The best way I normalize "receiving less for paying more" is by reminding myself that I am voting with my dollars. I live in Minnesota and when I pay $5/pint for greenhouse cherry tomatoes from Iowa rather than $3/pint for the ones from California, I remind myself that these tomatoes didn't travel as far, which reduces their carbon footprint and means they're probably fresher picked. When I pay $80 to have a great pair of leather boots resoled instead of throwing them away and buying new, I remind myself that this is keeping them out of the landfill, supporting my local shoe repair store, AND I've spent 10 years breaking them in and they fit me perfectly, so why start over? It's counterintuitive when measured against our idea of "the cheapest is the best" (and I'm a person currently wearing a thrifted sweater and shoes, so I can be pretty cheap!) but I want my community to still have shoe repair stores and local bookstores and non-chain grocery options, so I need to support them as much as I can.
This! I live in Vermont, and a lot of people order a lot online because it's cheaper than buying locally. But I want to a) financially support local businesses and b) support experts and specialists who know how to fix shoes and mend clothes and grow food. I'm aware of my financial limitations, and I choose carefully where I can "splurge" to support environmentally friendly, local options. The only thing I get delivered is toilet paper because Who Give A Crap is plastic-free and I love it :)
Not sure where in VT you are but here in Chittenden County we're currently embroiled in a debate about whether to allow an Amazon warehouse to move in. They want to put one here after closing one nearby in Canada after it attempted to unionize. This issue is such a flashpoint: there's a LOT of division between the "shop cheapest" and "shop local" folks, there are debates about the ethicality of Amazon as a business, Bezos' role in this administration, etc etc. A rich text! Anyway, lemme know if you ever want to hang out sometime, I'm always trying to find other AHPers in Vermont :)
Hi! *waves* I'm just outside Montpelier, but I've certainly heard the arguments about the warehouse over your way. It's a hard thing, knowing how tight people's budgets are and wanting then to be able to afford the things they need but also not wanting to give Amazon any more dollars than we already do. And living here, twenty minutes from a state capitol, it's illuminating how often I think about something it would be really nice/convenient or even necessary to buy that I just can't get within an hour of my house. So make a half day trip or order off the Internet? Or just go without? (usually go without these days, and fortunately my family doesn't seem to mind too much)
Hi fellow Vermonters! I try to shop local as much as possible, but it can be a real challenge to get to shops with short hours while working a 9-5. I’m sure there’s a whole deep dive into how businesses chose those hours, understaffing (intentional or not), and tourists and college students making up a large portion of the clientele.
Hi Vermonters! I’m in Addison county. The commute to find products or services makes it very tempting to turn to online ordering, but since I moved here two years ago from CA I’ve been very deliberate about trying to spend locally (and I’ve never been an Amazoner)
Agreed - we have 'shop local' Thursdays and Saturdays in our house where we only go to the local restaurants, farms, and shops for our errands. It costs a bit more but we value having the local ice cream place, or the good farm to table restaurant, or the farm stand with the best bread in town.
I love this. We are avid YNAB users and this year I added a “supporting local” line to our budget. We can spend on anything local - clothing, bookstores, gift shops, restaurants, breweries, museums, whatever. I’ve been using this to guide how we spend our money and time on the weekends.
That's them, and same here! They have a Mason City IA greenhouse too so they're not *all* grown in MN, but when the alternative is trucked from California, I call Iowa close enough ;-)
This, all of this. Also, everyone should be getting their shoes resoled!!! I have my beloved cowboy boots resoled after every winter… it’s about time for their yearly TLC. I go to a single guy shop - I’ve never once had a good experience at a chain, even a local one - and he takes his time, only takes cash, and generally feels like he hasn’t changed a single business practice since the 1980s. But goddamn he does good shoes. I’d spend that money every time over getting a new pair (also new pairs are $400 so). Anyway. Off soapbox.
Same...I like to go to the tiny locally owned frou-frou market in my neighborhood even though it's known as one of the priciest markets in the city. Yes I spend a bit more on groceries but the way I think about it, what I get from the extra cost is not just higher quality but the satisfaction of knowing that I am both supporting a small local business and also supporting a lot of local & relatively local producers since that is who they make an effort to support. I also like that I can walk there and the sense I get of participating in my local neighborhood scene & rubbing elbows with other hyper locals (even if I barely interact with them!). It's just a generally better & more pleasant experience all around than cheaper spots, and to me that's more than worth the extra cost.
Your comment reminds me of the Boots Theory. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boots_theory I had a good pair of boots that lasted 21 years. And they were indeed repaired and resoled by a local cobbler. But I was lucky to afford the better boots in the first place.
It still surprises me when I see mentions of Angi, because I'm old enough to remember when it was Angie's List. Angie's List had a stellar reputation of being 1000% the best place to turn to if you needed to hire someone to do something to your home or your car. What happened to it? The same thing that seems to be happening to every formerly decent product, service or business: venture capital and private equity firms that pushed the company into an IPO.
Is this a safe space to admit that I don't totally understand how private equity works? Or rather, why it is legal and we all just accept it? There's such a cultural agreement that it is leading to the enshittification of so much, and yet it continues!
As someone who works for a company owned by PE, I always refer to Richard Gere's character in Pretty Woman as a way of explaining the business model - "I buy companies and then sell them for parts" is pretty much the gist of it.
There’s a great book called The Plunderers that talks about the history, but in addition to Leah’s explanation of pure capitalism it is also driven by passive investors (pension funds, endowments) looking for places to put their money, which is part of why it survived. There’s a lot of passive money looking for homes (and people happy to make management fees finding it).
Part of the challenge is that (as the reddit thread linked upthread points out) "private equity" is a really broad term that encompasses a variety of nuanced strategies and business models. The really evil kind makes big headlines (see: Red Lobster, Toys R Us) because it further exploits an already failing business to squeeze out some like, death rattle profits on its way to bankruptcy.
But one other common strategy is consolidation: a PE investor buys a whole bunch of independent businesses in the same industry (eye doctors offices, veterinary practices, etc.) and generates profit via economies of scale. The parent company that owns all the businesses in one industry can 1) fire people who do the same job in different locations and save money on payroll 2) demand lower prices from suppliers and vendors due to the sheer volume of business they control 3) buy up the suppliers or customers of those businesses as well, and set terms and prices according to their own best interests. Sometimes, consolidation DOES make businesses more efficient and work better! Other times, it leads to enshittification.
I think another reason PE is so pervasive is that succession planning is HARD. And if a small business owner wants to retire, but doesn't have someone readily available to take over, selling their company to a PE firm or another large corporate buyer is often the easiest (and potentially most lucrative) option.
You make a really great point about how hard succession planning is. I run a business helping business owners and executives be good bosses. There is currently a wave of baby boomer business owners across the US retiring or planning their retirement. (Think Patrick Wyman's great piece on "American Gentry" -- a lot of them, and a lot of owners of smaller businesses below them in the pecking order, are retiring.) These folks often work with me because if you plan to retire from your business, you need a strong management team in place during the transition.
And the thing is, as a culture we're not telling ambitious young people that a great path for them is to take over the local high-rise window-washing business, or apprentice to the best plumber around and be the successor when the plumber retires. Even though those are frequently really great jobs! The STORIES I hear in my field, you would not believe. I heard about a plumber who for decades has been the go-to guy for a wealthy area near me, is taking home literal millions in income a year, is aging and wants to retire, and cannot find anyone to take over his business. (I almost volunteered myself, lol.)
So yes, a lot of these business owners sell to private equity because they can't find other interested buyers. Which to me is a tragedy both for the impact of private equity on the industry, and for all the young people who could be stepping into these great opportunities if only they knew about them.
I find this super interesting! Is there a white collar version of this sort of succession strategy, or do you find that it's more common (or rather, more common for the business to go the PE route) for blue collar than white collar?
That's a fascinating question and I don't have enough of a data set yet to know, or even gesture at, the answer! There's got to be someone out there who has run the numbers, but I haven't run across them yet.
This is so helpful, thank you! I think I struggled wrapping my head around it because it seems so obviously predatory that I can't imagine what the narrative is that allows people to participate in it without feeling like they're the bad guys - I (maybe naively) assume that more people don't want to go to work thinking "here I go, making the world a worse place" - there has to be some cover story that they tell themselves about how they are providing a service. So learning that there are (limited, but very real) instances where PE can bring about positive outcomes makes sense to me.
Diabolical Lies did an episode (this one behind a paywall, sorry!) that gets into some of the nuances of private equity buying up so many businesses that used to be successful and turning them into much worse shells of themselves, often causing the company to go out of business altogether. It gets into the "financialization" of everything right now and I think fits nicely with this AHP piece. It's maybe a little bit of a 102-level explainer, rather than 101, but I love this podcast and the clarity with which they break down very complex subjects:
This was SUCH a good episode. I love the way they break it down, telling the story through the Hooters experience. If this episode had been a book, I would not have been able to put it down.
My own understanding is not fully fleshed out, but I did find a couple of Reddit threads that break it down pretty well -- in short, private equity is a pretty broad term that encompasses a few different types of investment, some utterly poisonous (like the PE maneuvers that took down companies like Toys R Us, Sears, and more) and some that are apparently not so bad.
As for the legality, that's a question that's waaaaaay above my knowledge level, but I feel like it probably falls into the same sort of area as corporate monopolies that we know perfectly well violate anti-trust laws but are still allowed to proceed because the people in charge of stopping it are benefiting from letting it happen.
If you're interested in learning more about how PE works in so many aspects of our lives, I highly recommend the Private Equity Stakeholder Project (admittedly I know some of the researchers there). They have really interesting reports on PE's role in our health care system, housing, food production etc and they are working to highlight the enshittification to get more regulations in place (something that is less possible w/ this admin, but still essential). https://pestakeholder.org/
Another book rec from a year or two ago: THESE ARE THE PLUNDERERS by Gretchen Morgenson and Joshua Rosner takes you through the history of PE up until the present moment.
A while back I was thinking about how there have a been a lot of things happening in the business world that I don’t understand. I assumed I was just missing something/ didn’t have a lot of business acumen. In the last year or so, I realized that they’re all just scams or Ponzi schemes.
It’s not that I don’t understand them, they are destructive systems that cannot last. I just think a system that’s destructive and cannot last is a bad thing and others do not (if they can’t get their money and walk away fast enough).
I had wondered what happened! I tried Angi last year for some house power washing and it was an absolute disaster. I ended up just searching online for someone in my area instead- definitely way more expensive but the guy was excellent.
I remember when Angie's List first appeared. We searched for a contractor to help with home repairs and there were none, zero, listed in Fairfield County, CT. It was useless.
I actually know Angie through a relative, and tried to hook her up with AARP to do joint stuff about 10 years ago. I forget what happened, but I think she was on the verge of selling at the time and it didn’t work out. It’s too bad… could have been a great partnership.
My mom has told me that she traces a lot of our society's current ailments to the moment when companies started treating workers as costs rather than assets. Seems like a straight line from that decision to this issue you've identified.
Along these lines, there's an excellent book entitled ACCOUNTING FOR SLAVERY that explores how much of our current accounting system, financial practices, and organizational productivity culture originated from colonial slaveowners "innovating" new ways to track and manage labor. It's chilling, to say the least.
