😂 So, we just went into a small restaurant that only has about eight tables. Something seemed a bit off. The host came up to us and said they had a momentary power outage, and even though the power had come back on, the Wifi didn't, which means their ordering/payment system was off line, so they couldn't seat anyone.
I said, "What if I paid in cash?"
"We can't open the cash drawer."
"What if I paid the exact amount?"
"We still can't place orders. We can't communicate with the kitchen."
1/2
Folks, I was *looking at the people in the kitchen* as they said this. They were 12' away, and the door was open. 😐
The wait staff didn't know how to take an order on a paper check and give it to the kitchen. There was no manager on site that could tell them to just run a cash business for the evening. The place ground to a halt without Wifi.
By this point, there were three parties they were turning away. They essentially closed for the night.
We are doomed. 😩
2/2
That's crazy. Hopefully it's a learning experience for them. Without knowing them though, I'm not optimistic.
That's the kind of stuff that makes work fun. Working around problems to keep the machine going. You get to exercise your brain.
A pencil & paper isn't much of a workaround for cleverness though. I'd be irritated just watching, whether or not I wanted to eat or work.
I guess the staff had no access to the prices of the meals and is unable to calculate a total by hand (and apply taxes if relevant).
@tanavit @lxskllr @ColesStreetPothole honestly the staff are likely being wisely risk averse. what if the manager gets mad?
our society punishes people more for taking risks than failing to improvise.
its probably worth it to them to lose tips instead of losing jobs
@glassresistor @tanavit @lxskllr @ColesStreetPothole
Well said.
Also, the staff are probably on peanuts wages or temp workers.
@ColesStreetPothole @lxskllr even without a manager on site, how did phone calls not go out? If this was a real small restaurant and I owned it...
Server : hey boss, we had a power outage and now the wifi is down. We need to close for the night.
Owner: why are you closing? Write a paper order and accept cash.
Server : we don't know how to do that....
Owner: I'll be there in 30 minutes and in mean time let everyone know there is mandatory training tomorrow at 2pm on how to do this.
@HollieK72 @ColesStreetPothole @lxskllr to a point true. There should of been a order of control previously set up. Now I've been on situations where the manager calls out sick for whatever reason and the other staff just operate hoping nothing goes wrong but in most cases there either an implicit or explicit second in command.
The owner fucked up by not having a contingency plan. The staff fucked up by not knowing how to operate without wifi. This is a disaster on all levels.
@HollieK72 @ColesStreetPothole @lxskllr 1. I said conversation, I didn't firing or suspension. Yes they messed up and they should know that. Being told you made the wrong choice happens, learn to make a better one going forward.
2. As I said owner/manager messed up too. They should have a plan to run without internet. Just like you have a flashlight at home if your power goes out or a fire extinguisher.
3. I would bet resetting the modem would fix all the issues,this time.
@vrek @ColesStreetPothole @lxskllr
Firing or suspension would be an overreaction in this case. Yes, they got things wrong, but to learn from their mistakes, the manager needs to provide a safe environment where people are able to think for themselves, not just be scared that they'll be shouted at for getting it wrong - that's likely to cause thought paralysis, which might have happened in this case.
@ColesStreetPothole IDK man I feel like what you saw there was some people who really wanted a night off
but then both places I ate this weekend took orders on paper
heartbreaking
Hoped they wanted a night off too
Sad.. wish someone had felt able to rally for that moment. Hope the bosses mentor them for any future reoccurances. Also hire/ pay/ empower an actual manager who can take charge, even if just calling the bosses to ask
Wanna bet their remuneration is tied to digital logs?
Like, they could have gone the extra mile, but if their boss is an asshole, they probably don't trust them enough to take that risk.
Billionaires have worked very hard at de-skilling the labor force.
https://jacobin.com/2018/06/public-education-privatization-koch-brothers-teachers
Average literacy is down to sixth grade in the USA thanks to Koch Network.
Their latest initiative in AI gaslighting will make work worse in terms of problem-solving, agency, & autonomy.
https://www.forbes.com/sites/mattdurot/2025/07/17/bill-gates-charles-koch-and-three-other-billionaires-are-giving-1-billion-to-enhance-economic-mobility-in-the-us/
Reminder: the scene in Schindler's List where the Nazis shoot the engineer warning them of a building collapse.
1/
https://jacobin.com/2026/04/ai-stagnation-services-productivity-unemployment
2/
Every Nazi movement forgets this lesson about supply chain vulnerabilities:
There are possible solutions though...
https://jacobin.com/2026/05/workers-ai-power-plants-south
And permanent demand destruction...
https://doctorow.medium.com/demand-destruction-vs-fuel-superceding-infrastructure-f7521936320f
The AI build-out depends on gas turbines and power transformers made by a handful of workers at a handful of plants in the US South. That bottleneck is a vulnerability — and a rare opportunity for labor to exercise real power over the tech giants.
🤦🏻♀️ doomed.
@ColesStreetPothole I hate this sort of restaurant--even when they are working as intended. You're going to tell me that people who didn't bring a smart-phone can't eat here?
I have to:
1. determine if I have decent data service here and/or figure out how to log into your slow "free" WiFi.
2. Put my camera in QR mode and get it to take me to some random website.
3. Try to determine what 3rd party JavaScript to enable to get your broken website to work.
All on my hardware and battery time?!
On the rare occasions that I've seen people pay with cash over the last several years, I've *never* seen any teller properly count a customer's change back properly. Send to be a lost art.
* No manager on duty, or even reachable by phone, with the authority to make decisions when things go sideways.
* Notoriously unreliable technology (Wi-Fi) is used in a mission-critical capacity.
* No fall-back plan for when the unreliable tech fails.
We aren't doomed, no. That restaurant might be, but there's nothing new and novel about poorly-managed businesses.
As for why I say we aren't doomed, I offer a counterexample.
A couple of weeks ago, I was eating at a McDonald's. One of the kiosks was malfunctioning. Really really slow. Probably needed rebooting or something.
I let one of the wait staff know.
A few minutes later, several employees were trying to fix the machine. Whether they succeeded, I don't know, but they were trying, and trying is half the battle.
@ColesStreetPothole In my first real job programming, the company accountant gave me a piece of advice that has stood me in very good stead for many years:
Never prevent money moving from a customer's wallet into our bank account.
There were two others, less relevant to this dicsussion:
A one cent discrepancy can hide a million-dollar problem. Explain every discrepancy.
If a customer tells you about a problem, listen. You can be certain that 99 others had the same problem, did not tell you, and you will never see them again.
I wouldn't leap to the conclusion the wait staff *didn't know how* to communicate.
Having worked menial shitty jobs, of which “waitstaff in a typical restaurant” is certainly a prime example: I would find it entirely likely the staff recognised a plausible way to spend a few paid hours *not* under pressure, until either the system was restored or they were told to go home.
The absent manager might give a shit about losing an evening of business; the wait staff almost certainly don't see that as a downside. Not one that counters the upside of claiming their wage while having a couple hours of peace.
@ColesStreetPothole
I was in Malmö recently, in a café where the card terminal had crashed.
We offered to pay in cash, but apparently they are not prepared or equipped to accept cash, whatever that means...
So, they just didn't serve food or drinks until the problem was fixed hours later.
@ColesStreetPothole This reminds me of working at a grocery store when I was a kid. We had a VERY SPECIFIC protocol for power outages.
It had all the stuff you would expect like dealing with perishables. But the very first and most important thing was to put a person at every door. Otherwise customers would just smack right into them expecting them to open automatically.
This was like my first exposure to experience-based contingency planning around failing automated systems.
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