Why No One Does Their Job Anymore

Today's video is going to be a viewer suggested topic. One of my viewers, Rick from Canada, he reached out to me months ago and suggested I make a video exactly about how nobody does their job anymore. I've talked a lot about why no one wants to work anymore, but this is going to be a different kind of video. And I kind of waited to make it until I had a lot of things to compile for it. But basically nowadays, the burden for everything is on you, the customer. Because the basic social contract of going to a business, expecting good service or a good product is essentially breaking, guys. Nowadays, you walk into a restaurant, you wait 15 minutes for someone to acknowledge you if you haven't left yet already, you receive the wrong order and you get handed a tablet asking for a 25% tip. Like that's a pretty typical restaurant experience now in 2026. Or maybe you walk into a store and you ask an employee for help, and immediately it feels like somehow you've inconvenienced them. Like you're ruining their day by asking them for help. Like, isn't that what you're here for? Because if it's not, then I don't understand why you are here. And then you can say, well, a lot of this ties into the fact that no one wants to work anymore, Michael. And a lot of people are fed up with their jobs, especially because they don't make enough money, etc. And that is definitely part of it. It really goes a lot deeper than that. And today we're going to talk about this while I walk through Tiburon Yacht Club. Let's first kind of start with restaurants, guys. You know, a lot of this is a problem with restaurants in particular, because when you go to any type of sit-down restaurant or even just takeout places nowadays, you're expected to tip. Customers now are also paying significantly more for food, receiving smaller portions, and getting worse service than ever before. And then when the payment screen comes up, the suggested tips are north of 20%, 25%, or even 30%. I mean, when I was growing up, I remember 15% was like a good tip. 10% was like, you're a bad tipper, right? But now 15% is the bad tip. And you're expected to tip 20 or higher if you don't want to be looked at as a bad tipper. Or how about when you go to just pick up food for takeout or something like that, and then they still want a tip? Like for what? You didn't really serve me in any way. You just did your job. You prepared my food to go. I came in and got it. I used my time, my gas, my energy to come get it. Sure, if I get delivery, I should be expected to tip the person delivering it. But if I came in and did all the work myself, why should I have to give anyone a tip? But the biggest problem with this is that tipping is no longer connected to good service. They just want you to give it anyways, regardless of whether the service was good or bad. They want you to tip just for handing you a cup of coffee, just for handing you something from behind the counter. And this creates a lot of resentment because the customer, in many cases, is doing the lion's share of the work. The customer is going out of their way to show up at your establishment and had to pay for the order and is picking it up themselves. And somehow you're now the jerk for not giving the tip. I hardly ever tip in these situations, guys. Like if I feel good and the person has a smile and they look like they're doing a good job and we're friendly, I'll still give a tip even on takeout. It's just a couple bucks, you know, nothing crazy. I won't be tipping no 20 or 25%, but a couple bucks I think is okay. Or sometimes if we go to an ice cream shop and the kid behind the counter is nice and friendly and gives us good service, I'll give a couple bucks for that. You know, you're getting something, right? At least you're getting some sort of service, right? But you're not just walking in and picking something up and they're expecting you to leave 20%. But here's the thing about people not doing their jobs anymore. Essentially, you, the customer, are replacing that job in a lot of situations. Customers have become the unpaid employees of a lot of places. You know, self-checkout is the best example of this in modern times. You know, it's increasingly become the default, you know, with one employee supervising like eight machines while you scan all of your items yourself. And if the machine fails, you still got to wait for somebody to come over and give assistance or something happens like that. So the customer's doing all the work and you had to pay for this stuff on top of that. There's no discount for doing self-checkout or anything. You're saving the company money and at the same time doing the job. A lot of the employees, they also don't want to take responsibility, especially in the customer service department, want to just transfer the problem rather than solve it for you. One person will send you to one department. Then they send you to another department. That department says the first person gave you the incorrect information and eventually the call disconnects. We've all been there. And then every time you get somebody on the phone, you have to repeat your problem four different times to four different people, even though they said, oh, we recorded all of your info and the next person should know exactly what's wrong and they don't know anything. Oh, this one's my favorite too. Appointments these days are essentially meaningless, guys. Talk about people not doing their jobs. The best one is the doctor's appointment. You make a doctor's appointment for a certain time. They say you got to be there early on top of that. Get here 15 minutes early to fill out all the paperwork and then you're sitting there for an extra half an hour or sometimes longer and you're still waiting. Why do I have to get here early? Why do I have to waste my time? How come the doctor's time is suddenly more valuable than mine? And I'm paying you. Without me, the patient, you guys wouldn't have any business. You wouldn't be in business. The doctor would be unemployed. I had this happen to me years ago. I haven't actually had a bad experience with this in a while. A lot of the recent doctor's appointments I've been to over the past several years have been actually very quick, which has been great. But about 10 years ago, I had a doctor's appointment where I sat there in the waiting room for probably an hour and a half and I was still doing real estate at the time. And you know how it is when you're a real estate agent. You have different appointments throughout the day that you have to get to to go show different homes and meet with different clients. So I had to just bail. I left, you know. And then I got