Does a Welfare State Encourage Poor Customer Service?

Stupid rondo kids.

That's the exact opposite of how I behave in my sorta-retail job (being a teller at the bank and all) - I hustle my ASS if we're busy because I don't want my branch to lose accounts because of me.

I couldn't live with that weight on my shoulders.

But then, I guess my parents don't suck and have actually taught me the value of a hard day's work.

I personally wouldn't want to try to live on a welfare check. I think poor customer service is the fault of the store management or even the corporate training. Does every fast food restaurant in your area have bad service? In my town Arbys and KFC have horrible service but the service at Chick-Fil-A is always wonderful.

Every restaurant, every store...virtually every place where people have to deal with customers...INCLUDING my workplace (which is something I'm hoping to change once I take over the PC repair Dept. in the middle of the month). It's atrocious, Loca. Seriously.

When I was a teenager, we were NEVER as bad as the kids working these restaurants. I've seen food returned and put back under the warmer for resale, constant, almost completely inevitable service, atrocious service times (including, at my workplace, one incident where a coworker actually walked away from a ringing phone when there was nobody else there to answer phones because his smoke break was more important).

You may not want to live on a welfare check, Loca, but you'd be surprised how many people honestly don't care if they do.

{Don's Col Klink Hat}

It's Bush's Fault! [/sarcasm]

Actually, in a way is.  When the economy is good, and low end jobs go begging, the people who are hired to fill them are the low end of the job pool (it may be that they are of the welfare mentality - or just the low end).  That is who gets hired.  Everyone else is getting better jobs and moving up.

In a way, you are right.  It was not that way when you were that age.  Why? The economy stil had some room to expand labor wise.  So McDonald's was not a dead end job, but an opportunity (there are still those folks around like this - just harder to find).

I really dont know if it is the chicken or the egg.  We have always had bad workers, and in boom times, they are more visible.  Does the safety net make them more lazy as they know there is that net?  Or is it just that they now have a job that they dont care about (and never will) and we see them more?

In answer to the title: yes.  I absolutely believe that a welfare state encourages poor customer service.  It encourages poor performance in every way.

Call me a pessimist, but I believe that people are inherently lazy.  Many of us (hopefully) overcome that, but far too many don't.  If there is no extrinsic motivation for people who have no intrinsic motivation to start with, why work hard at all?

But I don't believe that it is just this idea of a welfare state.  Our society is breeding a culture of entitlement.  We want what we want and we want it now.  As long as we don't have to work for it.  So people get jobs, figure they are entitled to that job no matter what, and then act accordingly.  The end result?  Poor performance with no desire to improve.

I think you're right, but for a different reason. The welfare state breeds a sense of entitlement.  When someone of that mindset does go get a job, that sense of entitlement continues.  The employer OWES them the money simply because they showed up.  They owe the employer nothing.  Why?  Because they have never had to connect income with performance before.

I believe that this is one of the most compelling reasons to do away with government welfare programs.

Your reasoning is a riot. Do away with government welfare programs because someone with a job put steak in your chicken quesadilla "value meal".

This place was worth the price of admission just for that. Seriously. You should take this act on tour.

You're a very very funny man, Gideon. Keep it up cos this stuff is priceless.

I suppose I'll be called a racist for pointing this out (sighs, what else is new? but i call 'em like i see 'em) but most of these slow-motion employees are black, so Simon and I have come up with our own terminology to describe them.

As an "apparent" liberal I feel it my duty to inform you that we dont call people "racists" anymore. Its considered offensive and demeaning to those to whom the label is applied.
We now prefer the term "ethnically challenged".

Agreed Gideon, do away with the government welfare systems and let the private churches and organizations be there for those who CAN'T do for themselves.

Your reasoning is a riot. Do away with government welfare programs because someone with a job put steak in your chicken quesadilla "value meal". This place was worth the price of admission just for that. Seriously. You should take this act on tour. You're a very very funny man, Gideon. Keep it up cos this stuff is priceless.

Ah yes, we can always count on the idiotic liberals to come out of the woodworks and make fools of themselves. And they wonder why people vote for Republicans. Nice job braniac, you make it so easy for the rest of use to show you liberals for the fools you really are it almost makes me feel like a lazy Democrats not having to do the hard work since others are willing to do it for me.

As an "apparent" liberal I feel it my duty to inform you that we dont call people "racists" anymore. Its considered offensive and demeaning to those to whom the label is applied. We now prefer the term "ethnically challenged".

Thank you for proving my point.

Tiddler,

Back under the bridge, you little troll!

Back under the bridge, you little troll!

Careful - he thinks he is a genius.

Seems like Little Whip is the only one with a sense of humor.  

???

Only relative to you Dr Guy..... much like the way an ordinary girl finds herself an ugly friend.   

Hm, according to your logic the service in true welfare states (e.g. the Netherlands) should be really horrible, which, suprise, suprise, it is not. Even at McDonalds.

So maybe, just maybe, it might be a bit more complex than just blaming welfare.

FIGHT! FIGHT! FIGHT!

On topic:

A welfare state doesn't encourage poor customer service. Do you think outsourced call centres are a symptom of the welfare state? So far as I'm aware CEOs and other big decision makers don't tend to consider their entitlement to food stamps before sacking their company's public faces.

Poor hiring decisions are generally a result of either a) a lack of competent management or a lack of competent employees, both of which suggest that there is a labour shortage of both and the dregs have had to be called in.

A hundred years ago those people would have been dead, working in manufactoring or some other low-paid zero-facetime job. But now nearly all low-skilled jobs are in retail or customer service, so you see them everywhere.

That's what I think is going on anyway. You will certainly differ, although I would like to mention the caveat that perceptions of the requirements of customer service are determined culturally, so a shift in American or regional culture will result in changes to the way politeness observed.

For example in colony states like Australia, NZ, Canada and the US there is a presumption that people will smile and greet each other with a certain degree of egalitarian politeness, even if they're a CEO and they're talking to a cashout chick. But in Europe and Asia a cashout chick would never chat or smile with a customer, because that's not his/her role and it would go outside the predefined idea of how polite society is run.

So really you should be glad that you have lived to see significant, visible cultural change within your own lifetime. It just goes to show how old you are and how rapidly the world changes.

It's always 'I want I want I want and I want it NOW' with you old people. You've got no patience.

Sorry Cacto, I am not a bully. I dont go into a battle of wits with someone who is only half armed.

It's all a government conspiracy, these workers aren't really bad, they're just being paid by the government to be this bad. Why? To get us to quit going to fast food restaurants! Have you ever noticed that service is much better at healthfood places? ;~D

That is just Machiavellian enough to be believable.   

I thought it was because, given equal customer service, Americans would rather eat cheaper junk than more expensive health food. So junk gets poor CS, and health food has better CS, because the junk knows you're coming, and the health food knows you won't unless they serve you better.

I guess this is one of those terms that don't really mean what they are suppose to mean. Like when someone says "that's bad" but they really mean "thats nice". In this case "fast food" means "sometime in this milenium".

Hey old lady, I mean LW. Be careful they don't spit on your food for asking for speedy service in a "fast food" joint.

I guess it all depends on what makes who laugh. But then again, you don't really know if I'm laughing over here or not, with you or at you.