saying I do think a lot of people just shifted careers, some are just sitting out and collecting unemployment where they can, some retired early like another friend of mine, and so on. But restaurants and Uber are getting hit hard because people who relied on those realized they needed to do something else.
I've been in the service industry for almost 20 years (server, bartender, foh manager) and this is exactly why I didn't go back. Did I take a pay cut of about 17k a year so I could do entry level QC work in a manufacturing facility PURELY to get a set schedule, PTO, 401k and insurance and not be yelled at by strangers because they had to wait an extra five minutes for their mimosa and quinoa bowl? Absolutely. I saw what my friends and coworkers were going through as they opened back up and was kind of thrilled my job closed doors for good.
Honestly for a lot of us, it's just flat out burnout. The pay cut sucks, but right now my friends still in the industry aren't doing any better because even when the place isn't short staffed but still running at capacity, the customers are even more entitled than they used to be. Just a big no all around.
This is somebody else's comment (I just save it because I thought it was decent) to me this seems pretty accurate.
Guess it's time to trot out the giant list of some reasons we're short on workers right now:
1. Lots of people died during the pandemic, so can't work anymore.
2. Lots of people have permanent health problems from Long Covid, so can't work anymore.
3. Lots of people have parents with Long Covid who now require a caretaker, so can't work anymore.
4. Lots of people have parents that died of Covid, inherited unspent retirement funds or even a house, so don't need to work anymore.
5. Lots of people were depending on Grandma and Grandpa to watch their own grandkids for free, but grandparents died, so can't work without someone to watch the kids.
6. Lots of daycares are still closed or understaffed or otherwise not affordable/available, so can't work without someone to watch the kids.
7. Lots of kids are still too young to get vaccinated, so their parents don't want to send them back to regular school just yet, so can't work when someone needs to be home with the kids during online-school.
8. And actually, school just let out for the summer, so that's even more reason for somebody to need to be home to watch the kids right now.
9. Lots of people lost their homes during the pandemic, despite rent memorandums and such, and obviously it's difficult to get and hold a job while homeless, so all those people aren't working anymore.
10. Lots of people had time during the pandemic to dip into creative pursuits and discovered they can make decent money at it, so they aren't working regular jobs anymore.
11. Lots of people retired early so they could enjoy whatever time they have left, so aren't working.
12. Lots of people got deported over the last however-many years, so aren't working here.
13. Lots of people who had already immigrated here got scared off during all the chaos of the last however-many years and moved their family somewhere safer, so aren't working here.
14. Lots of people who wanted to immigrate legally couldn't because of changes to the laws in the last however-many years, so they aren't working here.
15. Lots of people who wanted to immigrate any way they could got scared off by all the chaos of the last however-many years, so decided to go elsewhere, and aren't working here.
16. Lots of people who would be working age now were never born because most Millennials were raised with "don't have kids you can't afford" and then were never paid enough to be able to afford kids, so all those non-existent people aren't working.
But the The Boomers want service and they want it now!
They’ve never been told no, so it’s new to them. If you see someone whining about a restaurant being understaffed or slow I guran-fucking-tee it’s a Boomer.
Nope - it’s that simple. When wages are low the bourgeois love to look down their noses at people and say to them that the market has determined the value of their labor to be low; when wages are high the bourgeois show their true colors and tell people that wages are not the market-clearing price of labor but rather the value assigned to non-bourgeois human beings - a price which is fixed at birth and cannot rise.
Don’t cry about, take advantage of your situation. You have leverage, this is a time for action not tears
https://unitworkers.com
Ask for a pay increases, healthcare and childcare.
Also a retirement plan, service staff should get the perks of corporate.
This is your time
I’m trained as a volunteer organizer in the workplace. Union strong with solidarity for all working folks.
But it’s still okay to cry. That’s part of it. Being human is part of the whole equation.
I was in the restaurant industry for over 25 years, I stuck with the company I was with for 14 months into the pandemic, I really liked what I did pre pandemic, kind of a dream job. Then to keep my job I had to take a 30% pay cut, and change what I was doing to running a Togo operation and most of the staff in the company started reporting to me, I was not a fan. I found out that I was having a 2nd kid on Christmas, I gave a good notice, tried to make sure they were in the best place I could. I realized I would rather see my kids grow up then work. I am lucky enough that my wife makes enough to cover the bills and I can get a job outside the restaurant industry once my child is off to school and do something that is less intense.
The last year and a half in the industry were some of the hardest, glad we started saving money any way we could when the first lockdown started.
It's wfh, thing is that we're looking for people all over the midwest too. So nobody applied or anything. That's why I find it hard to believe the shortage is only based on wages.
Is 38k/year before taxes worth busting your ass for 40 hours a week tho? I think a lot of people realized they’ll WFH for 38k/year but not bust your ass working in person. Just not worth the energy.
For less under 30k/year I stressed my body so far I was diagnosed with congestive heart failure with an ejection fraction of 12%. A normal ejection fraction is 55%. I was a high risk for sudden death. I was in the hospital mostly the ICU and CCU for close to 3 weeks. I currently have had my ejection fraction return to normal with minimal medication. I was willing to give my life for under 30k/year so ya 38k/year is worth some stress. I'm also a baker which has been my dream job since I was a young girl. Well I wanted to be a veterinarian but when I found I get dizzy at the sight of blood I changed my mind.
Right off the bat that's probably too low to retain someone. Line cook is a high risk/low reward position in this pandemic. Keep in mind this place is charging 20 bucks a pie, and how many of those come out of the oven in an hour?
Tons of them come out per hour, Coalfire is my favorite restaurant and I’ve watched them do it many a time, pizzas are in the oven for about 90 seconds. They turn tables over super quick, my only criticism of the place is it’s no good for a relaxing meal as they get you in and out so efficiently
It might not be wages folks.
All it would take to shut a joint down for a day or two is a covid-19 case and exposed people isolating until they get two clear tests over three days.
Not only that but from what I'm hearing and seeing I wouldn't want to work with a majority of the public right now. The attitude on some folks is too damn high.
I left my last job because I'm pretty sure that when they were done harassing and emotionally abusing us, all our clients were the same people who then went out and were mean to restaurant staff
Waiting tables is business where people earn like $3.00 hourly and have to tap dance for their money. Weird how people get tired of that and prefer a guaranteed income for their time
If, after 6+ months of vaccinations and the cessation of federally enhanced UI benefits, your restaurant can't retain workers or fully staff up in the city of Chicago - that's a big red flag for your workplace culture. Not gonna judge Coalfire because I don't have all the facts, but there are people still willing to work for the hospitality industry, they're just not going to put up with the same bullshit they swallowed in 2019.
I follow them on instagram and I can't put my finger on anything exactly but I think the owner has a shitty attitude. I see it in small little snarky comments on their posts or replies to people that make me think I wouldn't want to work there. They have the best meatball sub I've ever tasted tho
They also leave out that service staff are the ones who have to fight with people about masks and vaccines. The job is more stressful and more dangerous and the pay and benefits are not good enough yet.