a call from the doctor on my voicemail, apologizing, saying that he had all these appointments that went past the time or whatever. And long story short, he was sorry. Well, at least I got the I'm sorry. Just there was some acknowledgement of the issue, but it still wasted a ton of my time. I was just so angry about that. But it goes beyond doctor's visits. You know, you might set up an appointment to come, have somebody come and set up your internet or repair business, even like Uber Eats and the delivery apps. Guys, these guys are notorious for telling you, oh, your food's going to be there in 30 minutes. And then they sneakily adjust the delivery time to 15 or 20 minutes later because they're running late. So you paid for an expectation of the food to be there at a certain time. And then they show up half an hour late. I have had them show up an hour late. No joke. And then you're still supposed to give a good tip. No, definitely not. You completely screwed it up, man. I could have went and picked it up faster than you actually delivered it for. So why should I give you a good tip? Basically, all these businesses expect you to respect their time. Meanwhile, your time is meaningless and worthless. Or how about not getting a call back? This used to be a huge problem for me as a real estate agent, trying to set listing appointments, trying to get in touch with other real estate agents who are supposed to be professional and doing a job just like me and servicing their listings. Let me tell you something, guys. If you are a seller out there, you would be blown away at probably how bad your real estate agent is about not answering phone calls, not getting back to seriously interested leads or agents that might have a buyer for your property, and how much of that just goes missed and never answered. It is shocking. I wish there was some kind of report for every real estate agent out there about how good they are at answering the phone and how fast they are to likely get back to you. Because once that would be in everyone's face, it would be a game changer and separate the good agents from the terrible ones. But this problem is especially prominent in Miami. You know, people set appointments all the time and then they just disappear, guys. We've had this happen with contractors, people who are supposed to show up and do some work at our condo. No, we're just not coming today. Oh, by the way, we forgot to tell you, we just never showed up. Or how about getting the order wrong? Not just at restaurants, but at all different types of establishments where you need to order something or ordering something and never being informed that your order is ready. In fact, Rick, who wrote me this idea months ago, his example that he gave me was about an auto part that he had ordered from the dealership. And it had been months and he had to call in to the dealership and track them down and ask, Hey, what about that part that I ordered? Did it ever come in? Oh yeah, we got that. Well, how come nobody ever called me to let me know it was here and ready to install? Because people just aren't doing their jobs anymore. And employees, they just act like it's a minor mistake or a minor inconvenience that the customer should just accept. And sometimes not even an apology or any attempt to make the situation right. And then all these businesses sit there and scratch their heads and wonder why people aren't coming in anymore. Like, hello, look at the state of the economy. Look at how much the cost of living has gone up. If you want someone's business, you better be ready to earn it right now because most people can't afford to even patronize your business anymore. And if they can, they deserve better. And then most of the employees that are present in any given business are just completely checked out mentally or on the phone. I mean, I remember guys like my first job, I worked in a retail store and people did have cell phones back then, but they were just the flip phones. It was before smartphones. And you weren't allowed to use your phone at all when you were out on the store floor. If you were anywhere facing the public and you got caught using your phone, you could be fired. Or at the very least, it would be a write-up and maybe the next time you would be fired. Nowadays, go to any store where there's employees and almost every single time, you're going to catch one of them just playing around on their phone or sometimes they're even on the phone. They have their AirPods in, their Bluetooth, whatever, and they're talking to somebody else on the phone as they're supposed to be helping you. They're getting paid to help you. This actually happened to me recently. I had to stay at a hotel and we walked in. What's happening? The front desk girl's on the phone. Okay, there's nobody there. It was late at night. There's nothing going on, but you should just hang up. You don't keep the phone on and keep the call going. This same situation actually happened to me at the car rental place too. I walk in and the person behind the counter is on the phone. And instead of hanging up the phone and being courteous, the person on the other line is just hearing our entire conversation. So there's no privacy. And this is especially noticeable to older people who remember when employees were expected to greet people and acknowledge your presence. And take pride in doing the job correctly. And today, even the basic competence of doing this job can feel like exceptional service. So we have lost so much when it comes to service in this country. Management is also to blame for this because a lot of these problems begin with management or lack thereof now. A lot of these companies are now deliberately understaffing their businesses and they provide minimal training and they place a lot of inexperienced employees in situations that they're just not prepared to handle. At a restaurant, you might get one server who's assigned way too many tables and doesn't have any experience. Or you might get a retail employee who is responsible for several departments while a single cashier might be responsible for the entire self-checkout. We've all seen this. And this ends up putting a bad taste in the mouth of the customer and makes it so that getting any sort of good service is essentially impossible because the place is just understaffed. And now these companies, they want to charge you sky high and higher than ever prices for everything while having a skeleton crew run things. We've all heard about how many jobs are disappearing due to AI and automation and all of this. And these companies love it because it increases their bottom line. You know, it reduces a lot of their