That is exactly what happened with Walgreens. I worked for them from 2001-2012 as a pharmacy technician. When I was hired, they were still a family run company that cared about its employees. The people who worked there loved to work there and were willing to move across the country as the company grew. I was working there the last time the company offered stock options to all fulltime employees. Then they got too big and started acquiring other chains like Duane Reade, Boots, and later Rite-Aid. Wages began to stagnate at the same time the company started to expect more from its employees. I left the company after they put into place a new wage policy where I was never going to get another raise. Thankfully before they made me start to give immunizations. I cannot imagine working there now filling 500-1000 prescriptions a day plus administrating flu shots.
This reminds me of one of my main takeaways from Peter Goodman's excellent book, "How the World Ran Out of Everything." It's an examination of the global supply chain, with most of the problems traced back to what you/your mom named - seeing employees as liabilities rather than assets. (He argues this shift came about because the idea gained popularity in the consultant class at places like McKinsey.)
It's easy for a business owner to treat workers as an expense rather than an asset if the owner operates the business from a distance and never knows the people they employ.
Booking flights through third party "deal" sites. I'm sure a lot of people have figured this out the hard way, but if something goes wrong with those flights, the airline won't help you because you didn't book through them. I now only book direct with the airline.
Same with hotels for me - I almost never use third-party sites (like booking.com, hotels.com, etc.) and book directly with the hotel even if it's more expensive.
I find it helpful to search with those sites and then book directly- small hotels don't always have the money or marketing team to get visibility without using a big company, but I see no reason not to give them all the money from the booking!
Yep! I usually put “B&B” into google maps and zoom in on the area I want to be, then start clicking stuff and going to individual websites. You can filter by price, and we usually end up with something much more interesting and cozy than a Marriott or whatever.
i always recommend people to get a hotel credit card - you rack up points super fast, and even if you're staying outside of that chain, you rack up points by using it. We've had a lot of free nights that way and we still get to support smaller chains when we want to use something else.
Wr got burned by this in Orlando on apparently the busiest night of 2025 so far (Feb 15th to be exact). When our room was sold out from under us for not pre-paying, we ended up going back to the airport to sleep. Ir was grim. Never using a third party site again (my husband may take slightly longer to come around to that stance).
Ugh. I feel you. I recently learned about this booking a hotel room. I thought I was booking directly but realized (after $350 of additional “fees”) that instead of using marriott.com, I had booked through something like bookonline.marriott.com. I spent a week jumping through hoops trying to get my money back, and then finally gave up as I realized I’d exerted more than $350 worth of emotional energy.
Yes this is SO SNEAKY and I HATE IT. Often if you Google something like "Marriott hotel Jacksonville" or whatever, the first hits, and sometimes the first PAGE of hits are these weirdo third party booking sites.
im trying so hard to get my parents out of this habit - they keep telling me theyre just so much cheaper! but they've gotten burned once and lost an entire flight and they won't quit. It is so frustrating!!!
Oh that reminds me when my parents booked a tour of Pearl Harbor for hundreds of dollars because it said tickets were limited. I was able to figure out bookings were free through the National Park Service and we easily got our preferred day and time slot to visit. That was a decade ago, I can only imagine how bad the misinformation is for any popular tourist spot now.
The proliferation of sites like viator and find your guide has really made things worse. The number of people I encountered in Rome who thought they had booked some special tour of the Vatican or the colosseum only to find out they got an overpriced regular ticket was crazy. It’s a lot of work to find the right sites and navigate foreign ticketing and when third party vendors are buying up all the time slots there’s very little that people can do!
If you ever figure out what line of argument works for this, please let me know! I swear my mother must ENJOY spending time on the phone arguing with Priceline!
Ugh, the newspaper I used to subscribe to ran Christopher Elliott's columns in the Sunday edition, and a few years of reading that really drummed the "book direct" into me — but if losing an entire flight won't convince them, I doubt the column will.
Same! I also started using Google Flights because it shows you the costs on various airlines (like Kayak would), but then just links to the airline itself. So you get the efficiency of price comparison but don't run the risk of being burned by the third party vendor.
Had this same experience in my twenties with a hotel booked via a third party. The hotel had no hot water for over a day and could not (would not?) do *anything* for us because we booked it cheap through through a third party app. Never again.
I think a lot about how some combination of technology, corporations and modern (american) society has made people so impatient with increased expectations for immediate service. It's why apps like angi continue to thrive. AI/LLMs are making this all worse with promises of 24/7 call center availability and shittier support.
But it's a privilege to have the time for patience for the slower, better, option - the locally owned grocery store 20 minutes away instead of the supermarket (or more likely, dollar general) that's closer. Booking the independent handyman who's not available for months, or having the time to tackle the project yourself. Waiting on the phone to talk to a human. Going to the brick and mortar location instead of ordering delivery of anything.
Some days I have the time for the slower option but I know many people never do. We're treating each other worse because we're all on our last nerve. It sucks.
I think about this a lot "We're treating each other worse because we're on our last nerve."
I practice not doing anything until I can be civil. Otherwise, I might just snap and say something regrettable and that can't be unsaid.
Sometime it means I don't get out of bed for an extra hour because I'm working to be fortified and also open. It's a luxury to be able to take my time, and I continually work to both be aware of it and keep doing it.
Agreed! I also think it’s important to remember that the reason that companies like Uber and Airbnb were successful is not just that we wanted things cheaper - they were genuinely filling a need. I still remember waiting two hours in the cold outside of a closed club for a Yellow Cab that I’d called for a full hour before closing. No one would come to pick up three young women in that neighborhood, because it was the wrong kind of neighborhood - too poor, too black, too “dangerous.” Cab companies were (and are) terrible - not just on an individual “they’ll scam you” basis, but for workers and customers alike. That cab never came. We eventually got picked up by a jitney, but it was scary waiting. Uber has done a lot of terrible things - but it gave me freedom.
Oh my god yes. There are certainly plenty of issues with the ride apps, but the one thing I will give them credit for is disrupting a dysfunctional system (at least in my city) in a much-needed way. The impossibility of getting a cab in certain neighborhoods. Of getting a cab if you looked a certain way. Needing to always carry cash. Calling a cab, having it confirmed, and then having it just not show up. As a result our cabs at least now do have an app and take credit cards.
Here’s a weird one- a few months ago my husband and I were frantically trying to find a new rental home, as our landlord decided to sell the house we were renting and we needed to be out asap. It’s been a few years since I’ve navigated the rental market and I was absolutely shocked by the new “technology” that completely removes the need for a human being on the side of the management company. When you request a showing, you get an automated text message directing you to a website to book an appointment. If you have a question or you need to reschedule your showing, you’re out of luck because nobody is manning the text channel, it’s all just AI. Then, you use an app to go visit the property and instead of meeting with a real person, you verify your identity and prove that you’re at the location, then the app provides a code to the lock box on the door and you’re free to show yourself around. Nobody is there to answer questions about the house or the lease, and there’s no way to get a feel for whether the management company would be at all helpful or responsive if something goes wrong. I imagine that being a rental property manager is probably not a great job, but this is a terribly way to save a buck on labor at the expense of the renter.
We did end up finding a house that is managed by a real human being who met us at the house and has been lovely and responsive to everything we’ve needed upon moving in. It was also about $300/month more expensive than the houses from the human-free management company. Hopefully it’s worth the extra expense!
For what it’s worth, the AI showings are a pretty good idea of what the property management company would be like to work with, in my experience. Impossible to get ahold of- often they answer phones at a central office, not your actual apartment complex, and in my experience hours at the office are limited. Impersonal- the staff changes over so often at property management companies that there is no relationship between you and any staff member. And, like AI, they aren’t all that good at actually knowing what the law is.
A few years ago we had to break a rental lease in a hurry and our (truly wonderful) landlord said, great, just find someone to take over your lease for the remainder and the next year. We figured this wouldn't be a problem in an area notorious for low housing stock, rental culture, and a somewhat transient population. Well, we were not prepared for The Bots. Everywhere I posted, a bot took my pictures and reposted with the intention of stealing SSNs and bank acct info. Literally everywhere. I was getting calls all hours of the night from across the country of people yelling at me for scamming them, my landlord was getting the same calls, it was awful. We ended up doing physical, paper postings and found a renter 2 days before we had to move.
And to be clear, this was a small landlord operation (8 properties) with extremely reasonable rent and in a desirable area. A lot of people probably needed to see the listing that never got a chance. I wouldn't know what to do if I had to rent a property now, it seems downright impossible. Just all sludge.
Yes! I'm helping a refugee family and they (and I) were so confused to find out a potential rental was a scam, because they were allowed to access and view the property via a code through the rental company, even though the "listing" they'd found was a scam trying to get them to send an application with sensitive personal info. The only human we ever got on the phone was the scammer himself.
I have not rented in decades, but I had the exact same shocking experience last year helping my 90 year old parents find an apartment after they decided to downsize (finally!) from the family home. I, as a tech-savvy 50 yo could barely figure out how to navigate the system. My parents were utterly lost. Thankfully, we found them an apartment complex with real human property managers and facilities people who actually seem to care about whether my mom trips over a broken sidewalk or whatever.
The last time I looked for an apt, a couple years ago, a few places had an app-based system for booking showings that requested a photo of my driver's license (!!!) in order to verify my identity. I declined to do so cause it felt so scammy. Like, this human-less silicon valley app that's essentially a calendering app does not need that info! Insanity!
I had a very similar experience trying to find a rented place to live. I paid application fees to an app, uploaded the story of my life to an app, got approval from an app, signed a lease through an app, now pay my rent through an app.
I have an example of something I spent more money on than I anticipated and had a really positive experience. Much has been justifiably written about the negative impact of fast fashion and how bad it is for the environment, for the workers who make the clothes, and, frankly, for our fashion choices. In response, I recently purchased an Oxford shirt from a small-batch made-to-order garment company in Brooklyn called Naomi Nomi. I reached out to customer service because I needed the shirt to arrive prior to a trip I was taking and received a response from an actual human being. We had a lovely back and forth and, most importantly, when the shirt arrived the quality and craftsmanship proved to be impeccable. It's my new signature piece. Is it far more expensive than something I'd buy from J.Crew or the Gap? Yes. Will it last far longer and was it a far more pleasant experience? Absolutely.
I have been working to divest our family from the evil a*azon empire since January, replacing our deliveries with a Costco membership, etsy, and shopping local (easier for me because I live in a pretty populous area). The site Goods Unite Us has been a huge help. It provides information about the political contributions of various companies--and there's also a browser extension and a constantly-updated google doc.
Wow, I just looked this company up, and these are beautiful shirts! If you don't mind my asking, what's your method of care for this type of garment? Handwash? Dry clean? Regular wash and dry?
I am learning a lot from this thread. I also feel somewhat shaky about adding, as one of the Poors, there's a lot of privilege. I buy sh!tty stuff because it's all I can afford, and I can barely buy anything but essentials right now. Thrifting is good but the Pickers are relentless. So it's a crappy shelf or no shelf. Jenky knockoffs and not Hokas (Lawd I need some Hoka shoes).