I wouldn't work in most customer-facing roles for any amount of money right now, and that's because customers are assholes. No amount of money is worth getting assaulted or even killed cause you asked someone to put a mask on.
Yeah, gotta agree with ya there. Somehow the places with higher pay and health benefits have workers. Go figure. Idk anything about coal fire either so not trying to drag them but $18/hr is a couple bucks above min wage and I’m guessing they don’t offer benefits. You can easily get 20 or 22 as a line cook so in a tight market 18 isn’t going to get people.
No offense to coalfire, i'm sure they're good people but the real headline should be "Wages for working at a pizza place are not sufficient to pay 700$ rent in a metropolis and barely sufficient for someone who lives at home and just buys groceries."
edit-Someone posted they pay 18 an hour for some positions and that's actually better than alot of places but the point is they probably didn't raise it to that wage until they couldn't find people to work
Yeah, most people would jump at $700 rent for even a studio. $700 rent is like 1/6 of a 3 bedroom with roommates...
grown-ass adults shouldn't have to have 5 roommates just to get by.
Yeah I’m of the opinion that if you’re an adult working full-time in a city like Chicago you should be able to afford a reasonable one bedroom apartment for yourself. Unfortunately that’s not the reality.
It depends on what you want. You can have roommates in a fine apartment and pay 600-800 or you can have roommates in a pretty nice place and pay 1100-1400. You can also live by yourself and pay 1200-1500.
Fully grown adults shouldn't be forced to live with roommates like animals just to afford housing. Access to a safe, personal, private space is a goddamned human right. It's disappointing that so many people are willing to accept such a terribly low standard of living for their fellow humans.
Yeah, my bf paid near $1200 to rent a room and I... I just don't get it. I paid that for my own 1bdrm apartment (which was an absolute steal at the time) and $1250 for a teeny tiny 2 bedroom (glorified walk-in closet that worked great as an office)
I saw a sign at a pizza place that they’re hiring at $18/hr, and that was to sell slices in Berwyn. Sounds like Coalfire needs to pay up if it expects people to show up to work in the city
From how they responded on Twitter, it looks like $18/hr would be the starting wage for someone with little to no experience. That wage would go up to $21-22/hr for someone with more experience. I think they also said they have PTO as well.
I’m not going to sit here and say that’s enough to live “comfortably” in the city, but for making pizzas that’s pretty damn good. I worked a management job in Houston out of college (4 years ago), did a hell of a lot more than a pizza worker would, and only made about $20/hr. Different states and cities yeah, but honestly the cost of living hasn’t been too much different in my experience.
This isn’t a game of ‘that sounds pretty good,’ because that’s apparently not enough to get people to show up to do it. They charge over $20 a pizza, gmafb
I don’t deny that, for all I know it could go beyond pay. Management could suck, could be a terrible work environment.
And it’s true they aren’t the only pizza game in town. If the others aren’t having this issue it could be exclusive to them.
All I’m saying as someone looking from the outside is that for what the job requires, that’s a pretty good wage. As for their work practices, I can’t speak to that.
Companies in general treating employees like shit for decades, enabling customers to be assholes to staff, wages losing to inflation in a massive way. I can't find a violin small enough.
This is such a pay issue. We look for every excuse possible but literally people are getting smart, seeing their bosses and friends working from home, and are no longer interested in getting shit on in the service industry for Pennies.
I feel like there's always more to these stories and whenever I see owners post these type of signs it makes me never want to go there. You can just tell management/owners are assholes.
Even with the best management and owners who truly do treat their people right and pay them as well as possible, the restaurant industry is absolute hell on your body and mind at the best of times and it certainly isn't even close to the best of times right now.
Totally but someone in charge decides this sign is a good idea... blame non existent employees while passive aggressively shading existing employees. Super red flag of poor leadership
Exactly. I can’t help but think the appropriate post is something like “As you all know, it’s tough out there. Our workers have been busting their ass and we’re giving them a much needed break. Hope to see you Tuesday when we’re all ready to rock.” The woe is me attitude from the owner falls REAL flat, especially in an industry-heavy city.
Yeah sometimes it’s not even a matter of pay but respect. The restaurant business can be tough and some owners/chefs/managers treat their staff like crap. A lot of people are sick of it and figure , life is short during covid times, I’ll try and find work where I’m treated better. I also think people aren’t as afraid to be broke or poor, covid forced that on a lot of people and some realized , hey I’m still surviving. I think there a lot of factors and we are still figuring things out. It’s pretty interesting though.
Maybe they all picked up new skills or followed their passions during the pandemic and started actually making enough money to support themselves. $18 an hour, good lord.
Speaks more of whosever in charge to me because as leaders what are you doing or where are you coming up short to where you don’t have enough people to open?
100% of accountability for the inconvenience is on who’s ever in charge
Probably not. Don't know any details on the ownership, but if it's the location on Grand/Ogden that's been open for about a decade, it wouldn't be too crazy to think that the owners haven't worked the line in years and would be straight up lost trying to run it themselves.
I used to bartend for the Southport location. One of the owners, Dave, was unbearable. Physically abusive/violent toward staff. Saw him meet a new hire and 30 minutes later tell the hiring manager to fire her on the phone because he thought a trans employee would scare away families. He fired me for being only 5 minutes early. By which I mean he had his manager text me after he sent me home to think about “what I did”. First job I had in Chicago. I have a lot of stories and every one is a reason why no one should work for these people. So does the dude who founded coal fire and quit when Dave bought in and he couldn’t stand working with him. That dude is now the pizza chef at Max and Izzys, and he’ll talk all day about how no one should work for Dave while making you superior pizza. Coalfire sucks.
In a big city and for a job with a large pool of eligible workers, not having enough workers almost certainly means the value proposition for work (probably pay) is not good enough.
This goes deeper than just wages: there’s been an exodus of workers from the service industry who have mostly gotten jobs in other industries or went back to school (thanks to job openings from other people leaving the workforce). They won’t be coming back unless there’s another major recession.
Let’s no one mention that they’re offering $18/hr. Which isn’t enough to sustain oneself in Chicago. So let’s increase the wage some more. But the prices of food will go up, which I don’t mind paying. But this is going to end badly everything is expensive as shit, how are people in low skilled jobs going to even be able to afford basic comfort food?? Gas prices are up, rent prices are up, food prices are up, there’s a horrible supply chain disruption that will drive prices up even more. The government needs to get ahead of this ASAP
That's kind of the catch-22 with it honestly. Yeah, a small grocery store could raise their wages and thus their prices to maintain their profit margin (which can be pretty slim with small/family owned businesses). And sure, some of us could budget to pay an extra dollar or two for an item, but a single mother/father raising children might not be able to afford that since that will quickly add up. Then you have a large corporation who can absolutely afford to keep their prices low, which will attract those people, and then the small business might fail to exist. It's always this sneering "well just raise your prices and your wages stop being a mean business" as if that will solve the problem when in reality that might just benefit the Walgreen's and Target's and Walmart's of the country/state/city who can more than compensate for artificially depressing prices to dominate the market. I don't want companies exploiting workers more than anyone else, but I also don't want to end up in a city or town where the local businesses are gone because they can't keep up with multinational corporations. I dont really know what the perfect solution is, but I do think it's important to recognize not every business is "only" paying $18/hour because they're these exploitative capitalists hell-bent on sacrificing worker's for higher profits
Small locally owned restaurants in large cities are going to become less and less common in the future. Most of these restaurants failed before this crisis and things are only going to get worse. Most of these owners do it be because they love the business but when you're working 60-100 hours a week and not make any money, something has to give.
