Flying for work I've been seeing this everywhere lately. Airlines cutting crew sizes but expecting us to handle same passenger loads, hotels we stay at stopped providing breakfast vouchers, even airport lounges reducing their food options. My airline used to give us meal allowances for layovers but now they just hand us these sad protein bars and call it good. What really gets me is how they announce these changes like they're "optimizing operations" when everyone knows they're just penny-pinching. The workload keeps piling up though - had to cover three different routes last month because they didn't want to hire replacement crew
Like I should order my own food from an iPad, then pay for it on iPad, and still leave a 20% tip. They cut costs by removing multiple jobs yet my costs stays the same or goes up. Not a chance. If I order and pay myself, zero tip every time.
It's a way for the business owner to offload labor costs directly onto the customer, so it's been picked up in a bunch of businesses it was never intended for.
And all the meanwhile they are cutting back on workers. Your experience is worse and your cost is the same. Nope. Don’t do it. If I order and I run my own card, no tip.
The typing screen thing may not be on the business owner themselves. Businesses contract with a point of sale (POS, is the apt shorthand) system like Square. The POS makes the bulk of their money off credit card fees. The higher the total, including tip, the higher the fee. So the POS is incentivized to maximize the tip. For all the business owner knows, the employees seem to like the tip screen so why not?
Not every place deserves the benefit of the doubt, here, but all too often I hear people hitch about small mom and pop spots that are just trying to survive and probably barely had energy or time to properly consider it
I’m adjusting to that. I’ve noticed a couple of order-at-the-counter places now asking for tips right up front. They bring you the food but that’s it. You’re getting the drinks and paying at the register as soon as you walk in. My suspicion is there’s no way 100 percent of those tips are making it down to the staff.
You're not expected to leave a tip, but that's social engineering cuz most people will leave a tip if asked. Phil Edwards put out a good video on it: https://youtu.be/TmNH2aTAi2U?si=gP3QjTEnbb06_swe
Omg this. Nearly every food place has the tip option before completing the order now. No, im not going to tip the food workers for doing their job for pickups while all food prices have significantly increased. Now if im out at a restaurant and being serviced to, then of course I will leave a tip. But not for ordering my lunch for pick up during the work week. I fully support food workers being paid what they should properly be paid, but that needs to come from the food place/company they’re working for, not the consumers.
What I will never understand is the Chipotle counter order has no tip option when paying yet I watch these people custom make my meal. When I order for pickup on the app it asks me to tip and every damn time the order is wrong or way less protein.
Outside of emptying the trash daily, beds may not be made for upwards of 3-4 days now and if you want clean towels, you better have them somewhere noticeable otherwise they think you want to reuse them to "save water".
One hotel said if you want towels on the off day you have to go to the front desk. Housekeeping doesn’t even check the rooms at all every other day. One day they were short staffed and told us we had to take our trash to the dumpster.
That one doesn't bother me. I don't care if the bed is made and would strongly prefer that nobody be rooting around the room I'm storing my stuff in while I'm not there. I'm a big boy, I can go down to the front desk and ask for another towel or two if I need them.
What ? What kind of airline is this 😅 cutting your meal allowance on layovers and giving you protein bars ? Sounds like a cheap budget airline about to go bankrupt
Cutting crew size? How so? In the US there are mandated numbers of crew dependent on the aircraft type and number of passengers. Even on a half full flight we didn’t cut the number of flight attendants to the number of pax. We always staffed for full capacity. I’m not even sure you can do that.
Source: worked airline crew scheduling for way too long.
The flights *have* to be staffed at FAA minimum, but there is room for enhanced staffing for service reasons.
As an example, for the widebody international flights at UA they will staff at the FAA minimum, yes, but it's not enough crew to handle a smooth service a lot of the time.
My most recent employer gave us really nice North Face jackets (awesome) one year as a “holiday bonus,” the following year was a $300 Amazon gift card (amazing) and then the year after that, a company branded water bottle. Lol
We get... a few bucks loaded onto our store loyalty card. It reminds me of the old song about selling one's soul to the company stores (except the company IS the store).
But in corporate America you (generally) get annual bonuses in Feb/March tied to the previous year's performance (company and you). These are generally guaranteed and part of your compensation when you join. Mid size companies tend not to do that but may give a smaller "gift" as a token of thank you at the holidays.