This is not to criticize people who can, but to voice that the problem is unregulated Capitalism, not just crappy workers or that too many people aren't willing to buy nicer, pricier, less convenient stuff and that it floods the market with crappy. And that the ability to have that choice is pretty nice
Absolutely agree. And it's all connected, too — no social safety net, earning wages that are below the cost of living, because these companies don't want to pay more taxes or actually employ their employees (or pay them a living wage) so as to create more shareholder value. And you're right — the ability to choose what you can pay more for is a real privilege, and I should have made that more clear. I hope it is clear that I think the problem is the ideology of extractive growth capitalism and the attitudes towards consumption and service it inspires.
I remember reading somewhere that companies used to pay employees well enough so that they had money to spend to keep businesses going. Like it was kind of business economics 101. But that’s gone out the window because as someone said above there’s the shift to seeing workers as liabilities - people aren’t valued / paid enough to be able to buy essentials let alone luxuries and companies are making things cheaper and cheaper but pay people less and less and it can’t end well.
I will sound ridiculous when I say this but...hotel stays, even at higher end hotels. I travel for work and part of it is visiting hotels to decide which ones will host our large corporate events. There is a steep decline in the quality of service at all employee levels even at very, very expensive hotels. The quality of the hotel managers I interact with (those in charge of selling the space) is high as those are 'good' jobs but the issues arise with housekeeping, front desk staff, restaurant staff - those who have harder, lower paid, more physical jobs.
There are still uniformly great staff at the highest end hotels (which are more likely to have well paid salaries/benefits) but more commonly I'll run into an issue with 'front of house' and the managers correct the issue by offering points/comped food/free nights, etc. - which doesn't correct for the overall problem of overwork and lower pay. I can also imagine how frustrating that is when you are paying a lot of your own money for these experiences which then turn out to be lower quality than you'd hoped (and paid for!).
I rarely stayed in hotels when I was younger, but now that I'm older and have the funds to do it, I've been very underwhelmed. Recently I stayed at a BnB, and the service was so lovely. It reminded me what hospitality could be. They had freshly baked cookies set out at night, a tea station (with nice mugs instead of paper cups!), lavender sachets for your pillow, etc etc. It reminded me to look harder for locally owned accommodations when I travel.
Yes, oh my god! If you don't put a premium on anonymity, the service at a good B&B can be so much better than an expensive luxury hotel these days. It is far and away my first option when I try to look for accommodations anywhere.
Yes, this was my industry for many years. It's sad to see the decline and covid made it worse. The owners of these hotels know that regardless of service people keep coming. They will cut and cuts staff and cut and cut amenities.
They don't care any more about hospitality or the experience and luxury hotel prices are out of this world. They will throw you points or some wine, but it is still not cool. It's hard to pay for value you're not getting.
Hotel managers aren't really paid that well either. A front office, housekeeping, etc department head can probably make 50,000-70,000. Ups may be a better deal.
Always look for the union label used to be just a slogan but is increasingly relevant. Musk and bezos are virulently anti union more workers need to unionize in the us. Canada and the Nordic countries have high union rates and thus higher overall wages
I went to New Orleans last year for my cousin's wedding and was stunned by the quality of service literally everywhere we went. Everywhere had people who were professional, knowledgeable, and personable. And everywhere we went was--gasp--adequately staffed. One of the bartenders I chatted with told me that it is because New Orleans is one of the few places where service is still a career, not just a job.
One of the HUGE trends of the last several decades, accelerating massively in the last 10-15 years, is the deprofessionalization of just about every industry. A dude with a GPS app is not a replacement for an actual cab driver, big rigs are fucking terrifying to drive near (fun fact: most truck drivers these days have less than 6 months experience, and the industry has >100% turnover each year), we are all expected to do our own admin both professionally and in our personal lives (ever had to fill out the same pre-appointment form 3 times?) because technology has made it possible, and whomever is paying does NOT value our time.
More and more, I am opting out where possible and being selective where I can be. And also, it will be a cold day in hell before I ever again fill out a form "for my convenience" before a doctor's appointment...
my company hired someone a couple of years ago who manages our work travel, and she put out a question if people would be okay with her booking indie hotels at the expense of earning points. indie hotels only narrowly won originally, but everyone is soooo much happier now -- even the nicest chain-owned hotels were just getting worse and worse, and using a nickel and dime model that was really annoying -- ie, oh you need a fridge? that's $50, you need an iron? that's $25 etc. So much worse!
this exact thing is why I've kind of stopped going on vacation. Even at the nicest hotels that a lay person can afford, the amenities and service are mid at best, and I don't like feeling disappointed for a trip that I paid a lot of money for and looked forward to. Maybe the answer is "lower my expectations", but I can do that for free at home.
We recently roadtripped up the 395 from LA to the Bay Area via Tahoe and stayed in independent roadside motels. Fantastic! Not luxury, by any means, but inexpensive, clean, comfortable, quiet, quirky. Friendly and helpful staff.
Contrast that with the one night we stayed in The Langham, a luxury hotel in Pasadena that was a gift from family. The *only* parking allowed is valet, and it costs $50 a night. And you are not allowed to use any carts to carry your own luggage - you have to wait for a belhop. As you arrive, tired from wherever you came and just want to unload and lie down, you have to navigate the super stressful minefield of unexpected extra cash and unloading your car with strangers.
Then, all night long there was a roaring noise that came and went about every 10 minutes. We thought it was the HVAC unit, but even turned off, the noise continued. I didn't sleep AT ALL.
In the morning we figured out the bathroom light / fan combo was flicking on and off by itself. Not safe, not ok in any way. The best they could offer was a refund that didn't even cover the valet fees.
Yes, the Langham pool was lovely, the landscaping and surroundings are beautiful, and it's quite a scene to people watch at such a high end place, but I slept better and felt way less angry staying in cheap motels.
ok thank you! I don't stay in high end hotels, but the lack the amenities and services at any kind of hotel is sorely lacking these days--the last time I was in an actual "full service" hotel was a fancy hotel in Seoul (a Korean chain).
Yes. The owners are now in charge and large hotel chains are mostly franchised. Standards are at an all time low. They are also running different occupancy models. I can clearly nerd out on this 🤣
I suppose that's why I'm writing this because I want to help save people the disappointment. Regardless of price, a hotel is a luxury, and in any economy, it's a bummer to spend a lot and get so little.
However, I can also be pleasantly surprised sometimes! I am also doing more research and staying at more independent hotels.
Also, I predict that status, rewards programs, etc won't matter or have as much value soon.
im in charge of hosting our in-person events at my work and god, freaking hotels. They charge you for the gd pens they give you. We had such a disaster with the food in our last event - they literally served bread rolls and claimed they were gluten free (they were not, and we told me we have someone with a SEVERE ALLERGY). The manager was also out one of the days and didnt leave anyone as a backup so I was scrambling up and down the hotel.
I agree that hotel services have declined in quality. It's bad whether you're traveling for business (want decent AV services for your event? HA! And it'll cost you 100k) or pleasure. But let me name and acclaim(? rather than name and shame) a couple of standouts I experienced recently. Not sure what their owners/managers are doing, but I'm guessing it's good:
1. JW Marriott Starr Pass in Tucson, AZ Generous kind employees who did things like spontaneously give us takeout containers at breakfast so we could grab pastries for hiking snacks.
2. Inn of the Governors in Santa Fe, NM. Really nice experience, felt welcomed from the start (and it has free parking and an amazing parking attendant!).
Hard agree. It's especially frustrating when you are with a sports team because the tournaments work with the hotels to come up with a "special" rate that is generally higher than you could get booking with them direct. And they are Stay & Play tournaments so teams have no choice.
We stayed at one in Phoenix a couple of years ago that was not good. Place was barely clean, lots of paint peeling. Cops showed up the first night we were there to rescue a girl who was being trafficked - and I had a group of 13 year old girls! All for $350/night $CDN.
The most bizarre employment experience of my life was in 2011 when I got a job bartending at a new hotel in Williamsburg, Brooklyn. Most of the bar staff came from great restaurants in Manhattan and were making the jump because the wanted a union job and a shorter commute (at the time, you could still live comfortably as a bartender in Williamsburg, especially if you’d had your lease for a while) We had two weeks of paid training with internationally recognized, pretty legendary bartenders. It was the type of thing people would pay to do on vacation. The wine cellar was ridiculously impressive and the management was really skilled, dedicated folks with incredible resumes. We hadn’t even been open long enough to be reviewed when we heard we were in talks to be sold. They stopped marketing the restaurant, people stopped coming in and the managers started opening the really nice bottles of wine for staff tastings. I think we opened just before Thanksgiving and our last day of service was New Year’s Eve. My parents stayed there a few years later and it was so sparsely staffed it felt like a ghost town. I always think of that moment as one time the neighborhood could have gone one way and instead went the other
I have been pretty unimpressed at the "better" hotels I have stayed at recently. They do tend to have nicer beds and pillows, but they have been less clean than at the mid-range hotels. It's pretty disappointing.
Yes! We stayed in a very nice hotel on the Left Bank in Paris recently. Overall it was a wonderful experience but twice they forgot to deliver our room service breakfast and then, when my husband went down to the front desk halfway through our stay to switch out the credit card being used for our charges, he discovered that an 1800 euro breakfast had been charged to our room! On the day they forgot to deliver any breakfast!! They obviously corrected the error, but sheesh...
Ikea furniture is the obvious one here and I will go out on a limb and say that if Ikea hadn’t paid me to (learn how to) build their furniture for three years, I would be your friend with the Wayfair bed frame.
A weird one for me is Internet service. I don’t want to use the big two telecom companies in Canada, so I’m with a smaller company but bandwidth isn’t as strong. Sometimes I wonder if I’m paying for this in productivity, and sometimes I go into the office specifically because I need to be sharing a screen or working with a 30MB file.
Lastly, a big one for me is user fee-driven public programs. I will take public transit and enrol my kid in public sports and swim programs – which might be cheaper but have non-monetary costs - because I know that workers are unionized and paid better than rideshare drivers and private instructors.
It’s not a typical pay-more/get-less scenario, but separating out class performance from the equation is a critical component of this interrogation.
I recently had to leave a party early because the public bus schedule essentially ended at 9:30 pm. And I was having a good time so I was annoyed but when I got home I was so happy to get into bed and have been social but not for too long. The bus low-key saved me from staying out late!
I don't have a car and get many groceries in my neighborhood but rely on grocery delivery for other things like bulk toilet paper. I had so many frustrating experiences with Instacart where I found myself filled with RAGE for the shoppers when they couldn't find any substitutes, or took hours to arrive. Meal planning went out the window because there were always so many missing items. I realize this was entirely unfair to the poor shoppers who are rushing to complete my order amongst many others, and have no control over what is in stock.
I switched to Sobeys voila, the in-house grocery delivery service for one of the larger chains where I live in Canada. The difference is stark! Everything I order is in stock because it comes direct from a warehouse with up dated inventory, and the delivery people are wonderful! They always call ahead (no app tracking!) when five minutes away and are happy to chat at the door. When I couldn't come to the door with a sleeping baby on me, they brought everything in to my kitchen themselves. The drivers are full time employees of the company, driving a company vehicle and make $20/hr plus tips. This has turned into an ad, but I can't stop evangelizing about it! It is slightly more expensive but with no hidden service fees and I end up spending less because I know they'll have everything I order.
