Are We Really Better Off (100th Blog Post)

Many times in this blog I have made complaints about the service industry. I have picked on un-educated people and old people in particular and the frustration they cause me when I am being served by them. There is no excuse for their failure to provide me with good service, but the reason we have to put up with it is because of the good economy we are experiencing here in Newfoundland.

With the economy booming and good paying jobs being somewhat plentiful (depending on the industry), people with any level of education are no longer settling for service jobs that pay minimum wage or only a little bit above. They are going on to other jobs that do not necessarily require any formal education but are paying good wages because the company is experiencing a boom. This leaves the low paying service industries desperate for employees just to meet staffing requirements, and as a result you get people filling these jobs that have absolutely no concept of customer service or responsibility. This explains the un-educated section of the job market.

The good economy has also caused older people, who either never worked before or were supposed to be retired, to enter/re-enter the work force. The inflationary effects of the economy are very obvious. Just go to the grocery store and you'll notice it. What this does is puts an enormous amount of pressure on people on fixed incomes and they need to supplement that income somehow. They do this by filling the vacant jobs in the service industry and when they get their they are over their heads because they are not familiar with the processes. Being older they are also less receptive to training and tend to learn at a slower rate (yes there are lots of exceptions). Another major issue is they are extremely unmotivated. If I was 60 years old and working at Tim Hortons, my motivation level would also be in the shitter, that's for sure.

So are we really any better off with this economy? Not to jump on a bandwagon with all the "occupy" movements, but have we just created a place where the really rich get richer and the really poor get poorer? Or am I reading into this way too much? I guess with the good you have to take the bad, but either way I'm still not happy with the service I've been receiving!