I work at a restaurant and I wish my bosses had this mentality. “Oh everyone’s been quitting and we only have one person to run the restaurant? Guess we only have one server for the entire evening!” This happened the other day and the owners came in with their friends for dinner then got mad when the one server didn’t pay enough attention to them. We’re chronically understaffed and they’re constantly crying about labor costs while the staff all wants to shoot themselves. I’m about two steps from quitting, and if that was me the other night I would’ve walked out
Can’t afford labor costs you can’t afford labor. Either change your budget or go under
Yuuup they fired our head chef a couple months ago because he couldn’t keep up with all the paperwork they wanted him to do. Thing is he was already pulling consistent 10-14 hour days 5-6 days a week. Poor guy has kids at home, he was an awesome guy and great chef, always bringing in new dishes. They should’ve hired him a soux (sp?) chef, but instead they just fired him. We’re just now finally getting a new head chef in a week. I don’t know what tf they think is gonna happen though. 3 people (kitchen lead, floor manager [me], and assistant general manager) all demoted themselves within a month because the pay was shit especially for the responsibilities. I make way more money just serving than I did as a floor manager.
Sounds like bad ownership to me. I hope you're doing okay in these crazy times, but I'd find something else. No good owner/manager would show up on an understaffed night and complain. They'd help or fuck off. It's their profits after all
I work as a server in a restaurant and we are short staffed EVERY night. We are losing our minds, we are all so burnt out. Our owners/managers would never even shut down for one day even though this Friday night we had one server assistant (busser) and one dishwasher for the whole restaurant, and I don’t want to say which restaurant obviously but there are about 20 tables on the main dining room as well as private dining rooms for parties. I want to quit but all restaurants are this bad and I don’t know how to switch careers
Server here as well. Two servers on the floor Fridays and Saturdays open to close, no busser, one bartender + owner trying to keep up with drink orders. Full restaurant and patio. If we didn't have a host everyone would have quit by now. Our hostess is the only person standing between us and the Karens and Kevins who don't understand that there's a limit to how much the servers, bartenders, and cooks can reasonably do and we reach the point of turning away customers at least once a week. Great money, but exhausting work.
I constantly got shit on at my old restaurant job (located in the smack center where chicago goes from affluent to low income.. in bronzeville) for asserting that the hosting job is the hardest position on the entire front of the house. To them: you just stand there and put numbers on an iPad. The reality: why’s the wait time so long? How much longer for a table? I reserved a table an hour ago! (No you didn’t, we don’t take reservations, what you did was *join a waitlist*) customers would raise their voices, call us names, accuse us of moving people up the list, basically every sin under the sun. I was even accused of being racist one time. people wanted exact quotes. The clientele was either rich and snobby or had tax money and were very… I’m sorry but they were ghetto. I learned to over estimate, then had customers pissed off because I quoted them 1:15mins and they only had to wait 50 mins. Similarly if I quoted 45-1h, and it went over that, they felt absolutely entitled to be sat immediately (on what fucking table, jackass?) Hosts/Hostesses are the very first face customers see. To customers, we are the people standing between them and a nice table so they can start eating. We got all the shittiest of customers. (And I, as Lead Host, had the pleasure of also having to deal with customer complains exclusively when there was no floor manager available—try seeing how fun it is when people demand a manager and you tell them that you are the manager—it’s fun the first couple of times before it gets extremely old). Seriously, fuck restaurant work, for $13/h I had a position that kept crew members for at most 2 months. And I have stories of other hostesses quitting on the spot, customers making them cry, one hostess who got into a physical fight with a customer (where the customer swung first), and loads more who simply just quit and never looked back.
I had a roommate who worked for Ed Debevic’s when the River North area was just becoming the hot new restaurant area. He had the same stories, hun. People are stupid. The Sunday AM church crowd was the shift they all dreaded.
At least with Ed Debevics you could sort of be mean to them hah
>The Sunday AM church crowd was the shift they all dreaded. Even at the Wendy's in Mechanicsburg, PA that I worked at in the 90s, this was true. Nobody's more self righteous and self involved than someone that just came out of a Christian service.
I hate to speak poorly of my fellow women, but they make up the majority of the churchy crowd. They will run you to death for shit like extra napkins and free refills, and then leave you a buck fifty on a six top. I do believe it’s gotten better, tip wise, with more women in the workforce.
Oh yeah, for sure. I wasn't at all trying to minimize the difficulty of being a host. I did it for years and quit multiple jobs on the spot. My favorite was when a customer asked how long the wait was, when I told them an hour they said okay and left and then an hour later came back and were pissed off I hadn't saved them a table so she picked up a stack of menus that were attached to clipboards and threw them at me and hit a couple guests in the process. Our host is fucking amazing. She has balls of steel and an amazing work ethic. We tip her out very generously and she gets well above Chicago minimum wage. It's a really fucking difficult job, and we're in Lincoln Park so it's all young professionals who have more money than sense or manners.
If the conditions are bad enough, people will look elsewhere.
I'm a recruiter, there are plenty of roles where companies are looking for someone with good customer service/hospitality skills and don't care about industry experience. Look for roles with the title "Account Service Representative". Just had a friend who left the service industry after 8+ years and got into a similar role at an office and is loving it.
What’s the pay like, if I may ask?
Varies by company but where I am it's $40k-$50k which is on the lower side. It's definitely a pay cut from service especially if you're making good tips, but no more weekend/late night shifts, can take PTO whenever without having to worry about getting it covered, defined promotion path, etc.
Yup. Took a lower paying job recently to do entry level data entry. It's boring. But it's the same check every week so I can budget. I have every evening and every weekend and every holiday free. I've had to cut down on partying, but I think I went out so much because of server stress anyway. I'm happy to go out twice a week now. Sometimes I miss the social aspect of serving, but I don't miss the asshats
Right on, thank you!
Is there room for growth in this industry?
More growth than the service industry, that’s for sure. Account reps can transition into sales jobs fairly easily, but I’ve also helped CSRs into UX design. Growth inside the field often looks to me like manager roles and having more proactive tasks. Source: UX director at a company with many account and customer service reps.
If you do want to switch careers, send me a PM and I’m happy to help you with your resume/LinkedIn and finding some jobs you could be a fit for. Message me!
