Self Checkout

guidomerkinsrules said

sort of buried in there is the decades long tradition of running on a skeleton crew
this is an issue with service, but also schools and small businesses
if you're built to operate on the bare minimum staffing and one of your staff is missing, you've baked in problems to your functionality
and of course, managers will want to blame workers when it's corporate or administrative staffing that created the issue

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truth on the skeleton crew comment!

wife's company is constantly chiding her to "reduce payroll", like a broken record. their solution is "cross training", so that when someone inevitably fails to show, you plug'n'play someone else into the vacancy. Problem with that is, as discussed above, this causes a cascade of labor issues into all departments. And when someone is actually doing TWO jobs in the same shift, but has to go home sick, you now have TWO VACANCIES instead of one. they're constantly telling her "you're going to have to find ways to do more with less". So you are also correct that corporate CREATES this issue, but then holds her responsible for not solving it in a manner they deem acceptable.

My question to her was "does that also apply to them? can they find ways to do more with less profit?" And she is right when she replies "only if you don't want me to keep working there. Can i quit?"