Can we have an honest discussion about the kiwi work ethic. From what I can see it's horrible. Have you ever tried to contact customer support from any company? How long did it take you to talk to somebody? Were they really interested in helping you or solving your problem? Did they actually solve your problem? How long did it take.

I don't even bother to call anymore, I email and talk to live chat and the standard reply is that they will get back to me within four working days. Like WTF man, four working days to answer an email? I am reporting a problem do you you really think it's appropriate to make me live with that problem for four working days?

How about tradies? I call a tradie, he says he will call me the next day but doesn't. The next one does the same thing, five tradies later I get one that actually calls back and makes an appointment to show up. They don't. I call and they give me some lame excuse and make another appointment which they may or may not show up for.

Have you ever walked into a store and tried to find somebody to help you? Have you ever asked a question to a business employee and gotten a blank stare because they have no idea what they are doing and they get paid minimum wage and they just started last week because nobody wants to work for this shitty store for more than a month?

No wonder our economy is a mess and our productivity is so low.

[–] Dave@lemmy.nz 9 points 1 month ago (4 children)

Please understand that customer service and productivity have nothing to do with kiwi work ethic.

Remember the company doesn't want you to call the call centre, they actively want wait times to be long so you will use the online options that are cheaper for them (unless you're a new customer, you'll notice those queues are a lot better staffed). Also pay attention to whether they have their own call centre or if they are using a call centre that handles queries from multiple places. Its all about the company saving money and has nothing to do with work ethic.

I have never had a tradie not show up so can't comment on that, but I have had them show up for a 1 hour job that took 3 because of something unexpected so I have had them come later than planned but can understand that unless you're first of the day then it's only ever an estimate.

Have you ever walked into a store and tried to find somebody to help you? Have you ever asked a question to a business employee and gotten a blank stare because they have no idea what they are doing and they get paid minimum wage and they just started last week because nobody wants to work for this shitty store for more than a month?

Again, this is the store's fault not the employee's work ethic. If they wanted their staff to be knowledgeable they could have those staff, that their company doesn't train them on the products they sell says nothing about the work ethic of the staff.

No wonder our economy is a mess and our productivity is so low.

I know the government likes to say everyone is lazty, no one wants to work and our productivity is low, but these are different things.

Productivity is about how efficiently we can produce. NZ has a small coal mine, with equipment suitable for that. It might cost them X amount to extract a tonnw of coal.

Australia has giant mines. One or two people can operate a giant bucket wheel excavator and mine up twice as much as what we can do in NZ for the same expenditure. This would mean they are twice as productive, but that says nothing about how hard the staff are working.

NZ has low productivity because we don't operate at the same scale as larger countries, and because our government is way behind on R&D support.

[–] BalpeenHammer@lemmy.nz 1 points 1 month ago (1 children)

I get that the company doesn't want to help their customers but the point is that the employee has no interest in actually doing the job of helping you which is supposedly their job.

The questions I have for the employee in the store are not calculus problems, they are simple things like "does this come in red" or "do you carry such and such" or whatever. Just basic knowledge about what's in the store.

[–] Dave@lemmy.nz 7 points 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago)

This is called culture, and culture is 100% a company problem not an individual staff member problem.

There's a reason performant companies are so obsessed with employee engagement.

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