Yes. As a disabled person in a building with a lot of stairs, I was dependent on Instacart for a few years. It just felt like one more piece of denied access, especially since I only tolerate 12 foods. If something was out, it threw my whole meal planning off. The reason I used it was because going back for *one missing thing* was so taxing. For me it just highlighted all the limitations of illness and the severity of my challenges just trying to exist in the most basic way, which drove me to rage.
I've never heard of Sobeys but I want it! Luckily, I have a partner who helps me get groceries now.
I haven't tried Instacart, but have been really impressed by FreshDirect's delivery service. Wide range, fast delivery, rarely missing items, and prompt handling of issues (i.e. refunding for some moldy berries.)
Omg instacart! I can't. It's so bad. It's like the shoppers have never bought groceries before. And I get why it's that way but it's so frustrating. I laugh every time I see the commercials with shoppers overthinking selecting produce..😂 yeah right!
LOL! I've given up on grocery delivery. Too many "it's not in stock," and I'm tempted to respond, "Do I have to get my in car and drive to the store right now and point to the item on the shelf?" when I know that it's an item that is 100% always in stock. So frustrating!
The "not in stock" doesn't bother me as much as the moldy berries and bruised fruits and vegetables. I guess if I didn't eat fresh produce I'd be more okay with it.
Yes! I did a Target pick-up order recently and was told an item wasn't available even though the website showed it was. I went into the store to pick up the order and then went and bought that one "unavailable" item myself. SMH.
My favorite game to play is “what did I get instead of what I ordered?” I think the best one was a request for frozen salmon burgers that showed up as frozen veggie burgers and a piece of fresh salmon. Just…what?? lol
Yes to this! I did the same in Toronto and now that I’m BC the equivalent when Voila isn’t available is Save on foods, they also always have things in stock and use actual employees to prepare and deliver!
this is great to know! I live in IGA territory but I think they also use Voilà (why else would the name be in French?) I am lucky to live within five minutes' walk of an amazing little independent grocery store and so get almost everything on foot, but over the holidays, I was sick with Maybe-Covid and ended up making a Door Dash order partially to get a Covid rapid test, partially to get some easy-to-prepare groceries to hunker down with. The Dasher sent a message saying that the ham I had selected off the website was gone and he sent me a picture of the very limited cold cut section WITH THE HAM I HAD CHOSEN LITERALLY IN THE PICTURE. I didn't point it out, just mentioned that I'd like the ham on display.
On the flip side of this, I prefer to shop for my own groceries and I get muscled out of the way by the paid shoppers in the store. When I was firmly planted in front of an item for about three seconds before one wanted me to move so she could get what she was looking for, I finally asked if I was in her way. The answer was obviously yes but it irritates the snot out of me when I patiently wait my turn to get at the item I am looking for when an employee rudely inserts themselves into my personal space.
When I had a new baby a few years ago, an acquaintance Instacart-ed us a meal from Whole Foods that was supposed to be a rotisserie chicken, salad kit, bread, and dessert. Only the salad kit arrived. It was very confusing and awkward!
I had literally this same exact experience with a Wayfair assembly several years ago. Also on a bedframe. The next time I moved the bedframe completely fell apart and I decided to just spend a great deal of money on one made locally which I absolutely love. So I feel this pain! (also will note as a single person living alone, I think a lot about asking for help vs paying for help but that's an entirely separate comment!)
I remember going out to dinner with two friends and telling them that there was a mattress waiting for me at my apartment building and I had no idea how he is going to get it into my apartment. And they immediately explained that they were going to help me. It had not occurred to me to ask for that type of help from them, but after dinner, the three of us, older, single women, were able to get the mattress into my apartment more easily than I expected. Of course, it would’ve been a lot harder on my own. I was so grateful for their friendship.
It was a baby dresser/changing table for us. It came with all the wrong hardware, they resent all the wrong hardware, then they told us the correct hardware was no longer available. My third trimester self had had MANY meltdowns over the situation. And this was a $500 product - not chump change!! That was when I vowed no more Wayfair ever again.
Yes! I also posted about a nightmare with a Wayfair Murphy bed that my architect had spec'd for a built-in Murphy bed project as part of a larger renovation. Total nightmare that delayed the entire renovation and I will never ever patronize Wayfair again!
We bought one cabinet/cupboard thing from wayfair for our new home and then said never again. So much time and agony and cursing and hurt fingers to put it together and it’s still rickety and the doors have a gap and the shelf fell down in it a few weeks ago so we paid our (great) handyman to actually fix it right so it’s not even actually cheaper after that…
I take issue with only one part of this (interesting, insightful!) article: "As a society, we have decided that we want more for less." I don't believe that *we* decided this. Over the last 150 years or so, advertisers have been using applied psychology to convince us that this is what we want. Consumerism isn't natural, it was created.
This may seem nitpick-y / arbitrary, but a very effective piece of capitalist propaganda has been that humans are naturally greedy, that innocent CEOs are merely giving people what they want, when in reality, they need a trillion dollar a year industry to *convince* us to want those things. The result is regular people feeling guilty for wanting an affordable bed frame, while the billionaire CEO of wayfair hangs out on his super yacht.*
* He really is a billionaire. I don't actually know if he owns a super yacht. But it seems likely!
This is maybe a weird thing to post, but our seminarian gave THE BEST sermon this week on who Americans are in the parable of the Good Samaritan (spoiler alert: we are not the Samaritan, we are the robbers). She reinforces the exact idea that if you’re getting something for cheap, you are complicit in harm. So if you don’t mind some very progressive Presbyterianism, wow do I recommend: https://www.youtube.com/live/lBqY2DazN6w?si=okO5pgIE-bRARFCA&t=3236
I'm currently reading Omar El Akkad's book "One Day, Everyone Will Have Always Been Against This" and he makes a similar comparison! He was a reporter for 10 years and was in Afghanistan and other places with the US military, and realized at one point that everyone watches Star Wars, and thinks we're the rebellion, but we are CLEARLY the Empire.
One way I’ve tried to right the ship or balance the inequity for workers and small businesses is by tipping very, very generously when things go right. From baristas to tile installation workers. I’ve noticed that people remember me when I go into cafes — and sometimes my 12 ounce chai latte turns into a 16 ounce. The tile guy (who we gave an extra $200 over his unbelievably reasonable bid) finished our project perfectly and on time.
When you treat people with genuine admiration for doing work that you yourself cannot do or wouldn’t want to do, that comes back to you in wonderful ways.
I've used this to help international friends understand why they MUST tip when eating at a restaurant in the US, because they'll argue that it's too expensive if you add 15 or 20% on top. And I'm like, yes, it is, but you can't eat at a restaurant and not do it. John Oliver had a great episode on tipping a few weeks ago that drives this point home.
About a year ago I started getting my hair done by a woman who lives about two blocks away from me. She was just opening up her own studio in her basement and I thought I would check it out. She is a lovely Korean woman and the time where I am waiting for my hair colour to set is spent watching Korean TV shows that she explains to me. One day she heard my stomach rumbling and went and got me a snack plate from upstairs with grapes and cookies. She was a teacher in South Korea but her dream was to be a hair stylist. Once she moved to Canada (and away from her in-laws, as she told me haha) she finally felt free enough to pursue her dream.
She charges me much less for a cut and colour than a "regular" salon and I always make sure to give her a good tip because it is just such a unique, affirming experience. And I tell all my friends in the neighbourhood to go to her too.
My husband was a bagger at Hy-Vee back in college and at that time they trained people how to properly bag (in paper bags). When my son started bagging at Kroger he was the bagger everyone wanted to get because even though Kroger didn’t really train him his dad did. It’s not a difficult concept but years of people just throwing two items into each plastic bag have eroded the experience. And now I think there are a lot of people who do self checkout because they don’t want their canned goods and bread thrown together. It’s really a shame - it was a great job for a lot of people who didn’t want or need other types of employment.
We purposely unload our cart to decrease the probability of bad bagging - group items, and save bread and eggs until the very very end. I'm a reasonable bagger, but my husband is good enough they've told him to apply to be a bagger 😂
Also started as a bagger at HyVee! The training for proper bagging was big. And in Iowa, at least, there were competitions for bagging and proper cart wrangling at the state fair. It was a little silly, but HyVee invested in making sure employees knew how appreciated good work, even just in “the little things,” was.
That is exactly why I do self-checkout at certain stores. At stores where I semi-trust the baggers I still unload my cart in an order intended to encourage good bagging.
I was a grocery store bagger for a time in college and we had to watch videos to learn how to bag, and we were tested on it too. That surely doesn’t happen anymore lol.
Yes, this. My parents' grocery store employs baggers, who are generally semi-retired folks or people with intellectual disability - they all do a terrific job in my experience. So this indicates to me that this hiring strategy is working and that the employer takes decent care of the employees. I rarely see grocery baggers these days.
Same! I have lived in London for the last 15 years and NEVER had someone bag my groceries here. It's getting harder to find a human on the checkout, as all the stores are building more self-checkout terminals.
Seriously. At this point I go out of my way to do "big" grocery trips at the one place in town that still hires baggers (and not just one person running themselves ragged across a dozen aisles -- one assigned bagger per aisle! It's like magic!).
The best way I normalize "receiving less for paying more" is by reminding myself that I am voting with my dollars. I live in Minnesota and when I pay $5/pint for greenhouse cherry tomatoes from Iowa rather than $3/pint for the ones from California, I remind myself that these tomatoes didn't travel as far, which reduces their carbon footprint and means they're probably fresher picked. When I pay $80 to have a great pair of leather boots resoled instead of throwing them away and buying new, I remind myself that this is keeping them out of the landfill, supporting my local shoe repair store, AND I've spent 10 years breaking them in and they fit me perfectly, so why start over? It's counterintuitive when measured against our idea of "the cheapest is the best" (and I'm a person currently wearing a thrifted sweater and shoes, so I can be pretty cheap!) but I want my community to still have shoe repair stores and local bookstores and non-chain grocery options, so I need to support them as much as I can.
This! I live in Vermont, and a lot of people order a lot online because it's cheaper than buying locally. But I want to a) financially support local businesses and b) support experts and specialists who know how to fix shoes and mend clothes and grow food. I'm aware of my financial limitations, and I choose carefully where I can "splurge" to support environmentally friendly, local options. The only thing I get delivered is toilet paper because Who Give A Crap is plastic-free and I love it :)
Not sure where in VT you are but here in Chittenden County we're currently embroiled in a debate about whether to allow an Amazon warehouse to move in. They want to put one here after closing one nearby in Canada after it attempted to unionize. This issue is such a flashpoint: there's a LOT of division between the "shop cheapest" and "shop local" folks, there are debates about the ethicality of Amazon as a business, Bezos' role in this administration, etc etc. A rich text! Anyway, lemme know if you ever want to hang out sometime, I'm always trying to find other AHPers in Vermont :)
Hi! *waves* I'm just outside Montpelier, but I've certainly heard the arguments about the warehouse over your way. It's a hard thing, knowing how tight people's budgets are and wanting then to be able to afford the things they need but also not wanting to give Amazon any more dollars than we already do. And living here, twenty minutes from a state capitol, it's illuminating how often I think about something it would be really nice/convenient or even necessary to buy that I just can't get within an hour of my house. So make a half day trip or order off the Internet? Or just go without? (usually go without these days, and fortunately my family doesn't seem to mind too much)
Hi fellow Vermonters! I try to shop local as much as possible, but it can be a real challenge to get to shops with short hours while working a 9-5. I’m sure there’s a whole deep dive into how businesses chose those hours, understaffing (intentional or not), and tourists and college students making up a large portion of the clientele.
