To think that gen Z is completely disengaged in service industry

Gen Z ranges from 12 yos to 28. That’s a pretty wide gap of skill, experience and maturity.

This! At my last job, newbies were given a roller cage by a manager and asked to put it out. No mention of the requirement to rotate stock if doing fresh, produce, bread, cakes and eggs! This was the last store manager

So myself being a code checker plus other other code checkers had to waste time in rotating stock ourselves as the newbies just put out at the front or on top (with produce) and putting stock in the right place. As often found chicken thighs under the ticket for chicken legs. Sometimes moved the ticket to accommodate the thighs.

Because of us wasting time on rotating stock, we got told off by management. We did say that if the newbies were told to rotate stock in the first place, we wouldn’t be wasting time.

A combination of all staff are responsible for keeping waste down. Code checkers make sure this happened. Both on shop floor and in the chillers and overs of bread , cake and eggs.

All of the store managers were conscious of waste. The last one wasn’t. He wanted us to work deliveries first before overs. Result - found stuff in the back chillers with 2 days left v 7 days on shelf. I found some pork chops in the back and in the process of swapping them about as 2 days left. SM saw me asking what I was doing. I said these are on Wednesday’s date and ones on shelf are Sunday’s. I was told to put the chops away. Once he went to another store for a meeting about an hour later, we swapped them over. Other managers would said well done for spotting that.

Raised grievances for the above and his bullying due to my dyslexia. Blocked by his area manager. That was the reason why I left and still no job almost 9 months later

Until 8 years ago there was a store trainer that took the staff to train on new areas. Now staff train the staff and shadow them. Don’t get any extra money for this.

Shops don’t train their staff properly.

I used to work for M&S and spent a week training. A lot of companies just give the new employee a lanyard, and let them loose on the shop floor!

Totally agree on the careers not paying enough, I looked into teaching and the salary was 10k less than I’m on now due to a recent promotion in the private sector, not even senior.

Are your mortgage/rent payments really high or your area expensive because there are lots of people in the country living the life of Riley on a 70 joint salary with no kids.

DP and I were recently on that salary between us with a child in part time nursery and we went on many trips and outings but our mortgage was only £689 in the north west and we had a second hand car, never had to worry about money.

The problem is even "higher skilled careers" have been completely devaluated in two senses.

Our household income is over 70k, we're earning double what my parents earned at our age and my mother didn't need to work as we we're fairly comfortable on one income of 40k. 70k now means we need to shop at Aldi, use budgeting apps, we haven't been on holiday in years and we've all but given up the idea of having children as we can't afford it. We cover all the bills sure but it becomes a debate if we want to go to the cinema, go for a day out, have a weekend away. We have to budget for Christmas five months in advance to ensure we can cover everything. When I was growing up a 70k household income would've been living the life of riley.

Secondly because minimum wage has gone up so much there are "skilled careers" that are now minimum wage because businesses are trying to cheap out. Entry level jobs should be on minimum wage requiring no experience and you should work your way up, but we're now in a position where jobs are requesting a degree, a masters and three years of experience at "entry level." Things like nursing and teaching USED to be considered highly skilled, the time and effort they have to put in just to qualify get them...earning less than the cashiers at Aldi, why would they bother ?

Minimum wage should at the very least award a basic standard of living, a small flat, covering the basics, maybe a day out with friends. Now minimum wage gets you...living at home at 30 barely scraping by with a retirement age that keeps rising and basic housing becoming more and more unaccessible. What exactly is the incentive to work harder when there is literally no payoff at the end?

M&S Sale, I brought a couple of items (in Sale area) without tags to check price, at the till. Young one tells me they’re full price.

I left them with her. She then returns the items to the Sale area. Where her older colleague had been busy sorting all morning…

In the 45 years I’ve been alive, I’ve never once got “cross” or “really assertive” with a place.

Just a “Whoops! My order is wrong, could you help?.” Covers it nicely.

I wonder where they all come from given that all these posters' children are such bright eyed, eager, deferential yet intelligent examples of humanity 🤣

Great attitude 👍🏻

Most of us started off in jobs that wouldn’t allow us to get a mortgage, that’s normal. Doesn’t mean you should be rude and dismissive.

I think there is a spectrum to be honest. I take student placements. I've had one student who was bright, kind, funny, keen and really ready to put the work in. A little immature but that comes with age and experience and another who didn't understand why she needed to turn up on time, put minimum effort in with the learning. I think she thought that she would be able to just walk into a job with her degree alone. I failed her placement and she genuinely wondered why. She challenged me and I had to tell her that never in my 20 years in this role have I ever seen anyone less suited to this area of work. I had phone calls from her dad asking why I'd failed his "little dolly" ffs.

Christ, you sound like a fucking delight. What age bracket do you reckon will be wiping your nasty arse when you're old and incapacitated?

I take it from your smug attitude neither you nor your DH claim the state pension and never will?

I agree. One of the things I like most about my DH is the way he handles himself. He has this saying “just because you can, doesn’t mean you should”. He’s generally referring to the imbalance of power customer to server.

In the 31 years I’ve known him I’ve only ever seen him get cross with a place twice. We eat in some pretty decent places and his expectations are high. If there’s a problem he’ll be really assertive, yet calm. I’ve never ever seen him kick off at anyone.

