You can't find help.

In reply to Streetwiseguy :

I have to disagree here. I buy the cheapest of what I want, but if the $20 thingamagig is 25 but lasts longer I'm all for it. But the problem is everyone is chasing to the bottom, that same cheapE36 M3 at the bottom already has, instead of trying to find a way to sell the better piece in the market.

Car parts: sometimes I don't have a choice and buy what I can find at the time, but if I have it down to two places and they are the "same" part, I'm going cheapest. there is a difference. If I only have $5, and it's $4 vs $5, 99% of people are going $4 just because they are looking longer term for whaterever else may happen. Nobody will spend to zero, just because something is "better".

Case in point, Trader Joe's. I shop there for everything possible. Are they the cheapest? F no. Do they have what I also need everytime? Nope. Are they the cheapest? God no. But what I do get is the best, that I can find, and they can find and will sell, F yes. Walmart does the same exact things as TJ, but what they sell is horrendous in comparison, but it's "perfect" for people who don't know any better, IMO.

In reply to Ranger50 :

We are big TJ/Aldi customers as well.

In a race to the bottom, everyone loses.

I'm mildly upset that my last $110 pair of boots only lasted a year, but $60 K-mart boots generally only lasted six months.  So spending more was a benefit.

I've never seen a cost savings in going for the cheap route.  It's short term gain for long term losses.  Unfortunately the corporate culture is for the next quarter and after that, who cares?

IMO we shouldn't complain about unemployment paying more than a full time job, we should wonder why full time jobs pay so little that it's better financially to not work.

In reply to Pete. (l33t FS) :

Thank you for saying that! That is the real discussion to have.

I started out after moving from Michigan, making $27/hr PT, to slepping auto parts on commission plus base for $7/hr in WV at a big 3 automaker dealership in a small town. The owner was a complete cheapskate and OPENLY discussed on why no one wanted to work there. owner was stuck in the 1970's and refused to move out of the era. Yet openly paid a "consultant" hundreds or thousands a month for "improvement ideas".

I get the need for shareholders needing or wanting results, but overall company health needs to be evaluated and shareholders can suck it if stock didn't go up 15% this year because you didn't decide to ship your manufacturing to some third world E36 M3hole.

barefootskater said:

I'm eager to work. Since I was 16 I've never been out of a job for more than a week (I didn't have to pay rent until 18 but I wanted to drive and wanted a phone). I know lots of folks like me, including a few that are way more motivated and earn way more. That said, for everyone I know in my age group like me, I know 4-5 that will only do the bare minimum and complain the whole time. Maybe it's something folks grow out of? I certainly didn't have anything I'd call a real work ethic when I was 16. May be more in that than in "kids these days just don't want to work." Idk.
 

It's more complex than that.  It starts with Helicopter mom's hovering over her children providing them with everything. Possibly out of a sense of guilt.  
They aren't allowed to try and fail, pick themselves up and try again.  
They aren't taught the independence of getting on their bicycle and applying for a job, then getting themselves to work on time.  Mommy has to take them.
 The job pays minimum wages, so when Mommy has a conflict they don't show up.  When Mommy ( or Daddy) gets tired of taking them to work at 6:30 going back home and then picking them up at 9:00 they quit. 

Then they go to college and wind up $50,000 or more in debt. Entry level wages barely meets the cost of servicing that. and when you add the cost  of transportation there is no reward money left.  Nothing to point at and say, "that's what I'm trading my life for".  
What's their motivation? 
They see how crowded the job market is. Baby Boomers hanging on because they lost their Retirement and social security won't meet their needs. 

Little upward mobility. Infinite number of dead end jobs paying sub standard wages. 
Management so used to massive rewards for little effort other than stock manipulation and tax avoidance schemes.  Reducing labor costs is the one constant method to this quarters increase in profits.  Wages, benefits,  fire 5-10% of the employees and the remaining work hard enough, great full  they still have a job.  

When you've got the last drop of blood out of the labor stone,  move overseas. 
 

frenchyd said:

Steve_Jones said:

It's amazing how many people don't want to work, but wonder why they're broke. It's never their fault though. 

The people who do want those jobs and would make great employees can't come into the country.   

Or Employers get scared when someone whos works 70+ hours a week and is willing to work any day of the week. Then. It takes two months to get hire. You want a go getter? Don't play around.

The trades are hurting for workers and pay is pretty good. 

For concrete, you start at $25 or so here and everyone is still looking. Minimum wage is $7.25 and most make barely over $10 here it seems. Cost of living is very cheap too.

