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Around 2015, My niece told me she worked at a bank teller and the first thing they did was require her to install the bank's app and rate it five stars. She said her phone is too old and they got angry. And she'd tell me they'd do "phone sweeps" to see if the app was on people's phones.
Do min-wage companies still do this or do they know better?
Lmao wtf? Sounds illegal as hell.
I’m not installing anything work requires on my personal devices, f ‘em.
I have told managers, to their faces, I do not have a smart phone... While holding my smart phone.
So far, while most have quite noticeably glanced at my phone, none have actually called me out on it.
If any of them ever do, I will just get a prepaid flip phone and use that for work.
"What's that in your hand, then?"
"That's not my hand."
Potato?
I've just straight up told an employer before that if a smart phone was required to do my job then they needed to provide me a company phone.
they found other options for me, but it really pissed off my supervisor. eventually i left because he was an asshole. gave them a -1 day notice and just stopped showing up. i do freelance work now. they deserved that hit.
Welcome to employee abuse. When your job is tied to whether you can pay rent, health insurance and credit, they've got you by the balls.
Personal devices are personal.
Nowhere in the civilized world are they allowed to do this.
America is a pro-business country.
They can fire you for any reason, like if they hate you're gay. They don't SAY that. They wishy washy it with "not a cultural fit". Or throw you into difficult situations so they can fire you with "unable to complete tasks".
I have Europeans who joined my company surprised at how little protection they get.
They don't even have to give a reason. The only reason they'll try to justify it is to prevent the employee from getting unemployment benefits.
right to work state here. they can fire me because they don't like my haircut.
Union worker here. They can't fire me for shit unless I really fuck up
When I worked at UPS, we weren't allowed to have beards and our hair couldn't be long enough to touch our ears. Literally fireable offenses.
There is a bank in the UK that used employee bank balances to prove they didn't need a pay rise last year, which they were able to do because banking with them was a condition of employment
When I was in school they once checked everyone's phones to make sure we had installed Twitter and followed the school's accounts for each department. That was about a decade ago so it's probably TikTok or something by now.
If nobody causes noise, everything goes.
Back in the mid 2000s, the TV station Inworked at wanted everyone to haveout homepage as the default to increase hits.
Also, the app is probably poorly designed, doesn’t support dark mode, and is probably very slow even on the latest iPhone.
The website for my place of work is pretty terrible. I have customers tell me all the time "well it doesnt say that on your website!" Now, half the time they are referring to googles AI answer.
The other half of the time I click and poke thro our website on their phone, until I find it. Ok it wasnt obvious and Im sorry our site sucks. But your reason for insulting me and my coworker when we are calmy and clearly explaining what is wrong or what needs to be done?
"The website said it as in stock"
"Sometimes it's wrong. The website also shows pictures of employees smiling. You see that here?"
Interesting how the masks date these comics now.
It’s 2026 and I still wear a mask when I’m out. I don’t know why people act like COVID is gone and somehow long COVID isn’t a thing anymore. It’s still mutating, and endemic now, and there are a ton of health consequences to catching it that may not be immediately obvious, including organ damage.
That's true, but for good or ill, it's uncommon to see both a customer and an employee wearing masks nowadays.
most people already had it and assess the risk accordingly
the great danger of covid came from the fact that we had neither herd immunity or vaccines in the past. shielding the vulnerable was never a real priority but a convenient side quest
now it's comparable to the "regular" flu
the brain damage is already done too
the brain damage is already done too
Oh yeah, that part is clear.
As far as it being like regular flu… well I don’t want that either. It nearly killed my wife and I some years back a bit before the pandemic. We both have high risk conditions.
I just wear a mask by default. It saves social energy for me, offers modest protection from whatever is out there, and keeps my face warm during chilly weather. Aside from fogging, there are no real downsides for me.
Not even to use your employee discount?
At a place I worked I wasn't allowed to use coupons but usually employee discount was more. But we also made sneak accounts for our moms so when customers didn't use their phone number to get points we'd use our sneak account to accumulate a ton of points
I know a couple of people who got into some trouble for getting free points like that. Not saying every company is looking for it, but I know some are and not all the companies they worked at where huge mega corps. Just be careful out there people.
It's be pretty easy to see the patterns if they're looking
Reward Points are there to keep you Loyal, not to give you free things
I really hate when they advertise something on sale in the store, but they only give you the sale price using some bullshit app or you have to sign up for something. No. Fuck you. Give me the god damn advertised price or don't advertise the sale anywhere but your fucking garbage apps.
I got flamed to oblivion when I said that it's stunning how many people will gladly allow any old app onto their phone and have access to their data and scrape their life patterns in order to get like 2 for 1 fucking McDoubles or something.
Used to be when they wanted marketing data they paid professional firms to go out and perform scientific research and compensated people for participating in the study. Now they just throw a 50% off coupon at someone that they may or may not even use and people are like "Here's all my location data for the last month as well as all my contacts and hell why not be able to use my camera and microphone too fuck it, 50% off a Happy Meal is just too much to pass up"
I've literally gotten up and left a restaurant before for not having menus. A QR code on a stand on the table that takes you to a fuckin PDF download...fuck outta here with that bullshit.
To be fair, two for one McDoubles seems like a pretty good deal. Why should I care about my data, they’re just using it for advertising/analytics, it’s not like they’re blackmailing me or stealing my identity or robbing me of something I could sell on my own. Seems like a pretty clear win-win: I get reasonably-priced meals and they get data that I wouldn’t be using anyway.
Now the constant notifications and hassle of downloading the app in the first place to get reasonable prices are a different story.
I guess my main concern has more to do with data security. Since you know these apps are being written with fuckin AI and shit now and nobody is paying close enough attention to this...every app you install is just another potential "We are writing to inform you that your data was exposed in a breach we found out about 6 months ago and just told you about now since thats our legal minimum requirement and we only do the barest minimum required because otherwise that cuts into our profit margins. We're sorry for any inconvenience this may cause. Please refer to the 180 page terms of service to view your lack of remedies in this case as we include verbiage there that says you cant sue us since you agreed to this in exchange for a half price meal deal. Thank you for being a McDonald's customer!"
The normalization of this, and the lack of real consequences when they inevitably fuck up playing fast and loose with our data, is why I say fuck the apps.
This comic was honestly mental healthcare during quarantine when I was working retail. This brings me back.