A Donut Hole

For reasons that don't bear mentioning, I felt obligated to bring three dozen donuts to work today. It was an experience that made me think. 

I ordered online -- easy, convenient, so far, so good. I left my house fifteen minutes early and got to the (nameless) donut place in good time. I got in the line for the drive-through -- six cars, not so bad. I figured about two minutes per car.  

But then... we sat. And sat. And sat.

Twenty-five minutes later, I got to the kiosk to tell them I was there to pick up my online order, and a plaintive voice came over the intercom: "I'm so sorry... we only have two people today."

As it turned out, they really only had about one and a half people to work the entire restaurant, since the girl at the window who ultimately greeted me when I drove around told me that she was new, had only worked for three days, didn't know how to do anything but work the register and put donuts in boxes, and, to put an exclamation point on her litany of woes, had recently broken her foot. (She was, I feel bad adding, grossly overweight, and probably would not be a great deal of help under the best of circumstances.) Behind her I saw a woman of undetermined ethnicity -- I'm guessing Philippines -- who was working very very very hard. She was probably the owner of the franchise; she had that desperate, "this is my whole life" look.

I gave them a five dollar tip. I hate seeing people really struggle like that, and I'm sure at least some other people probably got frustrated and said nasty things to them. Sue me... I'm a nice guy. I've also been there in my wandering youth -- lots of restaurant jobs, bartending, catering gigs, etc. It's a hard, physical, fast-paced job. 

Here are two, more global thoughts:

1. Internet solutions for placing orders works well for Amazon, where there aren't such time pressures. But Internet ordering for a restaurant or donut shop only seems convenient, but it's actually so dependent on the human beings who have to fill the orders under pressure, that it's probably less convenient. People who order online expect to pick up their orders in a frictionless transaction. When they arrive at the location, they've already paid, so they can't leave. They end up waiting in line when they might otherwise see the long line and make what the economists would call a "substitution" -- they'd choose to go elsewhere, to another donut shop, or to a supermarket. We're in a world where you can order almost anything -- say, a new roof for your house -- but you're still going to be dependent on actual human beings doing the work. If there aren't enough people to do it, you're SOL.

2. Small businesses are still struggling to hire good, reliable people. Too many people feel no compunction about not working at all and living off others' largesse; or taking a job and quitting with no notice whenever they want to; or taking a job, not quitting, but just deciding one day to stop showing up; or taking a job, not quitting, but calling in sick or taking a "personal day" whenever they just don't feel like working. But those decisions have echoing ramifications -- the person who didn't show up this morning at the donut shop made his or her co-workers' lives miserable; made dozens of customers' mornings more stressful; wasted those customers' valuable time; etc. Just not showing up for work might feel like a morally neutral act, but it's actually a cruel imposition on many, many people who were depending on that work being done. 

Maybe that's too much weight for a morning donut run story. Meh. Again, so sue me.