Internet Slams Business Sign Lamenting Wyoming Workforce

Thousands of internet commenters took notice of one Wyoming business for a sign containing one pointed message and one unfortunate typo.

In a viral Reddit post published on r/antiwork, Redditor u/TyrionsShadow shared a photo of the sign, presumably posted in the business’ front window.

“TEMPORARILY CLOSED BECAUSE NO STAFF IS AVAILABLE,” the sign reads.

“WE ARE HIRING BUT NO ONE IN WYOMING SEEMS TO WANT TO WORK,” it continues. “CHECK BACK TOMORROW. SORRY FOR THE INCONTINENCE.”

Titled, “Guarantee they don’t pay enough. Pay more!” the viral post including the sign has received more than 30,000 votes and 2,300 comments in the last seven hours.

Since last April, more Americans have quit their jobs than at any other point in the country’s history.

This mass-quitting movement, widely referred to as the Great Resignation, has been liberating for millions of employees), and infuriating for employers and business owners across the country. Data collected by the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics shows that more than 4 million employees have quit their jobs every month since October 2021.

Throughout the Great Resignation, employers have complained of labor shortages, and of a generation of young workers who, according to many window signs similar to the one included in the viral Reddit post, simply refuse to work.

In the last six months alone, Newsweek has reported on numerous signs ripping both former employees and prospective employees for these labor shortages and supposedly not knowing the “meaning of hard work.”

Most recently, Newsweek reported that the manager of a Dollar Tree in Indiana was fired after a sign pitting members of Generation Z against baby boomers also went viral on Reddit.

For Wyoming, specifically, the Wyoming Department of Workforce Services reported a seasonally-adjusted unemployment rate of 3.4 percent for March 2022—a 1.6 percent decrease from March 2021, and .2 percent less than the nationwide, seasonally-adjusted unemployment rate of 3.6 percent.

While it is unclear which Wyoming business the viral sign was posted on, commenters responding to the Reddit post speculated that its lack of staff was due to poor working conditions, and poked fun at the typing mistake in the sign’s last word.

“This cannot be real,” Redditor u/FishTarTarSauce wrote in the post’s top comment, which has received more than 11,000 votes.

“The level of incontinence at this establishment is killing me,” they added, mocking the sign’s use of “incontinence” in place of “inconvenience.”

“Best typo,” Redditor u/DuncanIdahoPotatos sarcastically chimed in. “They just can’t keep that s**t inside.”

Redditor u/cdurs, whose response has received nearly 3,000 votes, was able to look beyond the typo.

“Incontinence aside, I just don’t get how the idea of ‘if no one is applying for this job, maybe I should pay more’ doesn’t occur to these people,” they commented. “If you were charging $1,000 for a regular sandwich and no one was buying it, wouldn’t the idea of lowering the price occur to you at any point?”

In a separate comment, u/artificialavocado echoed that sentiment.

“The ones who can adapt are adapting,” they wrote. “The ones who can’t will be crying on social media in 6 months about how their business was ‘robbed’ from them.”

“This is it,” Redditor u/rdickeyvii added. “They’d rather close the business and whine about no one wants to work while leaving out the fact that they are probably looking for minimum wage employees.”

Newsweek reached out to u/TyrionsShadow for comment.