Hi Vermonters! I’m in Addison county. The commute to find products or services makes it very tempting to turn to online ordering, but since I moved here two years ago from CA I’ve been very deliberate about trying to spend locally (and I’ve never been an Amazoner)
Agreed - we have 'shop local' Thursdays and Saturdays in our house where we only go to the local restaurants, farms, and shops for our errands. It costs a bit more but we value having the local ice cream place, or the good farm to table restaurant, or the farm stand with the best bread in town.
I love this. We are avid YNAB users and this year I added a “supporting local” line to our budget. We can spend on anything local - clothing, bookstores, gift shops, restaurants, breweries, museums, whatever. I’ve been using this to guide how we spend our money and time on the weekends.
Bushel Boy! Grown in MN! The only reason I'm willing to eat tomatoes all year.
That's them, and same here! They have a Mason City IA greenhouse too so they're not *all* grown in MN, but when the alternative is trucked from California, I call Iowa close enough ;-)
Same! Bushel Boy isn't perfect (I wish they didn't use plastic containers), but they are local and tasty.
This, all of this. Also, everyone should be getting their shoes resoled!!! I have my beloved cowboy boots resoled after every winter… it’s about time for their yearly TLC. I go to a single guy shop - I’ve never once had a good experience at a chain, even a local one - and he takes his time, only takes cash, and generally feels like he hasn’t changed a single business practice since the 1980s. But goddamn he does good shoes. I’d spend that money every time over getting a new pair (also new pairs are $400 so). Anyway. Off soapbox.
I also like to heavily patronize my local tailor. She puts pockets in all my pocketless clothes. Worth every dollar.
Same...I like to go to the tiny locally owned frou-frou market in my neighborhood even though it's known as one of the priciest markets in the city. Yes I spend a bit more on groceries but the way I think about it, what I get from the extra cost is not just higher quality but the satisfaction of knowing that I am both supporting a small local business and also supporting a lot of local & relatively local producers since that is who they make an effort to support. I also like that I can walk there and the sense I get of participating in my local neighborhood scene & rubbing elbows with other hyper locals (even if I barely interact with them!). It's just a generally better & more pleasant experience all around than cheaper spots, and to me that's more than worth the extra cost.
Your comment reminds me of the Boots Theory. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boots_theory I had a good pair of boots that lasted 21 years. And they were indeed repaired and resoled by a local cobbler. But I was lucky to afford the better boots in the first place.
It still surprises me when I see mentions of Angi, because I'm old enough to remember when it was Angie's List. Angie's List had a stellar reputation of being 1000% the best place to turn to if you needed to hire someone to do something to your home or your car. What happened to it? The same thing that seems to be happening to every formerly decent product, service or business: venture capital and private equity firms that pushed the company into an IPO.
Is this a safe space to admit that I don't totally understand how private equity works? Or rather, why it is legal and we all just accept it? There's such a cultural agreement that it is leading to the enshittification of so much, and yet it continues!
As someone who works for a company owned by PE, I always refer to Richard Gere's character in Pretty Woman as a way of explaining the business model - "I buy companies and then sell them for parts" is pretty much the gist of it.
That's certainly my impression of it! But it seems so cartoonishly evil and detrimental that I feel like I must be missing something.
It’s capitalism in it’s purest form so yeah..I think your impression is pretty accurate!
There’s a great book called The Plunderers that talks about the history, but in addition to Leah’s explanation of pure capitalism it is also driven by passive investors (pension funds, endowments) looking for places to put their money, which is part of why it survived. There’s a lot of passive money looking for homes (and people happy to make management fees finding it).
Part of the challenge is that (as the reddit thread linked upthread points out) "private equity" is a really broad term that encompasses a variety of nuanced strategies and business models. The really evil kind makes big headlines (see: Red Lobster, Toys R Us) because it further exploits an already failing business to squeeze out some like, death rattle profits on its way to bankruptcy.
But one other common strategy is consolidation: a PE investor buys a whole bunch of independent businesses in the same industry (eye doctors offices, veterinary practices, etc.) and generates profit via economies of scale. The parent company that owns all the businesses in one industry can 1) fire people who do the same job in different locations and save money on payroll 2) demand lower prices from suppliers and vendors due to the sheer volume of business they control 3) buy up the suppliers or customers of those businesses as well, and set terms and prices according to their own best interests. Sometimes, consolidation DOES make businesses more efficient and work better! Other times, it leads to enshittification.
I think another reason PE is so pervasive is that succession planning is HARD. And if a small business owner wants to retire, but doesn't have someone readily available to take over, selling their company to a PE firm or another large corporate buyer is often the easiest (and potentially most lucrative) option.
You make a really great point about how hard succession planning is. I run a business helping business owners and executives be good bosses. There is currently a wave of baby boomer business owners across the US retiring or planning their retirement. (Think Patrick Wyman's great piece on "American Gentry" -- a lot of them, and a lot of owners of smaller businesses below them in the pecking order, are retiring.) These folks often work with me because if you plan to retire from your business, you need a strong management team in place during the transition.
And the thing is, as a culture we're not telling ambitious young people that a great path for them is to take over the local high-rise window-washing business, or apprentice to the best plumber around and be the successor when the plumber retires. Even though those are frequently really great jobs! The STORIES I hear in my field, you would not believe. I heard about a plumber who for decades has been the go-to guy for a wealthy area near me, is taking home literal millions in income a year, is aging and wants to retire, and cannot find anyone to take over his business. (I almost volunteered myself, lol.)
So yes, a lot of these business owners sell to private equity because they can't find other interested buyers. Which to me is a tragedy both for the impact of private equity on the industry, and for all the young people who could be stepping into these great opportunities if only they knew about them.
I find this super interesting! Is there a white collar version of this sort of succession strategy, or do you find that it's more common (or rather, more common for the business to go the PE route) for blue collar than white collar?
That's a fascinating question and I don't have enough of a data set yet to know, or even gesture at, the answer! There's got to be someone out there who has run the numbers, but I haven't run across them yet.
This is so helpful, thank you! I think I struggled wrapping my head around it because it seems so obviously predatory that I can't imagine what the narrative is that allows people to participate in it without feeling like they're the bad guys - I (maybe naively) assume that more people don't want to go to work thinking "here I go, making the world a worse place" - there has to be some cover story that they tell themselves about how they are providing a service. So learning that there are (limited, but very real) instances where PE can bring about positive outcomes makes sense to me.
enshittification -- such a perfect word.
Yes, though not mine! As Kaitlin points out below, it's Cory Doctorow's term that has sadly become more and more relevant.
Diabolical Lies did an episode (this one behind a paywall, sorry!) that gets into some of the nuances of private equity buying up so many businesses that used to be successful and turning them into much worse shells of themselves, often causing the company to go out of business altogether. It gets into the "financialization" of everything right now and I think fits nicely with this AHP piece. It's maybe a little bit of a 102-level explainer, rather than 101, but I love this podcast and the clarity with which they break down very complex subjects:
https://www.diabolicalliespod.com/p/hot-chicks-wings-and-the-liquidation
This was SUCH a good episode. I love the way they break it down, telling the story through the Hooters experience. If this episode had been a book, I would not have been able to put it down.
My own understanding is not fully fleshed out, but I did find a couple of Reddit threads that break it down pretty well -- in short, private equity is a pretty broad term that encompasses a few different types of investment, some utterly poisonous (like the PE maneuvers that took down companies like Toys R Us, Sears, and more) and some that are apparently not so bad.
https://www.reddit.com/r/investing/comments/17zyz43/how_does_private_equity_work_common_explanation/
In this link, the top comment likens private equity to the difference between a home owner and a home flipper, which I thought was a really interesting way to frame it -- https://www.reddit.com/r/business/comments/18623tc/why_is_private_equity_so_bad_for_businesses/
As for the legality, that's a question that's waaaaaay above my knowledge level, but I feel like it probably falls into the same sort of area as corporate monopolies that we know perfectly well violate anti-trust laws but are still allowed to proceed because the people in charge of stopping it are benefiting from letting it happen.
If you're interested in learning more about how PE works in so many aspects of our lives, I highly recommend the Private Equity Stakeholder Project (admittedly I know some of the researchers there). They have really interesting reports on PE's role in our health care system, housing, food production etc and they are working to highlight the enshittification to get more regulations in place (something that is less possible w/ this admin, but still essential). https://pestakeholder.org/
Second time today I’ve seen enshittification in a Substack! Cory Doctorow gets some credit for the word and obvs. good reason it’s making a comeback.
Another book rec from a year or two ago: THESE ARE THE PLUNDERERS by Gretchen Morgenson and Joshua Rosner takes you through the history of PE up until the present moment.
Thanks so much to those who are suggesting reading and listening! I look forward to my deeper understanding.
The Dream did an episode about this:https://open.spotify.com/episode/3Bk2dSo3x5HIyg1EUDrUcy?si=a9346254b4904a10
It's honestly still a bit confusing to me but you're not alone in trying to figure it out!
A while back I was thinking about how there have a been a lot of things happening in the business world that I don’t understand. I assumed I was just missing something/ didn’t have a lot of business acumen. In the last year or so, I realized that they’re all just scams or Ponzi schemes.
It’s not that I don’t understand them, they are destructive systems that cannot last. I just think a system that’s destructive and cannot last is a bad thing and others do not (if they can’t get their money and walk away fast enough).
This is a great, short explanation podcast if you wanna get the gist: https://open.spotify.com/episode/0lh4EtY3h6JFZX35QDPSA6?si=xACDt33lTzKHzlfACPFYaw
I had wondered what happened! I tried Angi last year for some house power washing and it was an absolute disaster. I ended up just searching online for someone in my area instead- definitely way more expensive but the guy was excellent.
Oh wow, that’s what happened to Angie’s list? I had no idea.
Yup, very sad stuff. The history section of the Wikipedia entry has a good timeline of what went down. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Angi
I remember when Angie's List first appeared. We searched for a contractor to help with home repairs and there were none, zero, listed in Fairfield County, CT. It was useless.
I actually know Angie through a relative, and tried to hook her up with AARP to do joint stuff about 10 years ago. I forget what happened, but I think she was on the verge of selling at the time and it didn’t work out. It’s too bad… could have been a great partnership.
My mom has told me that she traces a lot of our society's current ailments to the moment when companies started treating workers as costs rather than assets. Seems like a straight line from that decision to this issue you've identified.
Along these lines, there's an excellent book entitled ACCOUNTING FOR SLAVERY that explores how much of our current accounting system, financial practices, and organizational productivity culture originated from colonial slaveowners "innovating" new ways to track and manage labor. It's chilling, to say the least.
That is exactly what happened with Walgreens. I worked for them from 2001-2012 as a pharmacy technician. When I was hired, they were still a family run company that cared about its employees. The people who worked there loved to work there and were willing to move across the country as the company grew. I was working there the last time the company offered stock options to all fulltime employees. Then they got too big and started acquiring other chains like Duane Reade, Boots, and later Rite-Aid. Wages began to stagnate at the same time the company started to expect more from its employees. I left the company after they put into place a new wage policy where I was never going to get another raise. Thankfully before they made me start to give immunizations. I cannot imagine working there now filling 500-1000 prescriptions a day plus administrating flu shots.
