[Barrin92]

One more general point in favour of the narrative is the rate at which service industry workers have been leaving the industry in particular[1]. Of course that also can be a function of rising wages in warehouse work or better unemployment benefits so the phenomenon might not be solely recent, but I don't think the narrative is made up, retail work is pain.

And no offense but it might be your experience of luxurious SF dining that is a little bit unrepresentative.

[1]https://www.businessinsider.com/retail-workers-leaving-quit-...

[samatman]

None taken, but there's a difference between luxurious (I've had one meal at a nice restaurant) and luxuriating: I was living in the middle of the Pacific, so I've been dining out a lot at middle-of-the-road taquerias and Chinese/Thai restaurants.

Not sure why you mentioned retail but service work has never been fun. Linking me to another narrative of the same basic story is in fact less convincing, because our journalists are awful hacks who see one of their gang harvest sweet sweet clicks with a narrative, and churn out a copycat.

The labor shortage is unemployment benefits, plus mandatory lowered seating requirements and other pandemic belt-tightening leaving restauranteurs unable or unwilling to pay higher wages. Customers being shitty isn't new, and again, there's no evidence at all that it's gotten worse: and plenty that journalists cynically lie to harvest advertising money from bored social media users.