#but I'm just one boss and also certainly not somebody who can make a sea change lmao I'm not special

[lizbethborden]

Something I've thought about in my industry (coffee) and adjacent quick service type businesses is the way roles are "deprofessionalized" and undervalued in a way that creates a feedback loop of underinvested, unprofessional employees.

These businesses are businesses like any other and have legal health codes, product standards, inventory, financial considerations, and so on, and employees are typically expected to not only uphold standards but also monitor and be mindful of the "back end" issues like labor cost, inventory waste, and overhead, given that these various administrative concerns directly impact their day-to-day. How much info a given staff receives is obviously dependent on management or ownership, but regardless, these are all things that they are held responsible for (I used to get yelled at in one place if I dropped disposable cups or cutlery, because that was my boss' money, and I was expected not to throw them out--that's inventory cost as well as a health code violation lol). (I also had to take a ServSafe manager's course on this man's behalf because he was too stupid to pass it. Btw.)

But these are hourly positions that are chronically underpaid, even in HCOL areas like mine, and in shops that aren't regulated by unions or Fair Work Week laws, schedules are inconsistent and hours are never guaranteed--those are "deprofessionalizing" characteristics that make these roles into what are culturally considered temporary and unimportant stepping-stones (despite the percentage of adults, including older adults, working in them) and discourage workers from taking them seriously as jobs or careers. An hourly worker with an inconsistent paycheck, few benefits, no social value, and top-down pressure to take on both physical and mental workloads simply has no incentive to do their job well or consider it really important. Obviously you do get people with passion for their industry or who are interested in moving up or who just have work ethic, but they are relatively rare.

Until conditions in the industry change to make these jobs worth having, the model will always rely on turning and burning crops of hourly workers, and on those rare workers who, through ambition or ethic or lack of other options, will pick up the slack from their disincentivized coworkers. In food service this often means that the immigrant workers in the back carry the day (the hardest working people at aforementioned boss' place were the undocumented people who needed to be paid in cash and so had few other job prospects).

Meanwhile: people are OVERWHELMINGLY dependent on all these types of businesses and there is a high level of demand for products as well as, well, a high level of being freaking demanding from the customers. This is why people working at Starbucks frequently burn out hard: not only is the physical labor of working there grueling, the mental workload and the behavior of the customers (in an environment that is almost totally permissive to their whims) are just impossible.

There is a massive disinterest in easing the burden on workers as well as a disinterest in worker education and development; moreover workers are frequently leery of actually learning about the business in a substantial way because that means more work for the same money--whereas if they were actually valued, they would receive commensurate compensation for their education and skills, and wouldn't have to be scared of gaining knowledge and expertise. If we lived in a perfect world, the big industry names would respond to this and change to improve working conditions and benefits for workers, which obviously is not something that will happen.

I have also noticed that management and supervisory roles in this industry are often "deprofessionalized" as well. This is nothing new as far as, for example, salaried kitchen roles go: your hours are consistent, but consistent in that they're 50-60 hours a week, with no overtime, and frequently severely underpaid. I often see management roles offering salaries that would not let you qualify for a studio apartment, meanwhile you are expected to show up at 4 AM to open and stay until 10 to close (as often happens to Starbucks managers, which I saw many a time). You take on the increased mental burdens while also working physically in the role (well, depending on environment--sorry to keep using Sbux as an example but managers there are expected to spend 40h on the floor and to carve out admin time in slow periods, and that has been the expectation I've seen in many comparable quick service roles). Obviously there are many managers who slack--and why wouldn't they? They are not treated as or considered professionals; they are underpaid and undervalued and may not have much better benefits than their staff. Moreover their staff is similarly disincentivized both by their manager and by the terms of their employment set by ownership.

no conclusion here. Just some things I have noticed. I try to operate my own shops in an affirming and encouraging way that values the staff, and that's all I can do.