New South Wales recorded 29,504 COVID cases today and 17 deaths.
On my usual coffee run, I drove to Rosemeadow Marketplace in the Macarthur area. However, once I saw the now all-too-common traffic jam of more than a dozen cars lined up in the McDonald’s drive-thru queue, snaking out of McDonald’s and into the main car park, I decided to give McDonald’s coffees a miss today.
Parking the car near the Rosemeadow Marketplace entrance, I made my way through a medley of sexy chicks towards XS Espresso coffee and desert dine-in restaurant.
Right at the front of the store, there was a small sign that said, “Wear a face mask. It’s a condition of entry.” I did not have a face mask on and was unvaccinated. I was not doing anything that the business had asked of me.
One tall, black, cute female with a skinny figure and big zigzagging Afro hair – like electrocuted Twisties chips – walked ahead of me into the coffee shop. The black face mask she wore complimented the dark spandex pants hugging her tone figure.
Reviewing The XS Espresso Experience
I came into XS Espresso after her. I walked up the front counter mask-free, natural, with my hands on my hips, waiting. I reviewed the menu.
The three staff members working behind the counter all wore face masks.
Two young teenage girls in casual black shirts and wearing white face masks ran around behind the scenes, preparing ice cream delicacies for seated customers.
The customers seated down inside XS Espresso all had their face masks off. They were laughing and enjoying themselves while plates of delicacies and deserts were served to them.
I noticed that their cash register had an iPad display on the outside which read “We have a COVID-19 Safety Plan and are committed to keeping you safe”.
It was glaringly in your face.
I was vigilant, thinking there might be push back from the XS Espresso staff. To my surprise, the staff were friendly towards me.
One female staff member turned around from the kitchen and said, “We’ll be with you in a moment.”
Seeing the warm smile on her face is when I realized that the staff in XS Espresso are not going to bother me.
The High Turnover Of Staff During The Omicron Outbreak
A minute later, as I had reviewed the menu, an older male staff member in his late 40s came to take my order.
I told him, “I will have an iced coffee frappe and an iced long black coffee.”
But he didn’t understand how to use the cash register. He got the iced long black coffee right, but he wasn’t sure how to type in the coffee frappe into the cash register.
He had to step away from the cash register, and ask someone else behind the scenes.
A young girl came back to review the order, and then showed him how to key the order in.
As the pair reviewed the order, I realized this older male staff member must be new.
Seeing the new staff member battling with the cash register made me silently mull over the high staff turnover during the Omicron outbreak in New South Wales, Australia.
Young Australians Turned Off Hospitality During Coronavirus Pandemic
Normally, Australian businesses in hospitality get young teenage kids to work in public-facing jobs. It seems, however, that the younger generation of Australia don’t want to work during the coronavirus pandemic.
This phenomenon has also happened in McDonald’s, where McDonald’s staff have told me workers do not want to turn up to their shifts, because they are immature, and lots of McDonald’s staff now have to isolate once someone has tested positive for COVID-19.
The younger generation of Australians may be quitting hospitality because they do not want to get COVID and pass it onto their family, or because it’s too hot to work with face masks on inside a muggy kitchen.
The vaccine mandates which coerced so many Australians to be double vaccinated in order to keep their job also contributed to high staff turnover rates.
Seeing this older male staff member, older staff members in KFC the other day, and in McDonald’s sometimes make was an obvious sign that Australian teenagers don’t want to work in the hospitality sector during the coronavirus pandemic, so much so that they had to get a clueless 40 year old male to work the till.
That said, I would give XS Espresso a nice all-round review. The staff were positive, and the food looked delicious.
While I waited for my coffee to be made, I popped inside Rosemeadow Marketplace for a spot of shopping. That is another story.
Diary Of A Mad Chaos is a daily diary written from March 1996 until today, of which individual books and book series have been created, namely “The Lost Years” an exploration of young, entwined love, the “Wubao In China (猎艳奇缘)” book series which provides an extensive comparative analysis of the cultural differences between Eastern and Western societies, and the book titled “Foreigner (华人)” an exploration of race relations in Australia.
