Everyone who's ever worked in restaurants has experienced that thing where like there's only 5 people who are supposed to do the job of 15 but the boss won't hire more.

Then one day 3 of them call off and it's you and another person doing everything

And then, the boss is like "oh, I don't need as many people as I thought!"

And now it's you and 2 other people doing the job of 15 people.

All of you working 60+ hour weeks, not able to take a day off because you know the last time one of *them* took a day off you would have gladly deepfried their head

And then, at some point, a new person is finally hired. Phew. Someone to take the load off.

"Here buddy, you're doing 4 people's jobs," you tell them their first day. "For minimum wage. Boss'll fire you if you ever take a day off."

That guy lasts like a week before having a nervous breakdown and it's back to the three of you.

At some point the boss decides you three are too lazy to get everything done so hires 10 new people.

Now you gotta do everything *plus* train all these new people.

The whole schedule was based around you three working 60+ hours and doing everything, though, so those people are jammed in randomly. One's working 11 hours, another works 5 hour shifts randomly scattered through the week, etc

Soon of those 10, maybe 3 are around after a month.

Now 6 people are doing the work of 15.

And, surprisingly, the new people are not as hardened as the vets. After 6 months, 2 are gone.

And the cycle continues, churning through expendable people.

After a few years there's like 2 people working 80+ hour weeks, with brief interludes of being able to show a guy whose name it's not worth learning how to operate the dishwasher.

What's weird is everyone in food services has been on both sides of this at some point.

The 70+ hour frazzled vet burning out, *and* the person working 11 random hours each week whose job is "do everything these 3 people don't have time to get to"