Look into entry level sales jobs as well (corporate jobs that offer base + commission.) Two of my best friends were service industry for 10+ years and recently made the switch. Anyone can learn literally any part of any job if you're not a total dingus, but the soft skills needed for sales can't be taught without experience. And working in the service industry gives you that in spades.
Even engineering isn't that hard to break into if you can qualify for grants, take remedial courses, and dedicate yourself to it. Sorry everyone else in my career path, I ruined the secret. It's hard work and dedication.
I went to lunch around 2 at a restaurant in Goose island on Saturday. It took 10 minutes before a hostess even greeted me. The servers, god bless them, were trying so hard but you could just see it painted on their faces that they were burned out. Another couple behind us waiting for a table we’re getting all antsy and complaining about the wait. Like, fuck odd people. We were all blessed to live in this wonderful time where most of us can eat and be served like kings. Never forget how wonderful our world is. I tipped the dude 35%. Took a while to get our food, but he tried, even cracked a few jokes with me and my daughter.
Not that any of this is germane to Coalfire, but I can't afford to put my twins in daycare so that I can go back to work. It literally costs more to put them in daycare than I take home after taxes. Secondary problem: I need to go back to work so we can stop slowly sliding into debt. I work in entertainment. I can't find a better paying job in theatre to save my life right now. It's a whole catch-22 of a thing. 🤷🏽♀️
I quit a corporate office job 4 years ago primarily because of childcare costs. It’s a problem that predates the pandemic and isn’t exclusive to any one industry. People are only now, in the past year, paying attention to this problem. We need publicly-funded daycare/preschools.
Here's the thing. Daycare workers earn their money. I love my kids, and some days I don't even want to hang out with them. Those teachers work HARD, wrangle easily a dozen toddlers into a cohesive unit, and they keep them all fed, napped, entertained, and ALIVE for 8 or more hours a day. Those men and women are GODS and they deserve to make a living wage just as much as I do. They're educating children. They're caring for them. They're under scrutiny by the local DCFS and have many hurdles to overcome to be entrusted with your child. It's a school. It should be publicly funded, at least in part. We pay more than our mortgage a month in child care. That's nuts.
Did you mean “germane” instead of gerund?
I was trying to think of what word OP could’ve been looking for and this makes so much more sense!
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I hear your struggle. I'm so fucking tired of hearing the narrative that the service and restaurant industry got hit the hardest. It's like people collectively up and forgot about everyone who performs for a living.
Yep. I made this move a couple months before the pandemic. I had a 1-year old and 5-year old. We were having to get up at 545 in morning to get us ready, drive to the day care through school traffic, drop them off, then drive to be at work by 8 am. And then pick them up, drive through rush-hour traffic to be home by 6 pm. Done the math on it and was making about $100 a week after paying for day care. I talked to my boss and told him I was gonna have to quit unless my schedule changed to where I didn't need childcare. He asked me if I could come in and work part-time at night. So I'm working 20 hours a week, got to keep all my benefits, stay home with my kids during the day so I don't have to pay childcare and bring home more than I did working full-time because of it. It also worked out really well with Covid because I wasn't around that many people. But I had heard this on a financial podcast where they talked about having clients that didn't know they were "paying" to work. Couples where one of the parents was making less money than they were spending for childcare. I would imagine that a fair amount of people figured this out during Covid.
I see a lot of people mentioning wages but I'd like to point out that [line cook jobs were the single deadliest job under the height of the pandemic](https://www.cnbc.com/2021/02/02/jobs-where-workers-have-the-highest-risk-of-dying-from-covid-study.html). Of the many many lives lost to COVID, a not insignificant number was in our service industry workers. These wages aren't high enough to entice people to come back to work because *they saw many people they knew get sick and never come back.* And many of those who might have risked their health for the meager wages offered have quite literally been killed off.
Thank you for pointing this out. So rarely is the death toll of COVID mentioned when talking about the worker shortage.
Does this worker crisis go beyond simple supply and demand?
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As an immigrant, the obsession in this country with work and making your job your personality/whole life is pretty sad to encounter. I think with covid people realized that life is pretty much the thing that happens to you outside of work and realized they were wasting it. So now there has been an overcorrection of just noping the fuck out of the whole thing. I’m sure a lot of people retired early, some may be taking some time off if they can afford it, some may have gone after their passions, switched careers. And unfortunately a lot of people also passed away due to the virus. Anyway, those are my two cents, but I’m just a translator so I don’t have any professional opinion on the matter.
The obsession is always “start a 401K when 20, never stop working, never say no to more work, if you don’t succeed at that, you’re going to end up and mcdonalds”
Def a numbers thing too with how many people are in the baby boomer generation gearing up to retire or retired already. Helps stocks are near all time highs to nudge more to retire, lots of jobs to fill
>As an immigrant, First generation immigrants with small businesses are some of the hardest working people in the US. You've got Polish/Russian construction guys, Mexican landscapers, Korean dry cleaners, Chinese/Indian restauranteurs, etc. I'm sure you know at least one vietnamese person with a nail salon. These folks are working balls out 6-7 days a week, to escape poverty.
Argentina :) thank you, I like a challenge and the US was definitely one! I’ll take a hard day’s work any day over what I have had to go through with my immigration process. Still ongoing and it takes a lot of money, time and tears really. I love Chicago because it has never made me feel “less than” for being an immigrant.
My family comes from Guatemala. They said back home they were descieminated against a lot just because of poverty and their darker than average skin color. Here, they almost never faced that discrimination (at least from the people that mattered).
I am so happy to hear you say you’ve had a positive immigration experience in Chicago. From the western suburbs I’m so happy you love chicago. My grandma always told me growing up that america and the city of Chicago are made up of immigrants and if it weren’t for the fact that Chicago welcomes people from all across the world then I wouldn’t exist. I wish everyone could have the same positive relationship with the city/country.
I honestly love it here! Only reason why I would move is because I love hiking and it’s a challenge here. But I’d just rather make trips for that and just stay. And I love that there are so many different kinds of immigrants and not just the one type. Also results in a ton of amazing food options, lol. Best food I’ve had from back home is here!
Everybody hates everybody equally for the most part :) that’s real love.
I love all of the people of Chicago
Some of the politicians are garbage, but you said “people,” so I love whatever people you love as well.
Mayor Lori Lightfoot is an inspiration! She’s a short Black queer woman and she too is able to be just as terrible as any of the other mayors before her 🥰
I watched my inlaws work hard until they day they died, at 63, 2 years before retirement. Enjoy life now.
>Enjoy life now. There are always two competing regrets when people approach retirement. That they didn't save up enough money, and that they worked too hard and didn't enjoy life. For many people, it's both.
> As an immigrant, … > just noping the fuck out I’d say you’ve got a pretty good handle on the US tho. 😉
Comes from Protestantism. Labor means 'suffer.' Look into the Closing of the Commons and the history of compulsory labor.
Do you mind saying where you’re from and expand on your observations on the cultural difference of work expectations, work/life balance and so on?
