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Interesting framing isn’t it? Customers also feel it’s “not so cool” to experience huge price rises, badly trained staff etc. We had a similar thing in Europe

Interesting framing isn’t it? Customers also feel it’s “not so cool” to experience huge price rises, badly trained staff etc. We had a similar thing in Europe during COVID with those #BeKind campaigns and signs everywhere to treat staff with respect etc. The staff are caught in the middle, the face of the economic issues - and sometimes greed. Can’t be easy for them And today we still have high prices, reduced staff (cost saving), QR codes (cost saving), reduced quality/quantity (cost saving) and rightly people are still annoyed. It feels like we helped repay them for lockdown, and now are continuing to do so. Of course it’s a wider, systemic and economic issue but people are human. And the great thing about the mysterious inflation is that each company/government can just blame another company/government round and round, so it’s nobody’s fault

rightbyte 2y ago
I think the fundamental problem is that the person in charge is unreachable and wont face the personal reputation and social status hit. The powerless employees are used as a fire wall.
- luckylion 2y ago
  I 100% agree. My mother and her friend, both long retired, were on a vacation with their bikes, and on their way back by train, their train happened to be in Frankfurt Main Station when a man was murdered in the station. All trains were evacuated, people need to wait outside the station. The trains leave at some point. People are now stuck in Frankfurt. The local staff knows nothing and no higher-ups are passing down information or make decisions. The local staff cannot on their own give out vouchers for hotels or they'd be liable if it turns out the management didn't want to (and would management ever want to?). I'm sure that wasn't a great day full of happy interactions for the staff at the station, and the abundance of federal police probably kept things much calmer than they'd otherwise be. Customers are stuck with no/terrible service. Staff can't do anything about it. Management has fun somewhere and doesn't care. It's like AWS outages being acknowledged hours later but with trains.
  - switch007 2y ago
    Similar story with customer service on the railway in the UK. Too common now is for them to wash their hands of the customers, or just tell you to pay and hopefully reclaim. Nobody has authority to spend money. They have almost brainwashed the public that no event is ever the railway's responsibility to deal with just because they aren't the root cause. The are enough laws and contractual provisions to help the customer but they are being blatantly ignored, and the government is allowing it for cost saving purposes.
    - wanderingmind 2y ago
      Yes this is the best course. Pay with credit card and then charge the hell back of everything for the entire vacation or trip.
    - traceroute66 2y ago
      > Too common now is for them to wash their hands of the customers "common now ?" - I don't recall there ever being a time when UK railways gave a shit about their customers. :) British Airways however .... now that is an organisation that has fallen from grace. They used to care for customers. But after recent C-suites (Cruz, Walsh etc.) they've turned into a real horror show. Commiting to an over-ambitious schedule just to keep their precious slots at Heathrow, meanwhile everything else gets cost-cut beyond recognition.
      - switch007 2y ago
        I was particularly thinking of the open access operators such as Grand Central and Lumo who think they have zero responsibility for passengers and that getting you to your destination is a nice-to-have Train service was never amazing but has genuinely been getting worse through reduced staff and reduced empowerment of them
      - fakedang 2y ago
        I remember once paying the premium to travel British Airways non-stop from Asia to London. Nowadays I'd rather do the Abu Dhabi/Dubai/Doha layover (at a lower airfare too).
Spivak 2y ago
Yes and the line-worker making $2.75/hr plus tips has no power at all to help you and is just working a job. In all likelihood they have less power than you to affect change in their workplace. Making random front-line workers economic whipping boys (https://www.smbc-comics.com/?db=comics&id=2589 https://www.smbc-comics.com/?db=comics&id=2589) is just one powerless angry customer being mad at a powerless worker while the owner laughs. Assuming the anger will get run up the chain requires the people at the top give even one shit about how their workers are treated. And they're paying them the least they're legally allowed to and not providing benefits so… no they don't.
- halJordan 2y ago
  I dont accept the "im just a worker and powerless." Employees have more agency than any customer and also the execs are themselves just employees working a job. If it's not right for them to meekly acquiesce then we should hold the whole enterprise to the same standard.
  - Spivak 2y ago
    You can't really draw an equivalence between a grocery store cashier and their director of pricing in terms of agency. It just doesn't make sense, what do you want them to do? Complain to their manager who also doesn't set the prices? The thoughts of a random rank-and-file employee fall on deafer ears than a customer. You have a better chance of getting a meeting with an executive with decision making power than the cashier. If the cashier makes noise they'll be fired and replaced, they can't fire you. Berating literally the lowest-ranked employee at a company who if they had any agency at all wouldn't be working that job will accomplish nothing except making their day worse.
bloppe 2y ago
This is a very counter productive attitude. Ask any restaurant owner and they'll tell you the cost of ingredients and labor has more than doubled in recent years. Ask any waiter or produce supplier why their prices have gone up, and they'll tell you their costs of living and business have doubled too. A big point of having a competitive economy is to make greed self-defeating. Blaming inflation on greed is like blaming hurricanes on evil spirits. It's stupid, destructive, and seductive. Inflation happens when demand outstrips supply, plain and simple. In America, keeping inflation in check is the Fed's job. They're the only ones who could reasonably be blamed for failing to take it seriously until too late. But the only way to reduce demand is to basically make people poorer. So ya it's not surprising that people get angry. But all this anger is misplaced and counterproductive
- switch007 2y ago
  Did you see the qualifier "sometimes" before the word greed? I also mentioned inflation. Seems like you're the angry one, not me

rightbyte 2y ago

I think the fundamental problem is that the person in charge is unreachable and wont face the personal reputation and social status hit. The powerless employees are used as a fire wall.

