DIRS.INFO The most relevant business & tech news

☆ The uniformed attendant sitting next to you on your flight is probably 'deadheading' or getting paid to fly as a passenger
▼ + stars: | 2023-08-29 | by ( Grace Dean | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +3 min

Airlines sometimes have to reposition pilots and flight attendants so they can work on flights. Staff who are "deadheading" are paid to fly so they can reach another airport but aren't on active duty. AdvertisementAdvertisementA Southwest Airlines flight from Texas to Missouri recently made an unscheduled stop in Kansas so that it could drop off a flight attendant needed at an airport in Wichita. Deadheading pilots rarely ride in the cockpit jump seat. Are you a current or former pilot or flight attendant with a story to share?

Persons: they're, I'm Organizations: Staff, Morning, Airlines, Air, Federal Aviation Administration, American Airlines, United Airlines, LA Times Locations: Texas, Missouri, Kansas, Wichita, Air Canada

☆ Subway is being sold to a massive private-equity firm, finally moving the sandwich chain away from family ownership after nearly 60 years
▼ + stars: | 2023-08-24 | by ( Grace Dean | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +3 min

Roark's brands include Arby's, Dunkin', Buffalo Wild Wings, and rival sub store Jimmy John's. Subway is in the midst of a huge rebrand after suffering from a sales slump. Through Inspire Brands, it also owns another sub chain — Jimmy John's — which has more than 2,600 stores. AdvertisementAdvertisementSince the first Subway store opened in 1965, the company has been owned by its two founders, Fred DeLuca and Peter Buck, and their families. The sandwich chain announced last month that it had achieved 10 consecutive quarters of positive sales, including recording its highest weekly average unit volume in North America in the second quarter of 2023.

Persons: Dunkin, Jimmy John's, John Chidsey, Fred DeLuca, Peter Buck, It's Organizations: Roark, Arby's, Buffalo Wild Wings, Service, Roark Capital, Subway, Inspire Brands Locations: Wall, Silicon, North America

☆ Redditors in LA are compiling a list of restaurants that ask customers to pay extra fees as diners grow increasingly frustrated with added charges
▼ + stars: | 2023-08-14 | by ( Grace Dean | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +5 min

Redditors are compiling a list of Los Angeles restaurants that charge diners extra fees on their checks. The additional costs include security charges, service charges, card fees, and "administrative fees." Redditors have begun compiling a list of restaurants in Los Angeles that charge diners additional fees on their checks. The Google Sheets document, which started in r/LosAngeles, has more than 200 entries, with fees including corkage charges, service charges, and credit card fees. Some are a bit more vague, described on their menus or websites as "administrative fees" or "restaurant fees."

Persons: it's, gratuities, Il Organizations: Google, Service, Oceanview Locations: Angeles, Wall, Silicon, Los Angeles, Santa Monica, Hollywood, Venice, Century City, Encino, Manhattan Beach, Lake, Perch, Downtown Los Angeles, Korean, Alhambra

☆ McDonald's workers in the UK as young as 16 say they were sexually harassed on the job, an explosive report says
▼ + stars: | 2023-07-18 | by ( Grace Dean | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +4 min

A five-month BBC investigation paints a picture of a toxic work culture McDonald's UK. McDonald's UK apologized and said it would investigate the allegations. In many cases, managers were responsible for the incidents, the current and former workers told the broadcaster. "It's the expectation that if you work at McDonald's, you will be harassed," a former worker told the BBC. Macrow added that McDonald's UK would investigate all the allegations.

Persons: McDonald's, Alistair Macrow, Macrow Organizations: Service, Workers, vapes, BBC, Ireland Locations: Wall, Silicon, Wales, McDonald's, India

☆ $104,400 classes as a 'low' income for a single-person household in San Francisco, California's housing department says
▼ + stars: | 2023-06-30 | by ( Grace Dean | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +4 min

$104,400 is a "low" income in San Francisco County, according to California's housing department. Such a salary classes as a "low'" income in San Francisco County, according to California's Department of Housing and Community Development. In San Francisco County, the median income for a one-person household is listed as $122,500, per California's housing department. Making $18,400 a year is an "acutely low" income, $39,150 is "extremely low," $65,350 is "very low," and $104,400 is "low." Marin County, which is directly north of San Francisco County, and San Mateo County, to the south, both have the same income limits.