Which points us to another larger problem: deregulation (and no/very little monopoly controls)
And how such deregulation has led to a surplus of money in the hands of a few, who funnel it into private equity firms to make outsized returns
This reminds me of one of my main takeaways from Peter Goodman's excellent book, "How the World Ran Out of Everything." It's an examination of the global supply chain, with most of the problems traced back to what you/your mom named - seeing employees as liabilities rather than assets. (He argues this shift came about because the idea gained popularity in the consultant class at places like McKinsey.)
It's easy for a business owner to treat workers as an expense rather than an asset if the owner operates the business from a distance and never knows the people they employ.
Booking flights through third party "deal" sites. I'm sure a lot of people have figured this out the hard way, but if something goes wrong with those flights, the airline won't help you because you didn't book through them. I now only book direct with the airline.
Once burned and NEVER AGAIN
Same with hotels for me - I almost never use third-party sites (like booking.com, hotels.com, etc.) and book directly with the hotel even if it's more expensive.
I find it helpful to search with those sites and then book directly- small hotels don't always have the money or marketing team to get visibility without using a big company, but I see no reason not to give them all the money from the booking!
Yep! I usually put “B&B” into google maps and zoom in on the area I want to be, then start clicking stuff and going to individual websites. You can filter by price, and we usually end up with something much more interesting and cozy than a Marriott or whatever.
100%.
Yes! This!
And smaller/indie hotels and b&bs are also really happy if you book directly, because third-party sites charge excessive prices to them as well.
i always recommend people to get a hotel credit card - you rack up points super fast, and even if you're staying outside of that chain, you rack up points by using it. We've had a lot of free nights that way and we still get to support smaller chains when we want to use something else.
Wr got burned by this in Orlando on apparently the busiest night of 2025 so far (Feb 15th to be exact). When our room was sold out from under us for not pre-paying, we ended up going back to the airport to sleep. Ir was grim. Never using a third party site again (my husband may take slightly longer to come around to that stance).
Ugh. I feel you. I recently learned about this booking a hotel room. I thought I was booking directly but realized (after $350 of additional “fees”) that instead of using marriott.com, I had booked through something like bookonline.marriott.com. I spent a week jumping through hoops trying to get my money back, and then finally gave up as I realized I’d exerted more than $350 worth of emotional energy.
Yes this is SO SNEAKY and I HATE IT. Often if you Google something like "Marriott hotel Jacksonville" or whatever, the first hits, and sometimes the first PAGE of hits are these weirdo third party booking sites.
im trying so hard to get my parents out of this habit - they keep telling me theyre just so much cheaper! but they've gotten burned once and lost an entire flight and they won't quit. It is so frustrating!!!
Oh that reminds me when my parents booked a tour of Pearl Harbor for hundreds of dollars because it said tickets were limited. I was able to figure out bookings were free through the National Park Service and we easily got our preferred day and time slot to visit. That was a decade ago, I can only imagine how bad the misinformation is for any popular tourist spot now.
The proliferation of sites like viator and find your guide has really made things worse. The number of people I encountered in Rome who thought they had booked some special tour of the Vatican or the colosseum only to find out they got an overpriced regular ticket was crazy. It’s a lot of work to find the right sites and navigate foreign ticketing and when third party vendors are buying up all the time slots there’s very little that people can do!
If you ever figure out what line of argument works for this, please let me know! I swear my mother must ENJOY spending time on the phone arguing with Priceline!
My parents are Expedia people, ugh. I'm glad I'm not alone lol
Ugh, the newspaper I used to subscribe to ran Christopher Elliott's columns in the Sunday edition, and a few years of reading that really drummed the "book direct" into me — but if losing an entire flight won't convince them, I doubt the column will.
Been there! Never again, Travelocity! It wasn't worth the $150 we saved on the tickets, that's for sure.
Car rentals too. It's brutal.
Yes this! I always book on the airline’s website. I don’t even care what those aggregators are saying prices are
Same! I also started using Google Flights because it shows you the costs on various airlines (like Kayak would), but then just links to the airline itself. So you get the efficiency of price comparison but don't run the risk of being burned by the third party vendor.
I usually search through Google Hotels too. Even if it sends you to the third party site, most hotels will price match.
Had this same experience in my twenties with a hotel booked via a third party. The hotel had no hot water for over a day and could not (would not?) do *anything* for us because we booked it cheap through through a third party app. Never again.
I think a lot about how some combination of technology, corporations and modern (american) society has made people so impatient with increased expectations for immediate service. It's why apps like angi continue to thrive. AI/LLMs are making this all worse with promises of 24/7 call center availability and shittier support.
But it's a privilege to have the time for patience for the slower, better, option - the locally owned grocery store 20 minutes away instead of the supermarket (or more likely, dollar general) that's closer. Booking the independent handyman who's not available for months, or having the time to tackle the project yourself. Waiting on the phone to talk to a human. Going to the brick and mortar location instead of ordering delivery of anything.
Some days I have the time for the slower option but I know many people never do. We're treating each other worse because we're all on our last nerve. It sucks.
I think about this a lot "We're treating each other worse because we're on our last nerve."
I practice not doing anything until I can be civil. Otherwise, I might just snap and say something regrettable and that can't be unsaid.
Sometime it means I don't get out of bed for an extra hour because I'm working to be fortified and also open. It's a luxury to be able to take my time, and I continually work to both be aware of it and keep doing it.
“It's a luxury to be able to take my time, and I continually work to both be aware of it and keep doing it.” I am savoring this comment.
Agreed! I also think it’s important to remember that the reason that companies like Uber and Airbnb were successful is not just that we wanted things cheaper - they were genuinely filling a need. I still remember waiting two hours in the cold outside of a closed club for a Yellow Cab that I’d called for a full hour before closing. No one would come to pick up three young women in that neighborhood, because it was the wrong kind of neighborhood - too poor, too black, too “dangerous.” Cab companies were (and are) terrible - not just on an individual “they’ll scam you” basis, but for workers and customers alike. That cab never came. We eventually got picked up by a jitney, but it was scary waiting. Uber has done a lot of terrible things - but it gave me freedom.
Oh my god yes. There are certainly plenty of issues with the ride apps, but the one thing I will give them credit for is disrupting a dysfunctional system (at least in my city) in a much-needed way. The impossibility of getting a cab in certain neighborhoods. Of getting a cab if you looked a certain way. Needing to always carry cash. Calling a cab, having it confirmed, and then having it just not show up. As a result our cabs at least now do have an app and take credit cards.
Here’s a weird one- a few months ago my husband and I were frantically trying to find a new rental home, as our landlord decided to sell the house we were renting and we needed to be out asap. It’s been a few years since I’ve navigated the rental market and I was absolutely shocked by the new “technology” that completely removes the need for a human being on the side of the management company. When you request a showing, you get an automated text message directing you to a website to book an appointment. If you have a question or you need to reschedule your showing, you’re out of luck because nobody is manning the text channel, it’s all just AI. Then, you use an app to go visit the property and instead of meeting with a real person, you verify your identity and prove that you’re at the location, then the app provides a code to the lock box on the door and you’re free to show yourself around. Nobody is there to answer questions about the house or the lease, and there’s no way to get a feel for whether the management company would be at all helpful or responsive if something goes wrong. I imagine that being a rental property manager is probably not a great job, but this is a terribly way to save a buck on labor at the expense of the renter.
We did end up finding a house that is managed by a real human being who met us at the house and has been lovely and responsive to everything we’ve needed upon moving in. It was also about $300/month more expensive than the houses from the human-free management company. Hopefully it’s worth the extra expense!
For what it’s worth, the AI showings are a pretty good idea of what the property management company would be like to work with, in my experience. Impossible to get ahold of- often they answer phones at a central office, not your actual apartment complex, and in my experience hours at the office are limited. Impersonal- the staff changes over so often at property management companies that there is no relationship between you and any staff member. And, like AI, they aren’t all that good at actually knowing what the law is.
A few years ago we had to break a rental lease in a hurry and our (truly wonderful) landlord said, great, just find someone to take over your lease for the remainder and the next year. We figured this wouldn't be a problem in an area notorious for low housing stock, rental culture, and a somewhat transient population. Well, we were not prepared for The Bots. Everywhere I posted, a bot took my pictures and reposted with the intention of stealing SSNs and bank acct info. Literally everywhere. I was getting calls all hours of the night from across the country of people yelling at me for scamming them, my landlord was getting the same calls, it was awful. We ended up doing physical, paper postings and found a renter 2 days before we had to move.
And to be clear, this was a small landlord operation (8 properties) with extremely reasonable rent and in a desirable area. A lot of people probably needed to see the listing that never got a chance. I wouldn't know what to do if I had to rent a property now, it seems downright impossible. Just all sludge.
Yes! I'm helping a refugee family and they (and I) were so confused to find out a potential rental was a scam, because they were allowed to access and view the property via a code through the rental company, even though the "listing" they'd found was a scam trying to get them to send an application with sensitive personal info. The only human we ever got on the phone was the scammer himself.
I have not rented in decades, but I had the exact same shocking experience last year helping my 90 year old parents find an apartment after they decided to downsize (finally!) from the family home. I, as a tech-savvy 50 yo could barely figure out how to navigate the system. My parents were utterly lost. Thankfully, we found them an apartment complex with real human property managers and facilities people who actually seem to care about whether my mom trips over a broken sidewalk or whatever.
The last time I looked for an apt, a couple years ago, a few places had an app-based system for booking showings that requested a photo of my driver's license (!!!) in order to verify my identity. I declined to do so cause it felt so scammy. Like, this human-less silicon valley app that's essentially a calendering app does not need that info! Insanity!
I had a very similar experience trying to find a rented place to live. I paid application fees to an app, uploaded the story of my life to an app, got approval from an app, signed a lease through an app, now pay my rent through an app.
I have an example of something I spent more money on than I anticipated and had a really positive experience. Much has been justifiably written about the negative impact of fast fashion and how bad it is for the environment, for the workers who make the clothes, and, frankly, for our fashion choices. In response, I recently purchased an Oxford shirt from a small-batch made-to-order garment company in Brooklyn called Naomi Nomi. I reached out to customer service because I needed the shirt to arrive prior to a trip I was taking and received a response from an actual human being. We had a lovely back and forth and, most importantly, when the shirt arrived the quality and craftsmanship proved to be impeccable. It's my new signature piece. Is it far more expensive than something I'd buy from J.Crew or the Gap? Yes. Will it last far longer and was it a far more pleasant experience? Absolutely.
I have been working to divest our family from the evil a*azon empire since January, replacing our deliveries with a Costco membership, etsy, and shopping local (easier for me because I live in a pretty populous area). The site Goods Unite Us has been a huge help. It provides information about the political contributions of various companies--and there's also a browser extension and a constantly-updated google doc.
https://www.goodsuniteus.com/it
Wow, I just looked this company up, and these are beautiful shirts! If you don't mind my asking, what's your method of care for this type of garment? Handwash? Dry clean? Regular wash and dry?