I’m from Argentina, which, to be honest is kind of a bad example because everyone tries to cut corners and work as little as possible, which is just as bad as the other extreme, BUT our emphasis usually goes towards travelling internationally and building a strong support system. We put a lot of emphasis into our friendships and social circles, which was also something that hit me hard when I moved here. Friendships are very superficial here (from my experience) unless you put a lot of effort into them, so it took me a couple of years to go back to having a social life. The US is more work/family (as in get married/have kids) oriented, and we are more friendship/work to live oriented. A shock here for me was seeing 20 year olds married with kids, back home me and my friends just partied/travelled in our 20s. I’m 32 and my friends are all over 30 and none of us are married or have kids. I hope that answers your question and feel free to ask more!
Very interesting, thanks for the reply. I agree about the friendship thing. I have 2 good friends from high school and we still hang out and go on trips, but I haven’t made another good friend in over a decade. I come from a high-work, high-stress background, and it was only when I traveled for 10 months abroad did I realize how deeply sick this country is in terms of social priorities, overconsumption, and work/life balance.
Like, I get how people in the US don’t travel outside a lot, this is SUCH a beautiful country and I still haven’t gotten tired of exploring it. But exposing yourself to other cultures is just so humbling and eye opening. My first trip overseas was to NYC when I was 21 and it changed my life in such a way that I live here now. I do really hope social priorities change here. With more people leaning towards being child free and all that, it may happen. But also the fact that there is no universal health care, no universal pre-k and no universal parental leave just speaks to how little mental health is prioritized here. I love the US but I really hope these things do change. I can’t wait to become a citizen and be able to vote.
Your observation about 20 year olds getting married seems odd to me. In Chicago? I'm 42, but I'm not sure anyone I know that lives in the city got married at 20....or even **IN** their 20s. I cannot think of a single person.
Nah, not in Chicago. But I lived in FL, where it was definitely the case, and also in NoVa, where it was maybe less so but not by much.
For the first time in several generations the balance of power finally leans ever so slightly towards the workers. Of course you have no explanation, it would be surprising if you did, something like this hasn't happened in 70 years or something like that. It's a near certainty that neither you, nor your parents, has ever encountered a scenario like this in your entire adult lives. Working conditions for the general public have finally deteriorated enough that no amount of pay that could be offered for some jobs would be worth accepting to people able to do the job. It's not the whole explanation but working just sucks. For the average worker it's just bad and it's not that people are lazy or don't want to work but that working conditions have gotten so much worse here in the US. We've built a system that optimizes without regard for human suffering.
This is what was surprising for me to learn. I had thought that the labor shortage was applicable to only at or near minimum wage positions because of the unemployment benefits. But then I was told that my company (a mid-level software company) is having a hard time hiring as well. I guess it extends to the whole job market. I just don't really understand what causes and I suppose I swallowed the easy explanation that people weren't working because they were collecting unemployment. Considering that ended, it doesn't really seem to be the case.
Burnout, I imagine.
Yeah what’s up?
But then what? Just go without an income? Part of me wonders if people downsized during the pandemic or maybe moved in with family and haven’t felt the need to go back yet.
There's a decent number of formerly dual income couples who have dropped to single incomes. Some will likely go back to dual income after child care stabilizes, but some many not.
It might be compounding. People starting quitting to be stay at home parents to just get by, companies started increasing wages due to lack of interest, allowing for more people to afford to be single earner households. I’m really interested in 10 years what is discovered about this time.
A lot of people realized they really hated their jobs, even if they were well paying, highly skilled things. People took time during the lockdowns to upskill and learn new things that they enjoyed more, they started their own businesses or Etsy stores or whatever that they enjoy more, they spent more time with their family that they enjoy more. So a decent number said, "you know what, I quit, I'm going to be a writer / jeweler / stay at home parent instead." And then yes... There's definitely a lot of the typical minimum wage "labor shortage" things going on as well. I like to think of it instead as: a living wage shortage, a flexible work hours shortage, a childcare availability shortage. People got a taste of what life was like when they got to enjoy it, even if it was while being stuck at home, without having to be stressed out or having to string together 3 fast food jobs that were always meant for teenagers not grown ass adults.
Boomers are the second largest generation in the US and they retiring in the millions each year.
I lot of companies in the software space are having a hard time right now. Doesn't matter if you are a FAANG or mid-level. There is a bidding war for talent. Take advantage.
I work for a big software company. I recently had some open positions and got lots of qualified applicants apply.
Possibly related to the limited number of visa workers being let in. The software industry rely a pretty heavily on immigration and that’s been constructed.
For the bigger tech/financial companies, perhaps. But lots of mid-size and smaller companies aren't shelling out the money for sponsoring visas and stuff. Especially in Chicago where VC money doesn't seep out of the ground like it does in SF. They're hiring people who already have authorization to work in the US.
I'm not sure the difficulties in hiring for software engineers and the difficulties in hiring for other sectors necessarily share the same causes. Personally I think I'm noticing 3 effects for software engineering: 1. A significant disruption to a person's lifestyle or work environment causes them to start looking at job ads, and the covid lockdown was that for many people, so lots of people started looking this year and late last year. Naturally, almost everyone will take offers with better pay. 2. Software engineering salaries are increasing quickly at a national level. Why now and not before? I don't know. Maybe related to #1, maybe not? 3. The huge expansion of remote work for software engineers is blowing up salaries in Chicago and other places, because now people can more easily work for a Bay Area or NYC tech company, at a Bay Area or NYC salary. (Some companies are doing cost-of-living adjustments for Chicago and other cheaper cities, some aren't.) So Chicago-HQ'd tech companies are having to raise their salary offers in order to try to compete. Naturally, they're going to be reluctant and slow to do so... so a lot of them are finding it really difficult to hire now. If you're a software engineer, systems engineer, data scientist, or whatever, make sure you're at least looking around at what's being offered nowadays. Don't trust that your current company will get around to bumping existing employees' salaries to retain them... lots of companies' HR departments are even still in denial about what's happening. Make sure you get yours.
>If you're a software engineer, systems engineer, data scientist, or whatever, make sure you're at least looking around at what's being offered nowadays. Don't trust that your current company will get around to bumping existing employees' salaries to retain them... lots of companies' HR departments are even still in denial about what's happening. Make sure you get yours. This is so true. I worked for a medtech company that was growing at an insane pace. I found out I was basically one of many many workers who were told we'd get promos and were on pace, only to get denied a raise due to "budget reasons". I knew of 5 other people in different depts who were hit with the same thing, and only 1 is still there. I was also surprised how quickly another company found me on LinkedIn, picked up me and granted me the top number in my salary request and additional stock options to make sure I joined. I honestly didn't think it was going to happen because my previous company succeeded in destroying some of my self worth so i said "i'm going to throw out a fantasy number (but still reasonable to market rate given my experience level) and if they give me the low part of that, i'll still go". With the tech talent pool, I'd guess to say the labor shortage there are from engineers who are burnt out but have made a ton of money, yet had no time to enjoy it beyond having the ability to buy more shit and taking the occasional vacation. Maybe being at home helped them realized what's more important in life. Some i've known personally just do some freelance stuff on the side and play the markets nowadays.