Persons: — Organizations: Service, California's Department of Housing, Community, Fox Business, US Department of Housing, Urban, Survey, Stanford University, San, US Bureau of Labor Statistics, Census Locations: San Francisco County, Mississippi, San Francisco, Marin County, San Mateo County, Santa Clara, Jose, Google's, Palo Alto, New York City, Jersey City, San Francisco's

☆ Costco CFO says that only a 'really small percent' of members misuse their cards, 'but when you're dealing with millions of transactions' it adds up
▼ + stars: | 2023-06-29 | by ( Grace Dean | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +2 min

Its CFO told The WSJ that only a "really small percent" misuse their cards but this can quickly build up. Membership fees make up almost 2% of Costco's total revenues. "But when you're dealing with millions of transactions, even a very small percentage is something you would want to correct." Membership fees made up almost 2% of Costco's total revenues in the three months to May 7. The retailer last raised its membership fees in 2017, when they went up by around 10%.

Persons: —, Richard Galanti, Galanti Organizations: Costco, Service, Wall Street, Star Locations: Puerto Rico

☆ Russia's McDonald's replacement says it's serving 2 million customers a day, but diners are divided on whether it's as good as the original
▼ + stars: | 2023-06-07 | by ( Grace Dean | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +4 min

Russia's McDonald's replacement, Vkusno & tochka, opened a year ago. The chain can't sell iconic McDonald's items like the Big Mac and has created substitutes instead. Its CEO told Reuters that it has sold more than 24 million "Big Hits," its Big Mac dupe, since opening. Paroev previously said that Vkusno & yochka sold 120,000 burgers on its opening day, which he said was higher than any other day in McDonald's Russia's history. Have you been to Vkusno & tochka?

Persons: Russia's, —, Alexander Govor, tochka, hasn't, Oleg Paroev, Paroev, yochka, Tian Bing, tochka hadn't, tochka's, Ronald McDonald Organizations: Reuters, Service, Mac, China News Service, Getty Locations: Ukraine, Russian, Russia, Moscow

☆ Gen Z is forcing fast-food restaurants to change their menus. They're now offering more spicy food and chicken to lure in younger diners.
▼ + stars: | 2023-05-16 | by ( Grace Dean | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +3 min

Gen Z diners crave spicy food and chicken more than other generations. Restaurant execs say that younger diners crave spicy food and chicken. "Spice levels generally heat up with younger generations," Fabiola Del Rio, VP of integrated marketing communications at Panda Express, told Insider. And where they can, Gen Zers like to get their chicken spicy, too. Or a restaurant exec who's noticed interesting dining patterns among your Gen Z customers?

☆ Chipotle says it has seen some of its best digital sales after launching its TikTok-inspired Fajita Quesadilla
▼ + stars: | 2023-04-27 | by ( Grace Dean | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +4 min

Chipotle added the Fajita Quesadilla to its menu last month, inspired by a viral TikTok menu hack. During the launch, quesadilla sales nearly doubled and Chipotle had two of its best-ever digital sales days. It is inspired by a menu "hack" of adding fajita veggies to its steak quesadilla that went viral on TikTok in 2022. Adding fajita veggies – pepper and onion – to a quesadilla was not previously an option at Chipotle. "During the launch, we nearly doubled our Quesadilla business and had two of our top digital sales days of all time."

☆ Bikini baristas won a $500,000 payout in a lawsuit after a city imposed a dress code on restaurant workers
▼ + stars: | 2023-04-10 | by ( Grace Dean | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +3 min

A group of bikini baristas won a $500,000 payout from a Washington city after it imposed a dress code. Everett banned workers from showing midriffs and buttocks and required they wear shorts and tank tops. In 2017, seven bikini baristas and the owner of some drive-thru coffee stands filed a lawsuit against the City of Everett after it passed dress code ordinances that banned workers at quick service facilities from wearing bikinis. The ordinances required staff to cover their shoulders, midriffs, and buttocks and wear at least shorts and tank tops. These incidents weren't related to the baristas who filed the lawsuit, Rammerman said.

