A self-proclaimed “certified job hopper” has gone viral after sharing their thoughts on the current job market.
According to TikTok user Dana Torres (@dancedanadance) in a video with over 740,000 views as of Friday, the main issue with the modern workplace is not that people don’t want to work — it’s that employers aren’t letting them work the hours that they need or that they’ve been promised.
“If there is something they cannot figure out, it’s the correlation between scheduling and why they cannot keep employees…their employee retention,” Torres says.
“So many places hire you on full time, and they’re like, ‘We need all of your availability,’” Torres claims. “Then, they start with scheduling you, like, 30, 36, 38 hours, saying it’s just for training.”
“And then, when the full-time hours come around, they start doing shit like this,” she says, referring to a stitched video in which only the manager was scheduled over 26 hours per week.
“They claim it’s because corporate isn’t giving your company or your specific store a budget for hiring staff anymore, and that’s because they want to get as much work out of skeleton crews as humanly possible so that they don’t have to pay labor costs,” Torres states. “Meanwhile, they’re raking in billions of dollars in profit.”
She continues that employees are occasionally promoted to lower managers and given more hours with additional responsibilities. However, this also serves to benefit the people above them because lower-rung employees become “mad and bitter at them for no fucking reason, because everybody’s losing.”
@dancedanadance #stitch with @sbworkersunited ♬ original sound – Dana Torres
“They do this, and then claim that they’re hiring…and that they can’t find anybody, and they can’t find quality employees,” Torres continues. “Well, within the first month of hiring new employees you’re already screwing them over. Of course, they’re gonna go and get new jobs.”
Torres also notes that employees are frequently given inconsistent schedules while being expected to have full-time availability. This makes it difficult for them to pick up a second job to make up for the lack of hours given to them by their first job — and thus, also inspires them to quit.
In the comments section, users largely agreed with Torres’ video, with many adding their own points.
“‘Loyalty’ has always meant ‘we expect you to take every low blow and insult with a smile and like it,’” a user offered.
“We need a law that says ‘if the job is advertised/ posted as full time you have to get all the benefits thereof. The pay, healthcare etc. regardless,” another added. “If they keep advertising full time and not paying us the full time or not giving us health benefits then we should be compensated.”
“Even my teenager has had to fight for family time or a consistent day off,” a third alleged. “I taught him to take all the time he can afford and F the chain restaurant.”
Other users shared that a more robust social system in the United States would help alleviate worker pressure.
“Universal healthcare would change a lot of this,” a commenter concluded, with another replying, “Keeping healthcare connected to employment is a way of controlling the workforce and restricting their freedom of choice.”
We’ve reached out to Torres via TikTok comment.
Update 6:22am CT, Jan. 27, 2023: In a TikTok direct message exchange with the Daily Dot, Dana elaborated on what changes in American work culture could resolve this issue.
“To be frank, a total revolution is what I think, but what we need to see is on a legislative level,” she wrote. “There needs to be caps in profit, CEO and CFO salaries. On a more local level, in all industries, regional and district management needs to care more about what their lower management and supervisory staff have to say.”
“Of course, high wages, universal healthcare, and more transparency about financial aspects in this country would fix all of our nation’s issues,” she continued in relation to workplace issues. “We, as workers, need to stand up and fight back at this point.”
She then moved on to the discussion in her comments section.
“There were many good points in the comments that I wanted to address, but it’s difficult when the answers aren’t black and white,” she explained. “We should want to rely on HR departments, open door policies, anonymous phone lines, anonymous complaint boxes. But we see the backlash our co-workers have faced, we see the reprimanding happening behind the scenes, and it’s hard to keep going showing up and working hard when it’s all for nothing. We know the mistreatment is going to continue. We need to be open about our wages, loud about our problems, and stand firm in what we want the solutions to be.”
“It’s hard to want unions when we see how they haven’t always been perfect. Between strikes, fees, and no guarantees of rights — it’s difficult to want another hand to pay,” she stated.
In conclusion, she added, “Eat the rich.”