I have the hemp denim Oxford and I machine wash it using a mesh bag for delicates, gentle cycle, and hang dry.
I should also call out that I found this company through a recommendation from Glynnis MacNicol's newsletter "Good Decisions." :)
Am immediately salivating over the cuff button choices in the striped oxford
Wow those are beautiful!
I am learning a lot from this thread. I also feel somewhat shaky about adding, as one of the Poors, there's a lot of privilege. I buy sh!tty stuff because it's all I can afford, and I can barely buy anything but essentials right now. Thrifting is good but the Pickers are relentless. So it's a crappy shelf or no shelf. Jenky knockoffs and not Hokas (Lawd I need some Hoka shoes).
This is not to criticize people who can, but to voice that the problem is unregulated Capitalism, not just crappy workers or that too many people aren't willing to buy nicer, pricier, less convenient stuff and that it floods the market with crappy. And that the ability to have that choice is pretty nice
Absolutely agree. And it's all connected, too — no social safety net, earning wages that are below the cost of living, because these companies don't want to pay more taxes or actually employ their employees (or pay them a living wage) so as to create more shareholder value. And you're right — the ability to choose what you can pay more for is a real privilege, and I should have made that more clear. I hope it is clear that I think the problem is the ideology of extractive growth capitalism and the attitudes towards consumption and service it inspires.
I remember reading somewhere that companies used to pay employees well enough so that they had money to spend to keep businesses going. Like it was kind of business economics 101. But that’s gone out the window because as someone said above there’s the shift to seeing workers as liabilities - people aren’t valued / paid enough to be able to buy essentials let alone luxuries and companies are making things cheaper and cheaper but pay people less and less and it can’t end well.
Exactly!
Don't feel shaky about adding! It's a really important perspective to include!
This is such an important point. Too many of us are priced out of voting with our dollars.
I will sound ridiculous when I say this but...hotel stays, even at higher end hotels. I travel for work and part of it is visiting hotels to decide which ones will host our large corporate events. There is a steep decline in the quality of service at all employee levels even at very, very expensive hotels. The quality of the hotel managers I interact with (those in charge of selling the space) is high as those are 'good' jobs but the issues arise with housekeeping, front desk staff, restaurant staff - those who have harder, lower paid, more physical jobs.
There are still uniformly great staff at the highest end hotels (which are more likely to have well paid salaries/benefits) but more commonly I'll run into an issue with 'front of house' and the managers correct the issue by offering points/comped food/free nights, etc. - which doesn't correct for the overall problem of overwork and lower pay. I can also imagine how frustrating that is when you are paying a lot of your own money for these experiences which then turn out to be lower quality than you'd hoped (and paid for!).
I rarely stayed in hotels when I was younger, but now that I'm older and have the funds to do it, I've been very underwhelmed. Recently I stayed at a BnB, and the service was so lovely. It reminded me what hospitality could be. They had freshly baked cookies set out at night, a tea station (with nice mugs instead of paper cups!), lavender sachets for your pillow, etc etc. It reminded me to look harder for locally owned accommodations when I travel.
Yes, oh my god! If you don't put a premium on anonymity, the service at a good B&B can be so much better than an expensive luxury hotel these days. It is far and away my first option when I try to look for accommodations anywhere.
Yes, this was my industry for many years. It's sad to see the decline and covid made it worse. The owners of these hotels know that regardless of service people keep coming. They will cut and cuts staff and cut and cut amenities.
They don't care any more about hospitality or the experience and luxury hotel prices are out of this world. They will throw you points or some wine, but it is still not cool. It's hard to pay for value you're not getting.
Hotel managers aren't really paid that well either. A front office, housekeeping, etc department head can probably make 50,000-70,000. Ups may be a better deal.
It's sad that expectations have to be so low.
Always look for the union label used to be just a slogan but is increasingly relevant. Musk and bezos are virulently anti union more workers need to unionize in the us. Canada and the Nordic countries have high union rates and thus higher overall wages
I went to New Orleans last year for my cousin's wedding and was stunned by the quality of service literally everywhere we went. Everywhere had people who were professional, knowledgeable, and personable. And everywhere we went was--gasp--adequately staffed. One of the bartenders I chatted with told me that it is because New Orleans is one of the few places where service is still a career, not just a job.
One of the HUGE trends of the last several decades, accelerating massively in the last 10-15 years, is the deprofessionalization of just about every industry. A dude with a GPS app is not a replacement for an actual cab driver, big rigs are fucking terrifying to drive near (fun fact: most truck drivers these days have less than 6 months experience, and the industry has >100% turnover each year), we are all expected to do our own admin both professionally and in our personal lives (ever had to fill out the same pre-appointment form 3 times?) because technology has made it possible, and whomever is paying does NOT value our time.
More and more, I am opting out where possible and being selective where I can be. And also, it will be a cold day in hell before I ever again fill out a form "for my convenience" before a doctor's appointment...
my company hired someone a couple of years ago who manages our work travel, and she put out a question if people would be okay with her booking indie hotels at the expense of earning points. indie hotels only narrowly won originally, but everyone is soooo much happier now -- even the nicest chain-owned hotels were just getting worse and worse, and using a nickel and dime model that was really annoying -- ie, oh you need a fridge? that's $50, you need an iron? that's $25 etc. So much worse!
this exact thing is why I've kind of stopped going on vacation. Even at the nicest hotels that a lay person can afford, the amenities and service are mid at best, and I don't like feeling disappointed for a trip that I paid a lot of money for and looked forward to. Maybe the answer is "lower my expectations", but I can do that for free at home.
We recently roadtripped up the 395 from LA to the Bay Area via Tahoe and stayed in independent roadside motels. Fantastic! Not luxury, by any means, but inexpensive, clean, comfortable, quiet, quirky. Friendly and helpful staff.
Contrast that with the one night we stayed in The Langham, a luxury hotel in Pasadena that was a gift from family. The *only* parking allowed is valet, and it costs $50 a night. And you are not allowed to use any carts to carry your own luggage - you have to wait for a belhop. As you arrive, tired from wherever you came and just want to unload and lie down, you have to navigate the super stressful minefield of unexpected extra cash and unloading your car with strangers.
Then, all night long there was a roaring noise that came and went about every 10 minutes. We thought it was the HVAC unit, but even turned off, the noise continued. I didn't sleep AT ALL.
In the morning we figured out the bathroom light / fan combo was flicking on and off by itself. Not safe, not ok in any way. The best they could offer was a refund that didn't even cover the valet fees.
Yes, the Langham pool was lovely, the landscaping and surroundings are beautiful, and it's quite a scene to people watch at such a high end place, but I slept better and felt way less angry staying in cheap motels.
ok thank you! I don't stay in high end hotels, but the lack the amenities and services at any kind of hotel is sorely lacking these days--the last time I was in an actual "full service" hotel was a fancy hotel in Seoul (a Korean chain).
Yes. The owners are now in charge and large hotel chains are mostly franchised. Standards are at an all time low. They are also running different occupancy models. I can clearly nerd out on this 🤣
I suppose that's why I'm writing this because I want to help save people the disappointment. Regardless of price, a hotel is a luxury, and in any economy, it's a bummer to spend a lot and get so little.
However, I can also be pleasantly surprised sometimes! I am also doing more research and staying at more independent hotels.
Also, I predict that status, rewards programs, etc won't matter or have as much value soon.
im in charge of hosting our in-person events at my work and god, freaking hotels. They charge you for the gd pens they give you. We had such a disaster with the food in our last event - they literally served bread rolls and claimed they were gluten free (they were not, and we told me we have someone with a SEVERE ALLERGY). The manager was also out one of the days and didnt leave anyone as a backup so I was scrambling up and down the hotel.
Oh my gosh, that sounds like a total nightmare! Did they even try to make it right?
Nope :( also she had been out cus she had Covid 🫠🫠
I agree that hotel services have declined in quality. It's bad whether you're traveling for business (want decent AV services for your event? HA! And it'll cost you 100k) or pleasure. But let me name and acclaim(? rather than name and shame) a couple of standouts I experienced recently. Not sure what their owners/managers are doing, but I'm guessing it's good:
1. JW Marriott Starr Pass in Tucson, AZ Generous kind employees who did things like spontaneously give us takeout containers at breakfast so we could grab pastries for hiking snacks.
2. Inn of the Governors in Santa Fe, NM. Really nice experience, felt welcomed from the start (and it has free parking and an amazing parking attendant!).
Hard agree. It's especially frustrating when you are with a sports team because the tournaments work with the hotels to come up with a "special" rate that is generally higher than you could get booking with them direct. And they are Stay & Play tournaments so teams have no choice.
We stayed at one in Phoenix a couple of years ago that was not good. Place was barely clean, lots of paint peeling. Cops showed up the first night we were there to rescue a girl who was being trafficked - and I had a group of 13 year old girls! All for $350/night $CDN.
The most bizarre employment experience of my life was in 2011 when I got a job bartending at a new hotel in Williamsburg, Brooklyn. Most of the bar staff came from great restaurants in Manhattan and were making the jump because the wanted a union job and a shorter commute (at the time, you could still live comfortably as a bartender in Williamsburg, especially if you’d had your lease for a while) We had two weeks of paid training with internationally recognized, pretty legendary bartenders. It was the type of thing people would pay to do on vacation. The wine cellar was ridiculously impressive and the management was really skilled, dedicated folks with incredible resumes. We hadn’t even been open long enough to be reviewed when we heard we were in talks to be sold. They stopped marketing the restaurant, people stopped coming in and the managers started opening the really nice bottles of wine for staff tastings. I think we opened just before Thanksgiving and our last day of service was New Year’s Eve. My parents stayed there a few years later and it was so sparsely staffed it felt like a ghost town. I always think of that moment as one time the neighborhood could have gone one way and instead went the other
I have been pretty unimpressed at the "better" hotels I have stayed at recently. They do tend to have nicer beds and pillows, but they have been less clean than at the mid-range hotels. It's pretty disappointing.
Yes! We stayed in a very nice hotel on the Left Bank in Paris recently. Overall it was a wonderful experience but twice they forgot to deliver our room service breakfast and then, when my husband went down to the front desk halfway through our stay to switch out the credit card being used for our charges, he discovered that an 1800 euro breakfast had been charged to our room! On the day they forgot to deliver any breakfast!! They obviously corrected the error, but sheesh...
Ikea furniture is the obvious one here and I will go out on a limb and say that if Ikea hadn’t paid me to (learn how to) build their furniture for three years, I would be your friend with the Wayfair bed frame.
A weird one for me is Internet service. I don’t want to use the big two telecom companies in Canada, so I’m with a smaller company but bandwidth isn’t as strong. Sometimes I wonder if I’m paying for this in productivity, and sometimes I go into the office specifically because I need to be sharing a screen or working with a 30MB file.
Lastly, a big one for me is user fee-driven public programs. I will take public transit and enrol my kid in public sports and swim programs – which might be cheaper but have non-monetary costs - because I know that workers are unionized and paid better than rideshare drivers and private instructors.
It’s not a typical pay-more/get-less scenario, but separating out class performance from the equation is a critical component of this interrogation.
I recently had to leave a party early because the public bus schedule essentially ended at 9:30 pm. And I was having a good time so I was annoyed but when I got home I was so happy to get into bed and have been social but not for too long. The bus low-key saved me from staying out late!
