Many food-service businesses have remarked that fewer and fewer applicants are lining up for potential job opportunities at their respective stores.
MSN reported that the “US restaurant industry’s bad rap only got worse with the pandemic. Restaurant workers quit en masse in 2020, complaining about low pay, obnoxious customers, lack of benefits, and the risk of COVID.”
The outlet reported that, following the pandemic, many folks who previously worked in the food service industry began looking for employment “elsewhere” and that prior to 2020, “hourly workers were more likely to apply for jobs in hospitality and restaurants than the average hourly job.”
And a litany of prominent companies, in what appears to be an attempt to entice hourly employees to come back to the food service fold, upped their average starting wages. Starbucks claimed in a press release that it will pay its employees an average hourly wage of $17 an hour at its locations across the country beginning Aug. 1, 2022.
However, it seems that even in the instance of folks who’ve been onboarded by Starbucks, at least at the location this TikToker works at, that’s still not enough to get some people to work there.
@ohiojesusfreak ♬ Sunny day – beabadoobee
In a TikTok video posted by Dane (@ohiojesusfreak), he wrote in a text overlay: “pov working 11:15-7:45 because i was supposed to train ppl but neither of them showed up so i’m stuck here all day :)”
He clarified in the comments section he enjoys working at Starbucks because of the “customer connections” he makes and that he recorded and posted the video during his break.
His video was viewed nearly 70,000 times.
TikTokers in the comments section had a litany of different responses. Some said that they have been on the opposite side of this phenomenon.
“I’ve been on the reverse side of this. Showing up to get trained and the person who was supposed to train me didn’t show up,” one said.
Others thought it is a bad sign for the workers’ future at the location. “They not staying for long if they can’t even show up for training,” one commenter quipped.
Some shared what they would do if they were in Dane’s position. “I would of asked to leave early,” one said.
There were those who thought Dane’s managers essentially tricked him into working all day.
“I’m 100% managers do this bc they know you’d say no if they asked u to work a full shift,” one suggested.
“Me last Tuesday during the tuesyay deal lmao literally same time and everything,” another claimed.
Other users thought that this was a failing on the part of the managers. However, Dane clarified this wasn’t the case.
“Everyone’s bashing my store/manager/staffing stuff ITS NOT THAT DEEP one girl had vivid [presumably he meant to write COVID] and the other girl had to work at her other job! no drama,” he wrote.
Update 6:30am CT, July 28: Dane told the Daily Dot via Instagram message that while he thought he was training two new baristas, one of them wasn’t even scheduled to work that day.
“It’s not her fault for not showing up (she wasn’t even supposed to be there),” he said.
He added that the other trainee had COVID so also couldn’t show up.
“I don’t care that i had to stay for coverage, because i still needed my hours and money for that shift,” Dane said.
He shared that he was “casually complaining” on TikTok and didn’t expect his video to blow up.
“A lot of people in the comments took it out of proportion and assumed it was the trainees’ faults i was stuck there, but it wasn’t,” he said. “I love starbucks and i mean no harm to the company and i’m making it clear that the narrative of that tik tok was taken out of hand and out of context.”
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