…said my assistant manager to me the other day. She asked me how I was doing, and I told her my standard “Hanging in there.” But it wasn't enough for her. She asked me – out loud, with words and everything – why no one was ever happy about coming to work.
Like, honest question. She genuinely didn't understand.
And I had to try SO VERY HARD not to explain it to her in detail…
-o-o-o-o-
Let me explain. I make McDonald's money. I don't work at McDonald's, oh no. I work in a hotel. I have to greet guests who treat me like crap and do work that is circuitous and mind-numbing, I have to always have an answer to everything at all times. I have to be computer literate and know the area. I am skilled labor. But here's the reality, boys and girls:
McDonald's is paying new associates – not management, but positions like cashier, drive-thru, etc. – as much as I'm making now. I am getting the same pay for a much more difficult job. But hey, don't blame McDonald's. Wal-Mart is paying that much too, now. So is Target, and Burger King…the list goes on and on and on. The minimum wage isn't really the minimum wage any more.
But the hospitality industry hasn't noticed.
They're asking managers to pay LESS now that Covid is supposedly over. (It's not. Don't let anyone tell you it is. Don't expect it to be over any time soon…but that's another story.) Managers are given LESS to work with to hire new employees. Unsurprisingly, this is leading to massive hiring difficulties – why would I put all this effort and work and time into working for you when I can flip burgers or say hello for the same money – which is driving management out of the industry at a breakneck pace, which just makes things harder for everyone. (Any time I hear management whining “NoBoDy WaNtS tO wOrK” I replace it with “Nobody wants to work for ME, and I don't want to figure out the real reason, so I'm just going to blame the world. World Bad!”)
Sorry, I'm drifting. Back to the point.
Assistant Manager, you want to know why I'm not cheerful coming in to work?
I make barely enough money to get by. I make enough money to pay my bills and keep a roof over my head and very little else. It's difficult for me to afford the medication that keeps me alive. And if some kind of unexpected problem happens? Well, I'm dead. Plain and simple. I'm dead and you will replace me in a heartbeat with someone unlucky enough to take this position. (Why am I here? Because this is a job where I can sit, which my disability requires.)
Why am I not invested in the success of this business?
See, I understand why you're invested in its success. A full house benefits you. You get bonuses and you get perks and you get little rewards from corporate if we're completely full to the brim. And you get to go back to your comfortable house and live the life you want to live, and you get to enjoy those bonuses on top of the pay you're already getting. And you get to be HAPPY because you can afford the things that make you happy. It makes sense for YOU to be invested in the success of this business. I get that.
And then there's me. What do I get if we have a full house? NOTHING. What kind of bonuses do I get? NOTHING. I can look forward to your bonuses and perks trickling dohahaha I can't even finish typing that. Sure, I'm a massive part of your success – me and my fellow wage-slaves – but the perks and rewards you get? Only YOU get those. You and the rest of upper management. What about me? What do I get out of a full house? How does it affect me?
I'll tell you how it affects me. A full house means MORE WORK. It means a harder night. It means a higher chance of some chucklefuck drunkenly stumbling in to abuse me because he feels powerless in his day-to-day life and he knows I can't fight back. A full house is BAD to me. What's my ideal? My ideal is for us to be exactly busy enough that we don't go under and I still get paid. Exactly busy enough. And you'd be amazed how busy that isn't. There are no perks to me if we have a full house, so I don't want the property to be hugely successful; that benefits you. I want the property to be exactly successful enough.
“BuT iF wE dOn'T mAkE lOtS oF mOnEy We CaN't PaY yOu MoRe”
I know there's no chance for a promotion or a raise. Especially not in my position, working overnight. No matter how nice management talks, out of sight is out of mind. When it's time to fill a vacant position, you hire from outside the company. You SAY you like to promote from within, but when it's time to actually DO it, you never do. And the raises you give take forever to happen and are percentage based, which further penalizes me for having a bad pay rate.
-o-o-o-o-
So don't stand there and ask me “why aren't people happy to come in to work”.
I might explain it to you.