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.

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.

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 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.

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.

Tiddler,

Back under the bridge, you little troll!

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.   

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.

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

That is just Machiavellian enough to be believable.   

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".

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.