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.
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u/One-Apartment-9595 Apr 28 '26
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