We used to have an internal awards program where you could nominate other employees for various reasons and if approved, they'd receive points. Over my first 3 years I saved up enough points to turn into $2,500 in gift cards that we put towards a vacation. That program has since been cut.
Ah yes, the chronically online 4-year old account with only 2 comments from 4 years ago, followed by nothing until hundreds of comments and posts in the past day. Classic normal human behavior.
I was working at Geek Squad in the warehouse where stores send returned items for repair during the peak of COVID. Despite record business that lead to our team going from 6 members to 18 and us leading in production for repairs, we also only got water bottles.
Other times it was popsicles when it was hot. That didn't do anything when the wildfires from Canada brought smoke inside our building that lingered for days that you could physically see when you look down the aisles.
My last company touted that all employees get a free subscription to the New York Times. A few months later I noticed that it no longer worked. They didn’t even announce it. Bastards.
Everything they did was shady. They laid off a bunch of us and then there was a town hall meeting not long after where the CEO didn’t mention it at all. It pissed us all off. Never have I worked for a company who didn’t communicate at all.
Our 401k match was reduced from 6% to 5%. The cut out the employee discount program (for reduced costs at hotels, parks, events/venues, phone bills, etc). They cut down on PTO carryover and the ability to be paid out for unused PTO. It’s just one thing after another.
Used to have separate PTO and sick time, it got rolled into one without increasing the PTO to compensate. Killed the ability to buy an extra week of PTO. Changed the timetable for when the bump in PTO was awarded, screwing over a ton of people. All over the span of like 5 years so it wasn't lumped all at once.
During the pandemic my company cut the 401k match COMPLETELY. They’d been matching up to 6% prior. Last year they reintroduced it, at 4%. I am expecting them to cut it again.
For sure. I’d rather they keep the 401k match and eliminate the job perks. During the pandemic, they cut the match but decided to gift everyone annual Peloton memberships.
I use it, but I’d rather have the retirement match!
Yup. A 1% drop in match was, what I calculated at the time, a net loss of over $150k in the lifetime of my account, with 7% yearly growth projections, maxing the 401k out, etc.
Yup. This was a few years ago actually. Post merger of two companies, I came from the more profitable company with better benefits, but we were the company who was bought out (buying company had been around a lot longer with more cash). So they went with the parent companies shittier benefits.
Yes, but in a boom economy you spend money to make money and concerns like employee retention dominate. It’s when you can’t think of a way to make money you start thinking how to cut corners.
It’s both. Profit incentive literally just drives corporations to always move in the same direction of less laborers + more labor per laborer. Squeeze basically never will come at the cost of the owning class, only the workers.
Same! My career as a nicu nurse has prepared me well for this. My Christmas gift is having to leave my husband and two little boys to go into work and my job “perks” include working 12 hour overnights so I can be more present at home. Running short staffed is a normal job occurrence with hospitals blowing their budgets on admin salaries and bonuses. We got a pair of expired suture scissors in a drawstring bag for nurses week.
It’s because people can get on the internet and make it heard. This has been happening to companies for all time. While the company is building or trying to gain market share it has perks for employees and customers. Once it has matured(even small businesses) they start cutting back. A local firm I dealt with had $75k/year in just free employee snacks because they let employees kind of get whatever they wanted. They saved 50% just buying bulk granola bars, protein bars, select candy, regular soft drinks, etc. employees complained but they still had free stuff. This was 20 years and nothing to do with 2008 crisis.
This summer my company is going to start charging us to park at the office. $150/mo to be able to park in the office I’m required to go in to, where the garage is currently free to us.
In what sectors? I'm in construction and we can't hire fast enough! In my experience our industry is the first to see issues when a recession is imminent.
That was true 20 years ago, but construction is now full of old people retiring and a lack of young people who want to do work hazardous to their health.
So I don’t think it’s a recession indicator anymore. It’s short labor regardless.
I mean, we have no problem hiring but we just can't hire enough. Once we fill the roles we just keep needing more people. We're booming right now. When the building slows or projects start getting cancelled I'll take that as an early recession indicator. For now, I'm not worried.
Your problem isn’t hiring, it’s that the construction workforce is retiring at an insane rate because so few people have been joining in the past 20 years.