labor costs and insurance costs. Workers' compensation costs, all sorts of things like that. But at the same time, their customers suffer and it makes it less likely that they're going to return in the future. Part of it also is worker appreciation as well. You know, a lot of employees today get zero recognition when a good job is done or they also get piled on with a ton of additional responsibilities when maybe a couple of their other coworkers lose a job. And so the incentive to go above and beyond has essentially been eliminated. There's also virtually no training anymore. A lot of businesses used to spend weeks teaching employees how to perform a job and interact with customers and handle different situations that come up. But today, the training may just consist of a few online videos that you're watching on the first day of the job. And that's it. People don't know the products. People don't know how to solve anything. And when something goes wrong, the only option is to find the one manager in the store who's probably helping every other clueless employee. And the constant turnover at these jobs means no one knows anything. These companies don't pay well and they have a ton of constant turnover. And by the time someone learns the job, that person quits and is now replaced by a new person who once again knows nothing. And customers are constantly dealing with the leftovers. People that are just starting and don't have a clue. One of the biggest examples I think we can all relate to with that in modern times is the hardware, not the hardware stores. The hardware stores are very good, like Ace Hardware. Fantastic. You have a lot of very knowledgeable people working at those little hardware stores. I always have a good experience there. But you walk into Home Depot nowadays, forget it, man. No one knows where anything's at. The people are intentionally trying to avoid you. No one knows anything about the products or what's what. What's better for this? What's better for that? You know, Home Depot used to be famous for hiring people that really knew what they were talking about. But nowadays, no one knows anything, guys. I mean, I try to avoid going to places like that from now on, to be honest. Like a lot of the small stuff can be purchased at your local neighborhood hardware store. And it's faster. It's much smaller. The employees know the entire store and the inventory. They know exactly what you're looking for. I will bring in the special screw. They know exactly where it is. That's great. You're not going to get that level of service at your local Home Depot or Lowe's most likely. And let's face it, too. Some of this is the customer's fault, guys. There's that expression that the customer is always right. But not always. Because people in general have become a lot more rude and entitled and, you know, try to just snap at employees like somehow they owe you something just because they work there. You know, people look at it as like a status thing like, oh, you work here, so I'm so much more above you because I am the customer and you are just a lowly employee here. So people are very rude to different employees for no reason. And it creates this hatred for customers, you know, and then the next time somebody comes along who actually is kind and polite and just needs a little help, then they're the ones who get treated badly by the employees. So it's this never ending vicious cycle. And of course, the high prices that we pay for everything now makes the customer service feel even worse, right? Because when you pay more for something, you're just expecting the service or the experience to be better. Whereas many times today, it's actually the opposite. So something I will add here is maybe the reason it feels like nobody wants to do their job anymore is because companies have eliminated so many jobs and there's barely anyone left to help you. And going back to the self-checkout, this is kind of the perfect example of this. Recently in Long Beach, California, there were 10 grocery stores that decided to get rid of their self-checkout. And this was implemented in order to reduce theft and to improve customer service because a lot of customers were complaining that the lines have gotten too long and there's just not enough people working the self-checkouts and they're very slow and clunky unless you're an expert self-checker outer. So essentially, these companies thought they were getting away with higher profits and replacing employees by implementing all these self-checkouts. But some of them are reversing that, realizing that theft has gone through the roof because of it, customer service has gone down, and a lot of people aren't coming back to the store now because of it. They'll just shop somewhere else where they can still wait in the traditional line and get checked out by someone who does it for a living. And check this out. In New York, there is a proposal right now that would require qualifying stores to give customers a 10% discount when they use self-checkout. And the argument is that if the customer performs labor that was previously done by a paid employee, the customer should share in the savings. And even if that never actually happens or becomes law, it shows you how frustrated people have become with this. Like, I like the idea, but in practice, stuff like this never works, guys, because all that's going to happen is the store is just going to raise the price of all their products by 10% and recover the cost that way. And then even if you don't use self-checkout, you're still paying the higher price. That's just what businesses do. But the idea is in the right spirit, you know? But let me know in the comments some recent experience that you might have had where people just don't want to do their jobs anymore. I'm sure we can all come up with something, guys. It's just coming to the point where you don't even want to go and patronize any business anymore unless you already know you're going to have a good experience. That's what it's come down to for me. If I've already had a bad experience somewhere, whether it's a restaurant, a store, whatever, I just don't return. I like voting with my wallet. I think it's the most effective economic tool all of us have if we want to see any sort of change. And that's how it has to be. If you keep giving these people your money and service is bad, things are just going to continue getting worse. So I'm looking forward to hearing some of your stories. And if you enjoyed this video, make sure you subscribe to the channel. And if you don't want to wait for my next video to come out, check out this one on the screen right over here, and I'll see you in the next one.