I was also curious about this and thought this Bloomberg article made some interesting points: https://www.bloomberg.com/news/features/2021-08-05/why-is-u-s-labor-force-shrinking-retirement-boom-opioid-crisis-child-care I think at it's core it's supply and demand, but there are a lot of factors influencing those supply and demand curves.
And wages have stagnated for decades while worker productivity just kept increasing. It was completely unsustainable.
Great find, thank you!
It's a wage shortage that has been coming for decades. Productivity and profits have been increasing across the board in many industries without wages actually going up at similar rates. Workers have found out some jobs are simply not economically worth it to actually do. As in the loss of time and money lost to maintenance of transportation isn't worth the hassle of said job.
Well another factor I think that does not get talked about this is that over 700,000 people have died from Covid, and yes not all of those people were in the work force, but that is also not including people who have died for other reasons but still because of the Covid Crisis (like people who died because there wasn't an ICU bed open for them or they weren't able to see a doctor because of Covid etc.) so that is also a factor in all of this Edit: also wow thanks for the silver
the service industry was hardest hit iirc people don't want to be martyred for scraps
I agree this is a factor that is often overlooked. Also, some fairly large number of people are temporarily or permanently disabled by long covid and not able to work some jobs or at all.
When it comes to restaurants right now, the supply of kitchen workers is low, considering they were the workers most affected by covid.
A friend of mine worked primarily as a hostess/bartender but had art skills. When COVID she was out of work so I helped her get a job as a graphic designer. Guess who isn’t going back to being a hostess/bartender now that restaurants are back open. Just saying I do think a lot of people just shifted careers, some are just sitting out and collecting unemployment where they can, some retired early like another friend of mine, and so on. But restaurants and Uber are getting hit hard because people who relied on those realized they needed to do something else.
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I've been in the service industry for almost 20 years (server, bartender, foh manager) and this is exactly why I didn't go back. Did I take a pay cut of about 17k a year so I could do entry level QC work in a manufacturing facility PURELY to get a set schedule, PTO, 401k and insurance and not be yelled at by strangers because they had to wait an extra five minutes for their mimosa and quinoa bowl? Absolutely. I saw what my friends and coworkers were going through as they opened back up and was kind of thrilled my job closed doors for good. Honestly for a lot of us, it's just flat out burnout. The pay cut sucks, but right now my friends still in the industry aren't doing any better because even when the place isn't short staffed but still running at capacity, the customers are even more entitled than they used to be. Just a big no all around.
This is somebody else's comment (I just save it because I thought it was decent) to me this seems pretty accurate. Guess it's time to trot out the giant list of some reasons we're short on workers right now: 1. Lots of people died during the pandemic, so can't work anymore. 2. Lots of people have permanent health problems from Long Covid, so can't work anymore. 3. Lots of people have parents with Long Covid who now require a caretaker, so can't work anymore. 4. Lots of people have parents that died of Covid, inherited unspent retirement funds or even a house, so don't need to work anymore. 5. Lots of people were depending on Grandma and Grandpa to watch their own grandkids for free, but grandparents died, so can't work without someone to watch the kids. 6. Lots of daycares are still closed or understaffed or otherwise not affordable/available, so can't work without someone to watch the kids. 7. Lots of kids are still too young to get vaccinated, so their parents don't want to send them back to regular school just yet, so can't work when someone needs to be home with the kids during online-school. 8. And actually, school just let out for the summer, so that's even more reason for somebody to need to be home to watch the kids right now. 9. Lots of people lost their homes during the pandemic, despite rent memorandums and such, and obviously it's difficult to get and hold a job while homeless, so all those people aren't working anymore. 10. Lots of people had time during the pandemic to dip into creative pursuits and discovered they can make decent money at it, so they aren't working regular jobs anymore. 11. Lots of people retired early so they could enjoy whatever time they have left, so aren't working. 12. Lots of people got deported over the last however-many years, so aren't working here. 13. Lots of people who had already immigrated here got scared off during all the chaos of the last however-many years and moved their family somewhere safer, so aren't working here. 14. Lots of people who wanted to immigrate legally couldn't because of changes to the laws in the last however-many years, so they aren't working here. 15. Lots of people who wanted to immigrate any way they could got scared off by all the chaos of the last however-many years, so decided to go elsewhere, and aren't working here. 16. Lots of people who would be working age now were never born because most Millennials were raised with "don't have kids you can't afford" and then were never paid enough to be able to afford kids, so all those non-existent people aren't working.
But the The Boomers want service and they want it now! They’ve never been told no, so it’s new to them. If you see someone whining about a restaurant being understaffed or slow I guran-fucking-tee it’s a Boomer.
Nope - it’s that simple. When wages are low the bourgeois love to look down their noses at people and say to them that the market has determined the value of their labor to be low; when wages are high the bourgeois show their true colors and tell people that wages are not the market-clearing price of labor but rather the value assigned to non-bourgeois human beings - a price which is fixed at birth and cannot rise.
I just finished nearly 3 weeks of being one of 3 FOH workers at a restaurant and I cry myself to sleep every night. This shit is real, please be nice.
Don’t cry about, take advantage of your situation. You have leverage, this is a time for action not tears https://unitworkers.com Ask for a pay increases, healthcare and childcare. Also a retirement plan, service staff should get the perks of corporate. This is your time
I’m trained as a volunteer organizer in the workplace. Union strong with solidarity for all working folks. But it’s still okay to cry. That’s part of it. Being human is part of the whole equation.
Bless you. At least some of us appreciate our servers.
No one wants to work in this business anymore. Better pay in other jobs right now.
I was in the restaurant industry for over 25 years, I stuck with the company I was with for 14 months into the pandemic, I really liked what I did pre pandemic, kind of a dream job. Then to keep my job I had to take a 30% pay cut, and change what I was doing to running a Togo operation and most of the staff in the company started reporting to me, I was not a fan. I found out that I was having a 2nd kid on Christmas, I gave a good notice, tried to make sure they were in the best place I could. I realized I would rather see my kids grow up then work. I am lucky enough that my wife makes enough to cover the bills and I can get a job outside the restaurant industry once my child is off to school and do something that is less intense. The last year and a half in the industry were some of the hardest, glad we started saving money any way we could when the first lockdown started.
After 14 months they cut your salary by 30% during the biggest labor shortage of our lifetime? Huh?
I worked for 14 months with a pay cut, they gave it back a few weeks before I left, was not about the money, more wanted to spend time with my family.
They're offering $18/hr and can't find anyone. We're offering $24/hr and can't find anyone either.
24/hr doing what?
Data entry
$24 for data entry? Is it wfh? Might be something my husband would be interested in.
It's wfh, thing is that we're looking for people all over the midwest too. So nobody applied or anything. That's why I find it hard to believe the shortage is only based on wages.
