Submitted by HarpPgh t3_1268qxu in pittsburgh
sparksofthetempest t1_je8g65n wrote
Reply to comment by JAK3CAL in 24/7 Diners by HarpPgh
Yeah, as an older guy I guess I took this stuff for granted but it really made life better for lots of reasons. We’re really in dark times when one of the most heavily traveled thoroughfares in the country can’t pay enough to keep staff. It’s crazy.
69FunnyNumberGuy420 t1_je9p98c wrote
Nobody wants to work in a shitty industry serving demanding people to make shit money during a mass death event. And I can't say I blame them.
The_Wkwied t1_jea0dqn wrote
> can’t pay enough to keep staff
Would YOU want to work minimum wage graveyard shift? It's not that they can't pay enough, it is that people are up and tired of working their lives away for pennies to the tens of thousands of dollars their CEOs make.
ButtlickTheGreat t1_jea1kcg wrote
Look, I understand what you're saying here, but there are absolutely people who would be willing to work a night shift at a restaurant. Some people's lives just don't really accommodate working during the day for any number of reasons.
69FunnyNumberGuy420 t1_jea6l1p wrote
> there are absolutely people who would be willing to work a night shift at a restaurant
I'd say that there aren't, since none of these places can find any.
Restaurant work fucking sucks and there's an ongoing mass death event that killed over 260K people last year, which spreads explosively in restaurants. There are reasons these places can't find labor.
ButtlickTheGreat t1_jean1z5 wrote
Look man, any way you slice it, we're at the endemic phase of the pandemic. There are countless people braving the restaurant scene every day; what we have in the way of harm reduction is what we're going to get. You don't have to tell me about the pandemic, I did everything I was supposed to do and advocated for others to do the same. I respect the severity of it, I get it.
I would argue that employers aren't looking for these employees. I haven't seen "Help wanted: Night Shift" signs up at restaurants/diners. They're not trying to be open, that's why they're not open.
69FunnyNumberGuy420 t1_jeapm6s wrote
> we're at the endemic phase of the pandemic.
You don't know what that word means and you're misusing it.
Covid is the leading cause of death in America that isn't heart disease or cancer and it's going to continue to be that for the foreseeable future. Restaurants are incredibly good at spreading Covid.
> what we have in the way of harm reduction is what we're going to get.
And if people decided their version of harm reduction was getting out of a risky profession that paid like shit, good on them.
Every restaurant in this city that's closed recently has cited staffing concerns as a major contributor. People don't want to risk their lives for shit wages. I know people who used the pandemic to get out of the hospitality industry entirely and I doubt they're the only ones.
ButtlickTheGreat t1_jeb01nx wrote
You have an extremely abrasive way of talking to people. Anyone ever tell you that?
Endemic means that a disease has a constant presence with a population; I am very aware of its meaning and used the word to describe what I intended to say accurately.
>People don't want to risk their lives for shit wages. I know people who used the pandemic to get out of the hospitality industry entirely and I doubt they're the only ones.
I also know people like that, and good for them. I also know people who turned 17, 18, and 19 during the pandemic. They are qualified to do exactly nothing and their parents aren't going to pay for them to be unemployed into perpetuity. Fuck the capitalist overlords (seriously) and everything, but these same people have to start working to start their lives and, again, are qualified to do nothing other than basic service industry jobs.
I don't know why you're so hostile to the idea, but COVID did not permanently kill late-night dining. This shit will work itself out eventually. There is demand, there will be supply. I too hate capitalism, but that's what we've got and its basic precepts will, as always, apply.
69FunnyNumberGuy420 t1_jeb0yev wrote
> Endemic means that a disease has a constant presence with a population;
That's not what it means.
It means that a disease is present at a low level in a population, i.e. R0 =< 1. Once an endemic disease starts spreading in an uncontrolled fashion, it becomes an epidemic or a pandemic.
AIDS is still considered an epidemic disease, for instance. Rabies is considered endemic to certain animals in North America because it's there, it just doesn't spread out of control all the time.
Covid is too contagious to ever be endemic. At best we'll get measles-like oscillating waves of infection. It's going to kill 250K+ Americans per year in perpetuity and there are plenty of people living their lives with that bit of risk calculus in mind.
> these same people have to start working to start their lives and, again, are qualified to do nothing other than basic service industry jobs.
This is a bizarre way of looking at the workforce when over half of all young people go to college.
No one owes the restaurant industry, or the restaurant patron, their labor. Nobody. If restaurants close because they can't make money paying their workers what they want to make, fuck 'em. There's a labor shortage, and that's life.
A lot of the people who asked for better restaurant wages pre-pandemic and were told "GO GET A BETTER JOB IF YOU DON'T LIKE IT!" did exactly that - they went and got better jobs.
> I don't know why you're so hostile to the idea, but COVID did not permanently kill late-night dining.
Of course it didn't. It certainly did negatively impact it in a great way, though. Just like it impacted everything else. And it's going to keep impacting it for a long time.
YouBetterDuck t1_jebcg7v wrote
My daughter who is 15 got a job making $16 an hour working in fast food. It is amazing that there is so much demand for workers that she can do so well at such a young age!
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