Deli Puts Up A Sign Demanding Employees Work Harder Than The Owner To Make $15 Per Hour

The pandemic hit really hard, lots of people lost their jobs, and many businesses had to close or adapt to the restrictions that have caused some damage to their finances. Now that more and more people are getting vaccinated, the restrictions are lifting up and businesses are opening up their doors again.

But weirdly enough, they can’t find employees to work there. Economists observe a labor shortage even though so many people became jobless, but the numbers show that there are more open positions than people willing to enter them.

So businesses have to become creative and unique so that people will want to go to them. However, a deli in Florida failed miserably, putting up a sign showing what wage each position should expect, except the positions were vague descriptions not saying much to a prospective employee.

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A Twitter user came across a sign at a deli in Florida and was not impressed by how it was trying to hire people

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Twitter user I.G.Y. Azalea shared a photo on Twitter of a sign at Jason’s Deli in Melbourne, Florida. In the caption, they expressed that it really didn’t sit right with them. The tweet went viral with 75k likes and 3.3k people got involved in a heated discussion.

What sparked the debate was the content of the sign. The wording it used to describe who will get a lower or a higher salary was quite offensive and unfair.

Jason’s Deli in in Melbourne, Florida was offering minimum wage to a “mediocre person” and $15 to a person who performs better than the owner themselves

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The heading of the sign states “Now hiring all positions,” but the deli didn’t list the positions. Instead, they put some vague personality descriptions, putting a value on them. Those who would get minimum wage, which is $8.65 per hour in Florida, were described as ‘mediocre’ people.

A person with no experience but willing to learn would get $9 per hour and a person with some experience would get paid a dollar more.

The COO of Jason’s Deli explained that the reasoning behind the sign was to reflect that there is room to move upwards in the company

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It seems that the requirements grow disproportionally faster than the salary offered as $12 per hour is offered to a person that is “better than most, brings zero drama, works like 2 people.” If that person is expected to work like 2 people, wouldn’t they be paid twice as much?

What really caught people’s attention was the last description and the salary offered. To a person who “outshines and outperforms the owner,” plus does everything else that was mentioned above in the sign, they offer $15 per hour.

Which is laughable because when you do the math, an employee working 40 hours in a week would earn about $31k a year. But this could be achieved only if you became an extraordinary employee, and it is not often that people working in fast food restaurants put that much effort into their jobs as they usually are just a temporary stop before starting a career they are passionate about.

Image credits: Noshin R (not the actual photo)

Jason’s Deli President and COO Ragan Edgerly spoke to Insider and told them that the manager who put up the sign just wanted to show that with hard work, you will move up; however, he also added that “the descriptions used do not accurately reflect Jason’s Deli’s hiring practices and the sign was immediately removed.”

What do you think of the sign and why do you think some owners still don’t make a decision to just offer bigger salaries instead of complaining about the shortage of employees? Leave us your thoughts and reactions in the comments!