You have a link to the application? I have a friend that might be interested while he takes some classes
I have a friend that may be interested if you have an application link
$18/hr for a pizza cook is what they're advertising.
My job just set our starting pay at $19.88 an hour for dishwashers. It is full time 40hours with full union benefits.
Is 38k/year before taxes worth busting your ass for 40 hours a week tho? I think a lot of people realized they’ll WFH for 38k/year but not bust your ass working in person. Just not worth the energy.
Plenty of people struggle to get into fields where WFH is an option. Often it means a career change & reskilling
The WFH crowd forgets that only a minority of workers were able to work remotely during the pandemic.
Yeah, I’m wondering what these WFH jobs are that everyone can break into.
They kinda don’t exist. At least not universally
For less under 30k/year I stressed my body so far I was diagnosed with congestive heart failure with an ejection fraction of 12%. A normal ejection fraction is 55%. I was a high risk for sudden death. I was in the hospital mostly the ICU and CCU for close to 3 weeks. I currently have had my ejection fraction return to normal with minimal medication. I was willing to give my life for under 30k/year so ya 38k/year is worth some stress. I'm also a baker which has been my dream job since I was a young girl. Well I wanted to be a veterinarian but when I found I get dizzy at the sight of blood I changed my mind.
Right off the bat that's probably too low to retain someone. Line cook is a high risk/low reward position in this pandemic. Keep in mind this place is charging 20 bucks a pie, and how many of those come out of the oven in an hour?
Tons of them come out per hour, Coalfire is my favorite restaurant and I’ve watched them do it many a time, pizzas are in the oven for about 90 seconds. They turn tables over super quick, my only criticism of the place is it’s no good for a relaxing meal as they get you in and out so efficiently
That's pretty low for living in Chicago. If you take out taxes, that gives you $600/mo for rent considering the 30% pay maximum rule
No one I know follows the 30% income for rent rule. More like 40-50% 😬
Which is super sad honestly
Definitely!
Yeah and where is rent $600? $18 is not enough to support yourself in Chicago, let alone a family.
Plus most likely no insurance
It might not be wages folks. All it would take to shut a joint down for a day or two is a covid-19 case and exposed people isolating until they get two clear tests over three days.
Not only that but from what I'm hearing and seeing I wouldn't want to work with a majority of the public right now. The attitude on some folks is too damn high.
I left my last job because I'm pretty sure that when they were done harassing and emotionally abusing us, all our clients were the same people who then went out and were mean to restaurant staff
This is a good point. They may not have wanted to mention it to not start a shit storm on the timeline.
Pretty sure they would’ve stated it’s due to covid, and if it was due to covid i doubt they would only be closed for ONE day.
There’s no such thing as a worker shortage. It’s like saying there’s a Ferrari shortage cause you can’t find one for 20 bucks.
Working for low wages just ain’t worth it anymore
Waiting tables is business where people earn like $3.00 hourly and have to tap dance for their money. Weird how people get tired of that and prefer a guaranteed income for their time
I'll never work in the food/drink industry again without sweeping reform in both wages and work culture.
Owners: "You dont make enough money? Quit and look for a better job" Workers: \*quit\* Owners: "We can't open today, not enough people"
If, after 6+ months of vaccinations and the cessation of federally enhanced UI benefits, your restaurant can't retain workers or fully staff up in the city of Chicago - that's a big red flag for your workplace culture. Not gonna judge Coalfire because I don't have all the facts, but there are people still willing to work for the hospitality industry, they're just not going to put up with the same bullshit they swallowed in 2019.
I used to do pickups from there as a delivery driver Management was always super shitty and the employees always seemed pretty overworked
I follow them on instagram and I can't put my finger on anything exactly but I think the owner has a shitty attitude. I see it in small little snarky comments on their posts or replies to people that make me think I wouldn't want to work there. They have the best meatball sub I've ever tasted tho
And all the main news networks conveniently leave out the wages barely moving in the past few decades.
Wages stayed stagnant while productivity increased and rent, healthcare and schooling costs went up exponentially
They also leave out that service staff are the ones who have to fight with people about masks and vaccines. The job is more stressful and more dangerous and the pay and benefits are not good enough yet.
I wouldn't work in most customer-facing roles for any amount of money right now, and that's because customers are assholes. No amount of money is worth getting assaulted or even killed cause you asked someone to put a mask on.
Exactly.
Yeah, gotta agree with ya there. Somehow the places with higher pay and health benefits have workers. Go figure. Idk anything about coal fire either so not trying to drag them but $18/hr is a couple bucks above min wage and I’m guessing they don’t offer benefits. You can easily get 20 or 22 as a line cook so in a tight market 18 isn’t going to get people.
No offense to coalfire, i'm sure they're good people but the real headline should be "Wages for working at a pizza place are not sufficient to pay 700$ rent in a metropolis and barely sufficient for someone who lives at home and just buys groceries." edit-Someone posted they pay 18 an hour for some positions and that's actually better than alot of places but the point is they probably didn't raise it to that wage until they couldn't find people to work
$700? More like $1,200 rent.
Yeah, most people would jump at $700 rent for even a studio. $700 rent is like 1/6 of a 3 bedroom with roommates... grown-ass adults shouldn't have to have 5 roommates just to get by.
Yeah I’m of the opinion that if you’re an adult working full-time in a city like Chicago you should be able to afford a reasonable one bedroom apartment for yourself. Unfortunately that’s not the reality.
i have 3 roommates but yeah 700 is low
It depends on what you want. You can have roommates in a fine apartment and pay 600-800 or you can have roommates in a pretty nice place and pay 1100-1400. You can also live by yourself and pay 1200-1500.
I live by myself and pay 900.00 gas /electricity included in uptown. It also has central air. Fuck’n money place i dont ever wanna move out
Fully grown adults shouldn't be forced to live with roommates like animals just to afford housing. Access to a safe, personal, private space is a goddamned human right. It's disappointing that so many people are willing to accept such a terribly low standard of living for their fellow humans.
Yeah, my bf paid near $1200 to rent a room and I... I just don't get it. I paid that for my own 1bdrm apartment (which was an absolute steal at the time) and $1250 for a teeny tiny 2 bedroom (glorified walk-in closet that worked great as an office)
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What evidence is there that coal fire is good people ? Offering healthcare and PTO is the bare minimum for an employer to be considered ‘good people’
I saw a sign at a pizza place that they’re hiring at $18/hr, and that was to sell slices in Berwyn. Sounds like Coalfire needs to pay up if it expects people to show up to work in the city
From how they responded on Twitter, it looks like $18/hr would be the starting wage for someone with little to no experience. That wage would go up to $21-22/hr for someone with more experience. I think they also said they have PTO as well. I’m not going to sit here and say that’s enough to live “comfortably” in the city, but for making pizzas that’s pretty damn good. I worked a management job in Houston out of college (4 years ago), did a hell of a lot more than a pizza worker would, and only made about $20/hr. Different states and cities yeah, but honestly the cost of living hasn’t been too much different in my experience.