☆ A Google worker says some staff found out which colleagues had been laid off after their emails bounced back
▼ + stars: | 2023-02-24 | by ( Grace Dean | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +5 min

A Google worker says some staff learned which colleagues were let go when their emails bounced back. Google workers have been "figuring out the numbers" about how many staff from each office had been laid off, de Rivaz said. Some of the remaining Google workers asked for anonymity to protect their jobs, but Insider has verified their employment. Google told US staff that they were laid off in an early-morning email on January 20. Some affected US workers told Insider they were annoyed at not being able to say goodbye to or thank colleagues.

☆ A Googler laid off while on vacation found out when her colleague texted her, and said it made her feel like she was 'just a number'
▼ + stars: | 2023-02-13 | by ( Grace Dean | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +4 min

An ex-Google recruiter says the company laid staff off like they were "just a number." Louise Coyne told Insider she was on paid leave when CEO Sundar Pichai announced Google was laying off 12,000 workers, or around 6.4% of its workforce, on January 20. "We've just left these people completely in the dark," Coyne told Insider. One software engineer who had been at Google for less than six months told Insider that the layoffs were a "rude awakening." He said he woke up when a colleague rang him to say he couldn't message him on Google's internal chat.

☆ Laid-off Google workers say the impersonal way the company let them go shows it's 'just as cutthroat corporate as anybody else'
▼ + stars: | 2023-02-13 | by ( Grace Dean | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +7 min

Laid-off Google workers were shocked that the tech giant let them go by email. "Google felt like my home," a member of Google's analytics team who'd been there for around a decade told Insider. Other laid-off workers told Insider the email layoffs "came off as lazy," showed "cowardice," and "really stunk." Two of the laid-off workers Insider spoke to said their managers had also been let go. A technical writer at Google who wasn't laid-off told Insider remaining staff feel "expendable" and were having trouble focusing.

☆ A Google recruiter on maternity leave said she found out she was laid off while feeding her 3-week-old baby at 4:30 a.m.
▼ + stars: | 2023-01-31 | by ( Grace Dean | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +3 min

A Google recruiter learned she was laid off in the middle of the night while on maternity leave. Other Google staff say they were laid off while on parental and carers' leave. "While on maternity leave feeding my 3-week-old daughter at 4:30 a.m. last Friday, I learned that my position at Google had been eliminated," she said on LinkedIn. A California-based Google marketing manager told Insider that she was let go while on maternity leave with a four-month-old baby and that her husband was also laid off. Two current engineers at Google told Insider that some remaining employees were worried about further cuts.

☆ A Google engineer says survivors of the mass layoffs cried in meetings the day around 12,000 of their colleagues were culled
▼ + stars: | 2023-01-27 | by ( Grace Dean | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +4 min

A Google engineer said survivors of the recent mass layoffs cried in meetings the day of the cull. Laid-off Google staff in the US woke up on January 20 to an email saying they'd been cut, though some found out through messages from concerned colleagues. Several laid-off staff told Insider they'd been overwhelmed by offers of help from current and former staff, such as offers to share résumés. Xoogler, a community of former Google staff, has organized mental-health and immigration-advice sessions. "I miss my colleagues," Jarrod Ahalt, a laid-off security engineer, told Insider.

☆ The biggest universities in Texas are blocking students from accessing TikTok on campus WiFi
▼ + stars: | 2023-01-19 | by ( Grace Dean | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +5 min

Texas A&M University and the University of Texas at Austin have blocked TikTok from campus WiFi. Texas A&M University — thought to be the state's biggest university with close to 70,000 students — is blocking TikTok from its IT network under a directive by Governor Greg Abbott, local news outlets reported on Tuesday. Lamar University and the University of Texas at Dallas told students that TikTok would continue to work at its residence halls. Even then, access would only be granted on devices connected to cellular services, not to the university's WiFi or wired network. Do you study or work at a US university that has banned the use of TikTok on campus WiFi?

☆ A couple say they drove for 18 hours on Christmas Eve to catch an alternative flight after their Southwest flight was canceled
▼ + stars: | 2022-12-30 | by ( Grace Dean | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +4 min

A couple said they drove for 18 hours to catch a flight after their Southwest one was canceled. "There's no amount of money they could give us to make us fly Southwest again," Alex Kain told CNBC. Alex Kain told CNBC that the flight he and his girlfriend were meant to take from Denver to Seattle was canceled at 2 a.m. "There's no amount of money they could give us to make us fly Southwest again," Kain told the outlet. "We have much work ahead of us, including investing in new solutions to manage wide-scale disruptions," Southwest said Thursday.

