[costanzaDynasty]

I don't eat out because I'm chronically cheap. But after I stopped drinking magically the cost of eating out came down to Earth. But post Pandy, it's not just the cost of eating out. It's also the service, if you can find any. Most restaurants are wildly understaffed and the staff is terrible. I've worked service jobs most of my life before switching to tech so I understand more than most how rude customers are and how terrible these jobs are. This is something different. This is a pre-primed anger toward the customer.

[whoiscroberts]

I eat out all the time at cheap and expensive restaurants and don’t have trouble finding service, I guess if you need the employees to dote over you that could be a problem but I just order eat the food and leave. What sort of service are you searching for?

[tpmoney]

I can't speak for the OP, and I realize fast food is probably at the worst end of this, but I'd settle for things like:

1) Getting my order right >2/3 of the time.

2) Not having to repeat my order 3 times because the employee taking it is either stoned out of their mind or distracted fighting (sometimes literally) with their co-worker

3) Getting my order to me before it's cold

The only positive of the "eating out" experience post pandemic has been that I'm very quickly running out of places I feel like spending the money they're asking for to get the service they're providing so it's helping me save money. But it's still frustrating none the less.

[op00to]

I too have not had bad experience with wait staff at restaurants. I am polite and the staff is polite back.

[x0x0]

I'm not expecting employees to dote. I'm expecting them not to be morons who can't get the order right, bring the food cold, or (a recent experience), notice when they charged everything on the bill twice. It's not rocket science to glance at a $300+ bill for a table that had one appetizer, 2 mains, and 2 or 3 drinks and wonder if that's right. Or don't leave food on the table and us with no silverware.

As other people have said, I'm cooking a lot more, so that's good.

The $55 + tip pizza place that's under a half mile away started bringing the pizza cold, so that's more savings.

I'm not being rude, I tip well, etc. But I'm not paying 20 - 25% for the above.

[op00to]

Maybe start with not thinking of wait staff as morons. They are imperfect human beings too.

[euroderf]

Sumthin' or 'nother is making the system-as-a-whole moronic. Might be enlightening to try to chat up a bit the people you deal with.

[spacebacon]

Pre primed anger is an opportunity to make someone’s day.

Meet rude introductions with polite responses. If that fails meet rude mid game with a compliment. If that fails meet rude end game with thank you for your hard work. If that fails close with a generous tip.

You are much better off emotionally than they are at this point and may be the one that solves the problem for others they serve for the rest of the day.

[lotsofpulp]

>This is a pre-primed anger toward the customer.

It is just supply and demand. The price for evening/weekend/overnight labor was only low due to do high supply of labor relative to demand.

[toomuchtodo]

An economic system where people can only get closer to living wages now that surplus labor has left the labor force through death and retirement should expect forward looking challenges, to say the least.

We can only hope the labor supply tightens further if that’s the only way some cohorts will see quality of life improvements. Prices are approaching true costs, very similar to how insurance prices are recalibrating towards proper pricing for climate risk. There is no guarantee discounted prices persist (energy, labor, insurance, etc).

https://www.axios.com/2022/12/16/the-missing-workers-who-are...

https://www.axios.com/2022/12/01/jay-powell-explains-america...

https://www.businessinsider.com/baby-boomer-retirement-surge...

https://www.axios.com/2023/05/08/us-labor-shortage-older-wor...

https://www.axios.com/2022/09/03/a-deep-dive-into-the-labor-...

https://www.axios.com/2023/08/27/labor-shortages-air-traffic...

[datavirtue]

Um...you used to be able to get by on the wages. The baby-boomer population shrinkage is coming home to roost.

[oven9342]

Drinking must be legal because it’s so profitable, at your expense and health.