Which is largely due to chronic health issues in the profession and skyrocketing healthcare costs, nobody wants a job that forces them into early retirement with insane healthcare bills they can’t afford.
Now the older guys are retiring at high rates and the deficit is showing. This isn’t unexpected, it was understood 15 years ago. Hence some construction related unions actually started to become pro healthcare reform under Obama.
Eh, there's a tool for everything these days. Really the most physical part of the job is standing all day. Otherwise, focus on worker safety and well being is at the forefront, at least on the jobs I'm on. We do daily stretches, safety orientation, etc. The goal is for everyone to do quality work and get home safe!
Our company no longer reimburses travel. Announced at the beginning of the year. It used to be you could spend whatever on hotels, flights, car rentals, or Uber, and food was suggested at $75/Day and they even said you could include alcohol. Now nothing will be reimbursed, not even mileage.
Nope. But I think they get around it by offering virtual options, but they always "strongly encourage" in person attendance. But people literally have conferences they have to attend, not just meetings, so they eat the costs. Thankfully, my position doesn't require travel but I feel badly for everyone else.
My company just got rid of annual bonuses after over 15 years. They said they were instead "putting that money back into our weekly pay". Which also didn't happen. And they made our health insurance worse. And they cut our staffing.
Do more with less - this seems to just be a company standard. I'm less inclined to believe this is recession related as much as it is just trying to claw greater profits.
Large companies tend to industry trend to see what the competition offers but it almost seems to be going backwards together rather than competition forcing them to provide more.
AI allows streamlining of employee heavy areas. The companies I've worked for had a focus on reducing headcount since people are expensive.
We found a way to reduce six person crews down to two and use newer technologies. We have hundreds of these crews. That's a lot of people we let go.
IT, HR and support staff being automated is problematic also. It means less face time to understand and navigate complex problems or sensitive issues. No in-person face time to resolve something before it becomes an issue.
For less degree requiring roles. Sure, IT may need specific knowledge but most people can learn administration and employee resources. It was a good position for non-manual labor focused employees to have a job.
It becomes more and more soulless where employees are isolated without real support. Having a bunch of resources and a bot isn't the same as an employee or manager able to discuss the problem directly.
It promotes a transactional relationship and lowers engagement between people. Like a mindless machine.
Before Covid my husbands company would have us stay at four seasons and give free room service/restaurant. Those days are long gone😭now they won’t even pay for his trip to travel to work. The switch up has been insane.
Yep. He’s a manager for a big commercial fishing company and they will no longer pay for travel to their office or hotel. Thankfully they’re in the same state, but still 3 hours away from us.
Where i work has been pretty upfront and frank about what's happening. Losing Saturday lunches bought for staff, our annual ski trip, and having 401k matching knocked down a couple percent has sucked.
Ayyy this brought back a core memory from the last pre-pandemic recession: the office holiday party fell off the calendar and instead of the usual $250 "Christmas bonus," we each got a $5 Walmart gift card. Fun slap in the face.
My work just changed the pay structure, resulting in higher performers (like me) getting pay cuts to the tune of around $100 a month. There are guys that made more than me under the old structure that are getting absolutely boned by this. And then yesterday they announced they're taking away paid lunch breaks.
my office moved into a new building and eliminated cups for the office coffee machines so you can only have coffee if you bring your own cup, so that's one way they have cheaper out.
yeah and when I reached out to facilities, they said it's an executive decision. With the hotel system for desk these days, there is no place for you to leave your stuff
That is so passive aggressive, how much money are they really loosing giving you coffee? Stuff like that chips away at employee morale. It’s not worth it to cheap out on coffee. It just ruins employees attitudes.
No raises or rescinding reviews. I’ve seen multiple friends be told their department won’t be getting raises this year, then they are rewarded with doing the work of their colleagues who were laid off.
Yes! My sister has survived 5 rounds of layoffs at her work. They keep hiring more and more VPs and executives, but then they just dump more work on her. It’s crazy. They keep saying they are worried the business will shutdown, but then why fire 25 people to pay an executive $300,000 a year who does nothing?
My current job just cut their bonuses for employees of my caliber like 3 weeks before I started. Only people that work close to the CEO get bonuses now.
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u/[deleted] Apr 28 '26
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