At What Other SEC Institution Would This Fly?

[johnson86-1]

Yup. The lazy take is that people don't want to work because they are getting paid to stay home. That hasn't been the case for a while. Most service workers moved on to other jobs that offer better and more consistent pay. My wife's underachieving cousin is a great example. He has worked in restaurants for 15 years after flunking out of college. After getting laid off during Covid, he went to welding school. That's the opposite of lazy in my book, it's finally showing some initiative.

Saw this graphic a few weeks ago in an article. Shows where people have come and gone industry wise since covid

View attachment 21656

Everytime I think about it, I ask myself what you would have to pay me to work that job. I worked construction and sold cars in college just to avoid working nights and weekends. The reality is, I don't know if there is a number where you can get a lot of folks to give up a Saturday afternoon or evening to work a job like that.

That is still the case. There are something like 9 million unemployed people and 10 million jobs posted. Certainly it's not the only thing going on with the service industry. As you said, a lot of people in the service industry have found out they like other jobs better even if they come with lower pay (or just found out they were worth more than they realized in non-service industries), and then there are COVID deaths; even if the service industry trends younger and it's a huge sector so a good number of those deaths still would have been service workers.

But even accounting for that, and accounting for the fact that there are location mismatches and people aren't generally relocating for service jobs, a number of those unemployed are workers that are reasonably holding out for a job with compensation comparable to the one they lost, some of those workers are not suited for service industry work, etc., you still end up with a significant number of unemployed workers declining to take employment equivalent to the job they lost. It wouldn't eliminate the problem, but it could make a pretty big difference at the margins.

 

[archdog]

I get the cleanliness of the stadium outrage but not really with you on the concessions.

Comparing the baseball and football concessions is really not comparable because there’s probably at least double the work force needed for football and with the spike in covid I’m going to guess some people said no thanks. Pretty much every kind of food service business is having serious employment problems. It’s the same thing with concessions.

Yeah, OP didn't take really anything into consideration when starting their rant. BWW right now has a 2 hour wait on getting your food after you order it. At Burger King, they are simply just not even serving food at different parts of the day in Starkville and it changes constantly. So yeah, volunteers working the concessions are having a hard time to find folks that want to work with hoards of people unvaccinated, in large groups, in tight confines. Hell a lot of those volunteers are from Missisippi too, and they probably are not vaccinated either.

So, what the hell does this have to do with anything, other than OP not having a little bit of thought going into the processes here.

 

[GhostOfJackie]

I've yet to hear a single significant complaint from any of the club levels. TV and bigger donors are paying the bills. Look for total seating capacity to shrink with more premium seating (with lots more amenities and better service) to be added.

That's because the club levels are very nice, and I get that. They pay more money so they come first, but the west side being a ******** is far from the only gameday experience falling behind simply from the lack of forward thinking from our Athletic Department since Cohen took over. MSU has always been forward thinking since Ninja and Mullen came to town and it seems like we have changed directions with our football program and gameday experience. I'm not asking to be pampered and have the red carpet rolled out when we come, but damn it just seems like we have fallen behind in some key areas.

I guess they have chosen to concentrate more on baseball, and rightfully so, but we need not forget the other two big sports.

 

[thatsbaseball]

I just don't know enough to tell if we've fallen behind or it's a sign of the times.

 

[johnson86-1]

Very good summary. From talking to the business owners I work with, most mid to high level salaries have adjusted to what is going on. Lower wages have not really adjusted, meaning these businesses are essentially saying they refuse to pay more. I don’t know if that will work out or not. It seems they are playing a game of chicken with employees, who I guess have a had a safety net with the unemployment benefits. It’ll be interesting to see what happens. But there certainly does not seem to be an over abundance of people willing to work these minimum wage jobs anymore. At some point, wages either have to go up or people have to go out of business. The status quo does not seem sustainable. Going out to eat or ordering a pizza (or something similar) is a train wreck right now.

They are essentially saying they don't think their customers will pay more. For a decent number of service industries, that's probably right. Their business model involves a certain margin and volume, and if they raise their prices in order to pay more and keep margins, their volume is going to go down, which is going to mean their margin needs to go up more. Not an easy problem to work through

For fast food, I think they're going to have trouble raising prices until fast casual restaurants increase their prices (not to mention I think franchise agreements may contain some pricing control). That's why you see (or at least where I live you see) a lot more of the extra compensation is in the form of sign on bonuses. They're raising wages too, but at least trying to do some of the work with one-time payments rather than permanently raising their operating costs.

 

[ronpolk]

They are essentially saying they don't think their customers will pay more. For a decent number of service industries, that's probably right. Their business model involves a certain margin and volume, and if they raise their prices in order to pay more and keep margins, their volume is going to go down, which is going to mean their margin needs to go up more. Not an easy problem to work through

For fast food, I think they're going to have trouble raising prices until fast casual restaurants increase their prices (not to mention I think franchise agreements may contain some pricing control). That's why you see (or at least where I live you see) a lot more of the extra compensation is in the form of sign on bonuses. They're raising wages too, but at least trying to do some of the work with one-time payments rather than permanently raising their operating costs.

I don’t disagree with any of that. I don’t envy any business owner of a restaurant right now. The problem fast food places are going to have is it’s never going to be easy or glamorous work, so even if the do raise wages, it won’t be a magic pill to keep employees.

 

[DawgNsuds]

The scoreboard club was clean, well stocked and everything ran well.

except I felt the food was horrendous. They should just bring in a few folks from the Left Field lounge to cater. The Suite Staff, including the Student workers were excellent as usual.

 

[Maroonthirteen]

He could limit attendance to match the staffing so nobody has to wait in line for more than 3 minutes.**

e years.

Based on last weeks attendance, this week's ticket availability and prices on the secondary market, that decision has already been made for Cohen.

 

[The Usual Suspect]

Based on last weeks attendance, this week's ticket availability and prices on the secondary market, that decision has already been made for Cohen.

No doubt, the free market is about to speak loudly to our AD. We have made zero game day improvements since Stricklin left.