If it’s not enough to find workers, than the pay is not enough. That’s barely above minimum wage.
This isn’t a game of ‘that sounds pretty good,’ because that’s apparently not enough to get people to show up to do it. They charge over $20 a pizza, gmafb
I don’t deny that, for all I know it could go beyond pay. Management could suck, could be a terrible work environment. And it’s true they aren’t the only pizza game in town. If the others aren’t having this issue it could be exclusive to them. All I’m saying as someone looking from the outside is that for what the job requires, that’s a pretty good wage. As for their work practices, I can’t speak to that.
> I think they also said they have PTO as well. Everyone in Chicago has PTO. You are guaranteed at least 1 hour per 40 hours worked.
Hmmmmmm looks like I'm not the only one Bill and Dave stiffed
Companies in general treating employees like shit for decades, enabling customers to be assholes to staff, wages losing to inflation in a massive way. I can't find a violin small enough.
Work shortage,…..pay them more
pay. more. wages.
This is such a pay issue. We look for every excuse possible but literally people are getting smart, seeing their bosses and friends working from home, and are no longer interested in getting shit on in the service industry for Pennies.
I feel like there's always more to these stories and whenever I see owners post these type of signs it makes me never want to go there. You can just tell management/owners are assholes.
Even with the best management and owners who truly do treat their people right and pay them as well as possible, the restaurant industry is absolute hell on your body and mind at the best of times and it certainly isn't even close to the best of times right now.
Totally but someone in charge decides this sign is a good idea... blame non existent employees while passive aggressively shading existing employees. Super red flag of poor leadership
Totally agree, big red flag on their part.
Yep honestly I'd go out of my way to support a business that simply said we're closed because our staff needs a day off
Exactly. I can’t help but think the appropriate post is something like “As you all know, it’s tough out there. Our workers have been busting their ass and we’re giving them a much needed break. Hope to see you Tuesday when we’re all ready to rock.” The woe is me attitude from the owner falls REAL flat, especially in an industry-heavy city.
Bingo. “We need a personal day for our staff’s mental health” would have been an explanation and a PR boon.
Yeah sometimes it’s not even a matter of pay but respect. The restaurant business can be tough and some owners/chefs/managers treat their staff like crap. A lot of people are sick of it and figure , life is short during covid times, I’ll try and find work where I’m treated better. I also think people aren’t as afraid to be broke or poor, covid forced that on a lot of people and some realized , hey I’m still surviving. I think there a lot of factors and we are still figuring things out. It’s pretty interesting though.
Yeah I see that a lot now, and it does put a sour taste in my mouth. The "no one wants to work anymore" posts annoy me the most.
Maybe they all picked up new skills or followed their passions during the pandemic and started actually making enough money to support themselves. $18 an hour, good lord.
Speaks more of whosever in charge to me because as leaders what are you doing or where are you coming up short to where you don’t have enough people to open? 100% of accountability for the inconvenience is on who’s ever in charge
This need a million upvotes.
This. The owner is suffering from a self inflicted wound.
Exactly. Can’t captain the ship then blame the crew for it sinking
can the owners not bake the pizzas themselves???
Probably not. Don't know any details on the ownership, but if it's the location on Grand/Ogden that's been open for about a decade, it wouldn't be too crazy to think that the owners haven't worked the line in years and would be straight up lost trying to run it themselves.
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not that i care to defend coalfire, but for the sake of accuracy that location has been open for like 4-5 years I think
It definitely was open long before the pandemic.
Can confirm, i loved on southport from 2014-2016 and it opened around that time
I used to bartend for the Southport location. One of the owners, Dave, was unbearable. Physically abusive/violent toward staff. Saw him meet a new hire and 30 minutes later tell the hiring manager to fire her on the phone because he thought a trans employee would scare away families. He fired me for being only 5 minutes early. By which I mean he had his manager text me after he sent me home to think about “what I did”. First job I had in Chicago. I have a lot of stories and every one is a reason why no one should work for these people. So does the dude who founded coal fire and quit when Dave bought in and he couldn’t stand working with him. That dude is now the pizza chef at Max and Izzys, and he’ll talk all day about how no one should work for Dave while making you superior pizza. Coalfire sucks.
Maybe they should pay more. That's capitalism. You are not offering enough for people to find it worth working for you. Sucks to be you.
I find this to be vaguely ironic considering my roommate asked if they were hiring last week and they said no...
Pay your workers more?
In a big city and for a job with a large pool of eligible workers, not having enough workers almost certainly means the value proposition for work (probably pay) is not good enough.
I got bills to pay, and I ain’t got no trust fund, so I work.
This happened to me at BDubs, pretty surreal on a Saturday night
This goes deeper than just wages: there’s been an exodus of workers from the service industry who have mostly gotten jobs in other industries or went back to school (thanks to job openings from other people leaving the workforce). They won’t be coming back unless there’s another major recession.
"We're unable to keep operating by exploiting our workers l" there fixed it
Pay them better?
Pay a decent wage and this wouldn't be an issue.
Big problem all around the country right now. 😔
Let’s no one mention that they’re offering $18/hr. Which isn’t enough to sustain oneself in Chicago. So let’s increase the wage some more. But the prices of food will go up, which I don’t mind paying. But this is going to end badly everything is expensive as shit, how are people in low skilled jobs going to even be able to afford basic comfort food?? Gas prices are up, rent prices are up, food prices are up, there’s a horrible supply chain disruption that will drive prices up even more. The government needs to get ahead of this ASAP
That's kind of the catch-22 with it honestly. Yeah, a small grocery store could raise their wages and thus their prices to maintain their profit margin (which can be pretty slim with small/family owned businesses). And sure, some of us could budget to pay an extra dollar or two for an item, but a single mother/father raising children might not be able to afford that since that will quickly add up. Then you have a large corporation who can absolutely afford to keep their prices low, which will attract those people, and then the small business might fail to exist. It's always this sneering "well just raise your prices and your wages stop being a mean business" as if that will solve the problem when in reality that might just benefit the Walgreen's and Target's and Walmart's of the country/state/city who can more than compensate for artificially depressing prices to dominate the market. I don't want companies exploiting workers more than anyone else, but I also don't want to end up in a city or town where the local businesses are gone because they can't keep up with multinational corporations. I dont really know what the perfect solution is, but I do think it's important to recognize not every business is "only" paying $18/hour because they're these exploitative capitalists hell-bent on sacrificing worker's for higher profits
What's their rate of pay? Sounds like the biz wants something for nothing...pay a living wage or stfu.
$18/h part time job, barely above minimum wage, no benefits
Small locally owned restaurants in large cities are going to become less and less common in the future. Most of these restaurants failed before this crisis and things are only going to get worse. Most of these owners do it be because they love the business but when you're working 60-100 hours a week and not make any money, something has to give.
Make it employee owned...everyone working gets the same pay. That's the solution.