luckylion 2y ago
I 100% agree. My mother and her friend, both long retired, were on a vacation with their bikes, and on their way back by train, their train happened to be in Frankfurt Main Station when a man was murdered in the station. All trains were evacuated, people need to wait outside the station. The trains leave at some point. People are now stuck in Frankfurt. The local staff knows nothing and no higher-ups are passing down information or make decisions. The local staff cannot on their own give out vouchers for hotels or they'd be liable if it turns out the management didn't want to (and would management ever want to?). I'm sure that wasn't a great day full of happy interactions for the staff at the station, and the abundance of federal police probably kept things much calmer than they'd otherwise be. Customers are stuck with no/terrible service. Staff can't do anything about it. Management has fun somewhere and doesn't care. It's like AWS outages being acknowledged hours later but with trains.
- switch007 2y ago
  Similar story with customer service on the railway in the UK. Too common now is for them to wash their hands of the customers, or just tell you to pay and hopefully reclaim. Nobody has authority to spend money. They have almost brainwashed the public that no event is ever the railway's responsibility to deal with just because they aren't the root cause. The are enough laws and contractual provisions to help the customer but they are being blatantly ignored, and the government is allowing it for cost saving purposes.
  - wanderingmind 2y ago
    Yes this is the best course. Pay with credit card and then charge the hell back of everything for the entire vacation or trip.
  - traceroute66 2y ago
    > Too common now is for them to wash their hands of the customers "common now ?" - I don't recall there ever being a time when UK railways gave a shit about their customers. :) British Airways however .... now that is an organisation that has fallen from grace. They used to care for customers. But after recent C-suites (Cruz, Walsh etc.) they've turned into a real horror show. Commiting to an over-ambitious schedule just to keep their precious slots at Heathrow, meanwhile everything else gets cost-cut beyond recognition.
    - switch007 2y ago
      I was particularly thinking of the open access operators such as Grand Central and Lumo who think they have zero responsibility for passengers and that getting you to your destination is a nice-to-have Train service was never amazing but has genuinely been getting worse through reduced staff and reduced empowerment of them
    - fakedang 2y ago
      I remember once paying the premium to travel British Airways non-stop from Asia to London. Nowadays I'd rather do the Abu Dhabi/Dubai/Doha layover (at a lower airfare too).

Spivak 2y ago

Yes and the line-worker making $2.75/hr plus tips has no power at all to help you and is just working a job. In all likelihood they have less power than you to affect change in their workplace. Making random front-line workers economic whipping boys (https://www.smbc-comics.com/?db=comics&id=2589 https://www.smbc-comics.com/?db=comics&id=2589) is just one powerless angry customer being mad at a powerless worker while the owner laughs. Assuming the anger will get run up the chain requires the people at the top give even one shit about how their workers are treated. And they're paying them the least they're legally allowed to and not providing benefits so… no they don't.

halJordan 2y ago
I dont accept the "im just a worker and powerless." Employees have more agency than any customer and also the execs are themselves just employees working a job. If it's not right for them to meekly acquiesce then we should hold the whole enterprise to the same standard.
- Spivak 2y ago
  You can't really draw an equivalence between a grocery store cashier and their director of pricing in terms of agency. It just doesn't make sense, what do you want them to do? Complain to their manager who also doesn't set the prices? The thoughts of a random rank-and-file employee fall on deafer ears than a customer. You have a better chance of getting a meeting with an executive with decision making power than the cashier. If the cashier makes noise they'll be fired and replaced, they can't fire you. Berating literally the lowest-ranked employee at a company who if they had any agency at all wouldn't be working that job will accomplish nothing except making their day worse.

bloppe 2y ago

This is a very counter productive attitude. Ask any restaurant owner and they'll tell you the cost of ingredients and labor has more than doubled in recent years. Ask any waiter or produce supplier why their prices have gone up, and they'll tell you their costs of living and business have doubled too. A big point of having a competitive economy is to make greed self-defeating. Blaming inflation on greed is like blaming hurricanes on evil spirits. It's stupid, destructive, and seductive. Inflation happens when demand outstrips supply, plain and simple. In America, keeping inflation in check is the Fed's job. They're the only ones who could reasonably be blamed for failing to take it seriously until too late. But the only way to reduce demand is to basically make people poorer. So ya it's not surprising that people get angry. But all this anger is misplaced and counterproductive

switch007 2y ago
Did you see the qualifier "sometimes" before the word greed? I also mentioned inflation. Seems like you're the angry one, not me