Grace Dean is a Business Reporter at Insider's London office. She covers retail, transport, tech, healthcare, politics, and other breaking business news, but specializes in the restaurant industry and the labor market. She joined the team in August 2020 after working as the Editor-in-Chief of Newcastle University's student newspaper the Courier. You can email her at gdean@insider.com. Read moreRead less

☆ I'm an ex-preschool teacher who quit my job to be an OnlyFans model. 18 months on I have no regrets, loads more time for therapy, and I've learnt the guitar.
▼ + stars: | 2022-11-26 | by ( Grace Dean | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +5 min

Danielle Zavala quit her job as a preschool teacher to become a BBW model on OnlyFans and Curvage. But in summer 2021 I quit my job become an OnlyFans model, and I really don't have any regrets. From month to month, I at least have a minimum idea of how much I'll earn. I don't drink; I don't do any drugs; I don't smoke; I have a good, healthy relationship. Just because you're an OnlyFans model doesn't mean you're completely wild.

☆ Elon Musk tells Twitter staff to reach out to YouTubers and lure them over to Twitter with 10% higher pay
▼ + stars: | 2022-11-11 | by ( Grace Dean | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +4 min

Elon Musk told Twitter staff to coax YouTubers onto the platform with 10% pay increases. Musk told Twitter workers. "We are the strongest when it comes to anything that's writing and real-time," he told staff on Thursday. Within days of taking ownership of Twitter, Musk told engineers to get to work on a reboot of Vine, the short-form video app Twitter bought in 2012 but shut down in 2016. During the Q&A, Musk also spoke about the company's return to the office and told staff that "bankruptcy isn't out of the question."

☆ Not even Mark Zuckerberg's beloved metaverse projects are safe from Meta's sweeping layoffs
▼ + stars: | 2022-11-09 | by ( Grace Dean | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +3 min

Meta has announced sweeping layoffs across the whole company, including its metaverse division. Meta has pumped billions of dollars into its Reality Labs division, leading to massive losses. Reality Labs has reported massive losses that are crushing the company's profits. "We continue to anticipate that Reality Labs operating losses in 2023 will grow significantly year-over-year," Meta said in an SEC filing on Wednesday. "I'm currently in the middle of a thorough review of our infrastructure spending," Zuckerberg said.

☆ Some Twitter workers are calling Elon Musk's advisers 'Elon's goons,' a report says
▼ + stars: | 2022-11-01 | by ( Grace Dean | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +3 min

Elon Musk has been outlining plans to overhaul Twitter, assisted by his inner circle. Some Twitter workers have been calling his advisers "Elon's goons," the New York Times reported. Musk's plans include overhauling Twitter's verification process and potentially rebooting Vine. Current and former Twitter workers have been sending each other private messages in the midst of mounting uncertainty at the company, with some staff calling Musk's advisors "Elon's goons," The New York Times reported. Many Twitter staff are concerned about their job security and are scrambling to complete tasks assigned by Musk's team so they can keep hold of their jobs.

☆ Twitter staff have been told to work 84-hour weeks and managers slept at the office over the weekend as they scramble to meet Elon Musk's tight deadlines, reports say
▼ + stars: | 2022-11-01 | by ( Grace Dean | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +3 min

Twitter managers have told some staff work 12-hour shifts, seven days a week, CNBC reported. Some managers told The New York Times they slept at Twitter's office on Friday and Saturday nights. Twitter managers have told some staff to work 12-hour shifts, seven days a week — equivalent to 84 hours a week — to meet Musk's deadlines, CNBC reported, citing internal communications. Insider previously reported that Musk's team assigned some of Twitter's engineers coding projects to work on over the weekend, known as sprints. Some Twitter managers told the publication that they felt like they were being assessed.

☆ The person who claims to have hacked Uber says he's only 18, report says
▼ + stars: | 2022-09-16 | by ( Grace Dean | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +2 min

A person claiming to be behind Uber's hack on Thursday told The New York Times that he's only 18. He said he had persuaded an Uber worker to send him a password that gave him access to its systems. The Times and Bloomberg both reported on Thursday that Uber employees got a Slack message saying "I am a hacker." The apparent hacker also listed multiple internal databases that they claimed to have accessed, The Times reported. The Times reported that the hacker had also posted an explicit photo on an internal staff page.

Search resuls for: "gdean@insider.com"

24 mentions found