If you rant at staff that says more about you than them. You are decidedly lacking in class.

I remember very well back in the 60's and 70's exactly the same criticism being levelled at teenagers in shops, pubs, cinemas etc back then. In fact, if someone was trying to describe really bad service they'd tell you to imagine a "disinterested 17 year old shoe shop assistant" or "a 16 year old working on the knicker counter in Woolworths". These were well worn phrases at the time. Plus ca change!

Also I would like to inform customers that the staff you see in shops and eateries are NOT responsible for price increases, supply issues etc.

"YOU have put up the butter up by 10p again" moan customers. No I didn't.

About 7 years ago, there was a road accident on the entrance to the distribution centre, 35 miles from where the store is. No truck could leave the DC. Because of that our deliveries were late. Instead of arriving 5-6am, they arrived mid afternoon. Customers were asking why we haven't got X, Y or Z in. We explained that our deliveries are messed due to the above. "That's not good enough".

LOL...this was exactly, word for word, what we said about ourselves in our 20s in the 1990s- Generation X. Talk about copycats.

I think you can tell a lot about a person as to how they treat waiting or shop staff Ten years on I still haven’t forgotten how rude a very wealthy acquaintance of mine was to a waiter at a chain restaurant. Yes the order had been messed up but it was a genuine mistake.

She then at the end of the meal told the waiter to take the service charge off the menu and told the ten of us not to leave a tip (I left a tip). she went so far down in my estimation. Wasn’t just what she said but how she said it.

They had so many resources available to study, which previous generations didn’t. Resources online for free, websites, Wikipedia, YouTube, free courses, if they have issues with minimum wage job, could have gone for higher skilled career

This is exactly the kind of attitude I used to get from people ALL the time. I did enjoy the look on one particularly snobby mans' face when I revealed I was working there to fund my Oxbridge degree. He was very embarrassed to have been so patronising and rude to someone who (shock) might actually be smarter than him.

Yes it is unacceptable for staff or customers to be abrupt, rude or impatient but that's not the same as disinterested, disengaged and crap. No ones expecting customers to be interested and engaged and not crap. Just civil would do, you know not rude, abrupt and impatient.

They're two different sets of behaviours that you're saying are the same, they're not.

And honestly quite often the abrupt, rude and impatient behaviour comes first, before the server has even had a chance to do or say anything to the customer at all. I'm really good at my job, but I have so many people come at me with an attitude before I've even had a chance to say or do anything, it can't be because I'm disinterested, disengaged and crap because I've not had the chance to be anything at all. But you're not going to get me falling over myself to serve you when you've treated me like that for no other reason than the job I do. You're going to get the bare minimum, delivered politely and not even an extra inch, never mind a mile.

If people are getting disinterested, disengaged and crap service on the regular then maybe they need to look at how they're behaving initially towards the people they expect to serve them. It's a power trip, nothing more, nothing less.

"I can treat you how I like and you still have to serve me and do anything I want" I just don't think the younger generation buy into this crap like my generation does, they're not willing to put up with it, and that's really not a bad thing.

There's a difference between being unengaged and and disinterested and outright rude, aggressive and abusive, and being one doesn't justify the other, and it's not going to help change things either.

This is hilarious- you can have as many free online resources as the vast Internet allows but you're still not walking into a well paid corporate role at 16. Many of the young people working in retail will ALSO be studying and actively working towards a better paid career. Funnily enough because education is more expensive than previously even with all the free online information. People are also more wary of taking out significant student loans after watching the previous generation get burnt with interest rates.

Add into that the cost of housing and the cost of living crisis they're dealing with and the idea that they don't have to work if they don't want to, again is ridiculous. Many families on low incomes are now depending on their teens going into the workforce to keep things afloat. Previous generations did not have to deal with that in the same way and the salaries for what we're previously "good" jobs, are now not equivalent to the real living expense increase. So they're expected to do more, work harder, work for longer, and work for less while also dealing with all the challenges of public facing roles.

And we wonder why they're not jumping for joy in the aisles of Tesco?

I used to live in the Netherlands - I guarantee 100% that rude cunts of all ages exist there, too.

I’ve not seen what you are describing. I’ve seen very very very very poor customer service many many times. I haven’t seen abusive customers.

People do need to learn to deal with their own stuff, yes. I agree. I think respect should be mutual, obviously.

But elsewhere posters have said it's ok for staff to be crap, disinterested, unengaged etc because of all the surrounding factors so why is the same not true for customers? I'm it's not obviously, but if it's so unacceptable for customers to be abrupt, rude or impatient, why is it acceptable for staff?

Honestly I think some people are just entitled fuckwits who think the world should revolve around them.

a lot of rudeness I’ve seen directed at staff relates to waiting. And the customer kicks off and screams at the 17yo on nmw. Who funnily enough has nothing to do with deciding staffing levels and is doing their best while the company has made cut backs 🤷🏻‍♀️

some people think they can talk to service staff like shit. They don’t generally rant and rave at the actual doctor or dentist (but will at the receptionist). And will rant at waiting and shop staff. They could control themselves but think so little of people they perceive to be beneath them that they don’t.