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> a server tells me her manager won’t give her the Saturday-night money shift until she has more followers Does this really happen? Or maybe just in the USA?

> a server tells me her manager won’t give her the Saturday-night money shift until she has more followers Does this really happen? Or maybe just in the USA? Why would I, as a customer, care about server's follower count? Is it somehow correlated with their performance?

Stanley02 2y ago
Possibly more followers relates to more customers coming by especially for her/him
cthalupa 2y ago
I've never heard of anything remotely like that occurring in the restaurant industry and servers - but there are industries where the reach of someone would be important for hiring or booking them for a gig. In today's world, social media followers is one of those proxies we tend to default to for reach. But a similar thing has been part of the service industry for a long time - attractive and charismatic people will often get the best shifts, even if they're not necessarily the hardest working or best at the other aspects of the job. I suspect if such a thing around the followers is happening now, it's just the a new manifestation of the same underlying cause.
23B1 2y ago
It happens everywhere in marketing, at all levels. Strippers, movie stars, ballet dancers. Anyone whose job it is to reach eyeballs and build a 'brand'. It is nigh on impossible to get a literary manager these days unless you have a sizable social media following, for example. It's absolute brain rot.
- zztop44 2y ago
  But that simply follows on from a shift in consumer behaviour. It’s nigh impossible to sell literary prose at any significant volume unless you have a sizeable social media following. The only exceptions are people who have a sizeable traditional media following and a specific personal reason for not being on social media.
  - 23B1 2y ago
    "that simply follows on from a shift in consumer behaviour" feels hand-washy. chicken/egg of course, but the question people – especially technologists – should be asking is: is that really helping society progress? I would argue, like this article does, that it isn't and is indeed harming society by atomizing and attempting to quantify behavior in the name of 'choice' which of course is a non-sequitur. The commercial engines should be in service of humanity and enrichment, not the other way around. A brilliant writer isn't a social media maven, nor should they be.
- InkCanon 2y ago
  The main hack these commodification entities makes seems to be to disrupt the traditional flow of information and valuation, then create a new marketplace it controls. For books, I imagine many centuries ago the literary class wrote and read books largely from the social and intellectual forces at the time. The smallest unit of these interactions would be a member reading a book, liking it and recommending it to his friends. The net aggregation of such would slowly produce a trend, communicating to writers that there was a higher chance of being read if you followed it. Now such exchanges have been consumed by digital marketplaces. The sheer size means writers have to make a Faustian bargain to bend to it's needs, while readers have a curated list of books for them. Any well reading writer and reader have an impossible time communicating because the main flow of information has been hijacked.
toomuchtodo 2y ago
Businesses live and die by Google Maps reviews and social now. I am familiar with a Kentucky pizza chain that gave instructions that if each server did not meet their Google review quota, they would be let go or moved to hosting. https://ibb.co/MBcJhZW https://ibb.co/MBcJhZW https://ibb.co/kG1bddG https://ibb.co/kG1bddG
harimau777 2y ago
Not exactly the same, but some friends and I have a tradition of going to a local equivalent to Hooters on Mother's Day since it's the only place that you don't need a reservation. The last time we went the server gave us all an official card with her name on it where we could go to leave feedback for her.
searchableguy 2y ago
I sometimes get hand written note to review and mention the name of the person who made my food on food delivery app.

Stanley02 2y ago

Possibly more followers relates to more customers coming by especially for her/him

cthalupa 2y ago

I've never heard of anything remotely like that occurring in the restaurant industry and servers - but there are industries where the reach of someone would be important for hiring or booking them for a gig. In today's world, social media followers is one of those proxies we tend to default to for reach. But a similar thing has been part of the service industry for a long time - attractive and charismatic people will often get the best shifts, even if they're not necessarily the hardest working or best at the other aspects of the job. I suspect if such a thing around the followers is happening now, it's just the a new manifestation of the same underlying cause.

23B1 2y ago

It happens everywhere in marketing, at all levels. Strippers, movie stars, ballet dancers. Anyone whose job it is to reach eyeballs and build a 'brand'. It is nigh on impossible to get a literary manager these days unless you have a sizable social media following, for example. It's absolute brain rot.

zztop44 2y ago
But that simply follows on from a shift in consumer behaviour. It’s nigh impossible to sell literary prose at any significant volume unless you have a sizeable social media following. The only exceptions are people who have a sizeable traditional media following and a specific personal reason for not being on social media.
- 23B1 2y ago
  "that simply follows on from a shift in consumer behaviour" feels hand-washy. chicken/egg of course, but the question people – especially technologists – should be asking is: is that really helping society progress? I would argue, like this article does, that it isn't and is indeed harming society by atomizing and attempting to quantify behavior in the name of 'choice' which of course is a non-sequitur. The commercial engines should be in service of humanity and enrichment, not the other way around. A brilliant writer isn't a social media maven, nor should they be.
InkCanon 2y ago
The main hack these commodification entities makes seems to be to disrupt the traditional flow of information and valuation, then create a new marketplace it controls. For books, I imagine many centuries ago the literary class wrote and read books largely from the social and intellectual forces at the time. The smallest unit of these interactions would be a member reading a book, liking it and recommending it to his friends. The net aggregation of such would slowly produce a trend, communicating to writers that there was a higher chance of being read if you followed it. Now such exchanges have been consumed by digital marketplaces. The sheer size means writers have to make a Faustian bargain to bend to it's needs, while readers have a curated list of books for them. Any well reading writer and reader have an impossible time communicating because the main flow of information has been hijacked.

toomuchtodo 2y ago

Businesses live and die by Google Maps reviews and social now. I am familiar with a Kentucky pizza chain that gave instructions that if each server did not meet their Google review quota, they would be let go or moved to hosting. https://ibb.co/MBcJhZW https://ibb.co/MBcJhZW https://ibb.co/kG1bddG https://ibb.co/kG1bddG

harimau777 2y ago

Not exactly the same, but some friends and I have a tradition of going to a local equivalent to Hooters on Mother's Day since it's the only place that you don't need a reservation. The last time we went the server gave us all an official card with her name on it where we could go to leave feedback for her.

searchableguy 2y ago

I sometimes get hand written note to review and mention the name of the person who made my food on food delivery app.