Here’s some context first:
I grew up thinking Chick-fil-A was a great place to work, and it’s always been a difficult fast food job to obtain if you’re newer to the fast food industry. As someone with experience trying to get the job pre-COVID, I can attest to this. Lately when I go to eat there, the service is SO bad. They don’t put the food on the racks they belong on very much, and they keep the bags with names turned away from people and very often don’t confront customers that are waiting, so the food often just sits there and they are talking amongst each other about whatever, and it’s surprisingly hard to get their attention. It’s awful. It defeats the point of ordering on your phone.
Today my phone wouldn’t load the menu, so I ordered inside. I was the only person in line, and the 2 registers open had a customer at both just nonstop chatting. I waited over 5 minutes for them to stop chatting it up, and this is right as breakfast is about to end. If they mess up my order (and often do) then I miss out on breakfast or stick with the mistake. I thought to myself “they must be paying them bad, it would explain a lot”, so I had to find out.
I asked 2 employees who seemed really nerve-racked to answer the question, and was directed to the manager, and she wouldn’t give me an answer either at first, and would say that it depended on availability and experience. So I said low to medium of both, and she said “probably minimum wage” after asking 3 times. Minimum wage here in North Carolina is $7.25. Taco Bell up the street is hiring at $12 an hour, McDonalds is $11-12, everywhere is desperate and paying better. Inflation is just as bad here, and $12 is barely livable. But 7.25??? How? I’m wondering if it’s difficult to quit without having a bad reference for the past 2 years or however long. I hope I don’t sound like I’m just complaining, I haven’t really minded the bad service so much but I had wonder why it’s not even mediocre at a place that has always had high standards.
TL;DR: Chick-fil-A pays 7.25 in an environment where anything below 10 is crazy. Minimum wage needs to be raised.