I don't have a car and get many groceries in my neighborhood but rely on grocery delivery for other things like bulk toilet paper. I had so many frustrating experiences with Instacart where I found myself filled with RAGE for the shoppers when they couldn't find any substitutes, or took hours to arrive. Meal planning went out the window because there were always so many missing items. I realize this was entirely unfair to the poor shoppers who are rushing to complete my order amongst many others, and have no control over what is in stock.
I switched to Sobeys voila, the in-house grocery delivery service for one of the larger chains where I live in Canada. The difference is stark! Everything I order is in stock because it comes direct from a warehouse with up dated inventory, and the delivery people are wonderful! They always call ahead (no app tracking!) when five minutes away and are happy to chat at the door. When I couldn't come to the door with a sleeping baby on me, they brought everything in to my kitchen themselves. The drivers are full time employees of the company, driving a company vehicle and make $20/hr plus tips. This has turned into an ad, but I can't stop evangelizing about it! It is slightly more expensive but with no hidden service fees and I end up spending less because I know they'll have everything I order.
Yes. As a disabled person in a building with a lot of stairs, I was dependent on Instacart for a few years. It just felt like one more piece of denied access, especially since I only tolerate 12 foods. If something was out, it threw my whole meal planning off. The reason I used it was because going back for *one missing thing* was so taxing. For me it just highlighted all the limitations of illness and the severity of my challenges just trying to exist in the most basic way, which drove me to rage.
I've never heard of Sobeys but I want it! Luckily, I have a partner who helps me get groceries now.
I haven't tried Instacart, but have been really impressed by FreshDirect's delivery service. Wide range, fast delivery, rarely missing items, and prompt handling of issues (i.e. refunding for some moldy berries.)
Omg instacart! I can't. It's so bad. It's like the shoppers have never bought groceries before. And I get why it's that way but it's so frustrating. I laugh every time I see the commercials with shoppers overthinking selecting produce..😂 yeah right!
LOL! I've given up on grocery delivery. Too many "it's not in stock," and I'm tempted to respond, "Do I have to get my in car and drive to the store right now and point to the item on the shelf?" when I know that it's an item that is 100% always in stock. So frustrating!
The "not in stock" doesn't bother me as much as the moldy berries and bruised fruits and vegetables. I guess if I didn't eat fresh produce I'd be more okay with it.
Yes! I did a Target pick-up order recently and was told an item wasn't available even though the website showed it was. I went into the store to pick up the order and then went and bought that one "unavailable" item myself. SMH.
The number of times we have received iceberg lettuce instead of a green cabbage is...greater than zero
My favorite game to play is “what did I get instead of what I ordered?” I think the best one was a request for frozen salmon burgers that showed up as frozen veggie burgers and a piece of fresh salmon. Just…what?? lol
Yes to this! I did the same in Toronto and now that I’m BC the equivalent when Voila isn’t available is Save on foods, they also always have things in stock and use actual employees to prepare and deliver!
Great to know! Fellow Canadian who sometimes needs to send people grocery deliveries.
this is great to know! I live in IGA territory but I think they also use Voilà (why else would the name be in French?) I am lucky to live within five minutes' walk of an amazing little independent grocery store and so get almost everything on foot, but over the holidays, I was sick with Maybe-Covid and ended up making a Door Dash order partially to get a Covid rapid test, partially to get some easy-to-prepare groceries to hunker down with. The Dasher sent a message saying that the ham I had selected off the website was gone and he sent me a picture of the very limited cold cut section WITH THE HAM I HAD CHOSEN LITERALLY IN THE PICTURE. I didn't point it out, just mentioned that I'd like the ham on display.
On the flip side of this, I prefer to shop for my own groceries and I get muscled out of the way by the paid shoppers in the store. When I was firmly planted in front of an item for about three seconds before one wanted me to move so she could get what she was looking for, I finally asked if I was in her way. The answer was obviously yes but it irritates the snot out of me when I patiently wait my turn to get at the item I am looking for when an employee rudely inserts themselves into my personal space.
When I had a new baby a few years ago, an acquaintance Instacart-ed us a meal from Whole Foods that was supposed to be a rotisserie chicken, salad kit, bread, and dessert. Only the salad kit arrived. It was very confusing and awkward!
I had literally this same exact experience with a Wayfair assembly several years ago. Also on a bedframe. The next time I moved the bedframe completely fell apart and I decided to just spend a great deal of money on one made locally which I absolutely love. So I feel this pain! (also will note as a single person living alone, I think a lot about asking for help vs paying for help but that's an entirely separate comment!)
Yeah, it's tangential to this topic but asking for help vs paying for help as a single person living alone is something that's on my mind so often!
Asking for help creates community. I see it all the time in the condo I live in, which is full of old people.
I remember going out to dinner with two friends and telling them that there was a mattress waiting for me at my apartment building and I had no idea how he is going to get it into my apartment. And they immediately explained that they were going to help me. It had not occurred to me to ask for that type of help from them, but after dinner, the three of us, older, single women, were able to get the mattress into my apartment more easily than I expected. Of course, it would’ve been a lot harder on my own. I was so grateful for their friendship.
It was a baby dresser/changing table for us. It came with all the wrong hardware, they resent all the wrong hardware, then they told us the correct hardware was no longer available. My third trimester self had had MANY meltdowns over the situation. And this was a $500 product - not chump change!! That was when I vowed no more Wayfair ever again.
Yes! I also posted about a nightmare with a Wayfair Murphy bed that my architect had spec'd for a built-in Murphy bed project as part of a larger renovation. Total nightmare that delayed the entire renovation and I will never ever patronize Wayfair again!
Oh Susan! This sounds so stressful. Meltdowns sound very understandable!!!
We bought one cabinet/cupboard thing from wayfair for our new home and then said never again. So much time and agony and cursing and hurt fingers to put it together and it’s still rickety and the doors have a gap and the shelf fell down in it a few weeks ago so we paid our (great) handyman to actually fix it right so it’s not even actually cheaper after that…
I take issue with only one part of this (interesting, insightful!) article: "As a society, we have decided that we want more for less." I don't believe that *we* decided this. Over the last 150 years or so, advertisers have been using applied psychology to convince us that this is what we want. Consumerism isn't natural, it was created.
This may seem nitpick-y / arbitrary, but a very effective piece of capitalist propaganda has been that humans are naturally greedy, that innocent CEOs are merely giving people what they want, when in reality, they need a trillion dollar a year industry to *convince* us to want those things. The result is regular people feeling guilty for wanting an affordable bed frame, while the billionaire CEO of wayfair hangs out on his super yacht.*
* He really is a billionaire. I don't actually know if he owns a super yacht. But it seems likely!
GREAT point
This is maybe a weird thing to post, but our seminarian gave THE BEST sermon this week on who Americans are in the parable of the Good Samaritan (spoiler alert: we are not the Samaritan, we are the robbers). She reinforces the exact idea that if you’re getting something for cheap, you are complicit in harm. So if you don’t mind some very progressive Presbyterianism, wow do I recommend: https://www.youtube.com/live/lBqY2DazN6w?si=okO5pgIE-bRARFCA&t=3236
I'm currently reading Omar El Akkad's book "One Day, Everyone Will Have Always Been Against This" and he makes a similar comparison! He was a reporter for 10 years and was in Afghanistan and other places with the US military, and realized at one point that everyone watches Star Wars, and thinks we're the rebellion, but we are CLEARLY the Empire.
Just placed a hold for this at the library. Thanks for the recomendation!
One way I’ve tried to right the ship or balance the inequity for workers and small businesses is by tipping very, very generously when things go right. From baristas to tile installation workers. I’ve noticed that people remember me when I go into cafes — and sometimes my 12 ounce chai latte turns into a 16 ounce. The tile guy (who we gave an extra $200 over his unbelievably reasonable bid) finished our project perfectly and on time.
When you treat people with genuine admiration for doing work that you yourself cannot do or wouldn’t want to do, that comes back to you in wonderful ways.
Sometimes I remind myself, when I'm feeling stingy: if I can't afford to give this person a good tip, then I can't afford this item, full-stop.
I've used this to help international friends understand why they MUST tip when eating at a restaurant in the US, because they'll argue that it's too expensive if you add 15 or 20% on top. And I'm like, yes, it is, but you can't eat at a restaurant and not do it. John Oliver had a great episode on tipping a few weeks ago that drives this point home.
About a year ago I started getting my hair done by a woman who lives about two blocks away from me. She was just opening up her own studio in her basement and I thought I would check it out. She is a lovely Korean woman and the time where I am waiting for my hair colour to set is spent watching Korean TV shows that she explains to me. One day she heard my stomach rumbling and went and got me a snack plate from upstairs with grapes and cookies. She was a teacher in South Korea but her dream was to be a hair stylist. Once she moved to Canada (and away from her in-laws, as she told me haha) she finally felt free enough to pursue her dream.
She charges me much less for a cut and colour than a "regular" salon and I always make sure to give her a good tip because it is just such a unique, affirming experience. And I tell all my friends in the neighbourhood to go to her too.
FULL CO-SIGN on this!!
It's funny/sad that my first reaction to reading this was "your grocery store still employs baggers!?"
My husband was a bagger at Hy-Vee back in college and at that time they trained people how to properly bag (in paper bags). When my son started bagging at Kroger he was the bagger everyone wanted to get because even though Kroger didn’t really train him his dad did. It’s not a difficult concept but years of people just throwing two items into each plastic bag have eroded the experience. And now I think there are a lot of people who do self checkout because they don’t want their canned goods and bread thrown together. It’s really a shame - it was a great job for a lot of people who didn’t want or need other types of employment.
We purposely unload our cart to decrease the probability of bad bagging - group items, and save bread and eggs until the very very end. I'm a reasonable bagger, but my husband is good enough they've told him to apply to be a bagger 😂
Also started as a bagger at HyVee! The training for proper bagging was big. And in Iowa, at least, there were competitions for bagging and proper cart wrangling at the state fair. It was a little silly, but HyVee invested in making sure employees knew how appreciated good work, even just in “the little things,” was.
That is exactly why I do self-checkout at certain stores. At stores where I semi-trust the baggers I still unload my cart in an order intended to encourage good bagging.
I was a grocery store bagger for a time in college and we had to watch videos to learn how to bag, and we were tested on it too. That surely doesn’t happen anymore lol.
Yes, this. My parents' grocery store employs baggers, who are generally semi-retired folks or people with intellectual disability - they all do a terrific job in my experience. So this indicates to me that this hiring strategy is working and that the employer takes decent care of the employees. I rarely see grocery baggers these days.
Publix by any chance? Awful owners, but that initiative is really great.
Publix is by far the best grocery store in my area, with the best staff. I don’t shop there anymore because of the ownership and I miss it.
Same, at my store the person just randomly chucking items into various bags is me!
Same! I have lived in London for the last 15 years and NEVER had someone bag my groceries here. It's getting harder to find a human on the checkout, as all the stores are building more self-checkout terminals.
Seriously. At this point I go out of my way to do "big" grocery trips at the one place in town that still hires baggers (and not just one person running themselves ragged across a dozen aisles -- one assigned bagger per aisle! It's like magic!).