But no one wants to do concrete or any trades really. You could offer $100 an hour and probably have few takers. Theflip side of that is wages are great for people that are actually working because you can ask for whatever

In reply to Antihero (Forum Supporter) :

Hard to work in the trades. We grow up hearing that anyone who doesn't go to college won't be able to earn a living. And who wants to get dirty and sweaty making apprentice wages which won't pay off school loans. And the boss yells a lot. School was easier. They didn't yell. When you had trouble understanding something new, just raise your hand for special assistance from a caring and understanding adult, who would then give us a gold star when we finally got it.

My inner crotchety old man says schools coddle us too much.

My inner abused apprentice says jobs should be more understanding and patient for us to learn. And willing to reward us when we do learn.

My inner cynical rebel wants schools (which we are legally required to attend) to stop preaching about how school is the only way to get anywhere.

My inner repressed insecure and nervous self wants even entry level jobs to take a vested interest in making sure we can actually survive (or find a way to grow quickly) financially after devoting 1/3 of our precious time to the company.

Finding a good balance is going to be a tough societal shift. I don't know the answer. I suspect it isn't AN answer, but dozens.

In reply to barefootskater :

You aren't wrong that there can be yelling in the trades but there are stupid asshat bosses in all fields. I've found that you only get yelled at if you allow it, and I don't allow it. I've had bosses try but usually the never-raise-your-voice-to-me-all-you-are-to-me-is-a-walking-atm talk usually stops that.

I do think there is a lot of coddling and a lot of people prefer that. I've had the talk before basically saying that you can either go thru life barely scraping by,having a couple of roommates etc and have a job that isn't challenging or you can work harder, sack up, actually succeed in life and gain a skill. Apparently this doesn't work well because most seem happy with 8 bucks an hour part time while complaining the world is against you.

You work about a third of your life, might as well make it worth it imo

In reply to solfly :

Beautiful.

and completely recognizable in art style and message, even without a signature.

It's a shame that people have it beaten into their heads from an early age that they can never acheive anything.

Been rolling that around in my head a lot lately as I consider some pretty huge moves in the not too distant future.

Had a discussion with a guy that does excavation and grading. He's struggling to find people for his team. He can't even get help from temp agencies because people can't pass a drug test.

Apparently the method they're going to use is to hire more people than they need and see which ones last more than a week. 

 

solfly said:

Been rolling that around in my head a lot lately as I consider some pretty huge moves in the not too distant future.

We are working hard to eliminate all our debt so we don't need to make as much money. 

Granted I have a great job that I enjoy, I'm paid very well considering the market I'm in, etc, but the option to not need it would be nice as well.

opportunity to buy a very successful, established business. im in my late 30s with a toddler though. leaning toward yes but havent 100% convinced myself.

In reply to solfly :

Do it.

barefootskater said:

My inner crotchety old man says schools coddle us too much.

My inner abused apprentice says jobs should be more understanding and patient for us to learn. And willing to reward us when we do learn.

My inner cynical rebel wants schools (which we are legally required to attend) to stop preaching about how school is the only way to get anywhere.

My inner repressed insecure and nervous self wants even entry level jobs to take a vested interest in making sure we can actually survive (or find a way to grow quickly) financially after devoting 1/3 of our precious time to the company.

Thanks, I've been saying this for awhile, but you did a better job of summarizing it. 

I worked in the trades (briefly), and my distaste for them was exactly what you eluded to. Nobody wanted to teach me anything, they just wanted me to bust my ass and get back-breaking tasks done. That is, in a way, the problem with the trades, they are often "labor first, learn later." Then guys go and complain that they can't find good hires, because all the guys that stick around are either dumb as hell or speak another language. 

The smart guys? They go into engineering, programming, medical sciences, technology jobs. Why? Because someone says "figure out a way of solving this problem" where as the slave-driver trades foreman merely said "move that big heavy stuff from Point A to Point B in the least efficient way possible, as quickly as possible." To which, the smart kid asked "uh, can't we use a piece of equipment to move that in like, 15 minutes?" To which the foreman angrily replies "I didn't pay your for your brains kid, I pay for your sweat." 

I often tell the story of my experience as a 22 year old college student who needed summer work. I had previously worked for a home builder doing odd jobs for two summers out of high school, but never learned anything there. The final straw was when I worked for a guy remodeling a 1850's farm house for a large corporate client. Fieldstone foundation, no basement, just dirt fill under the floorboards. He wanted a basement for mechanicals, so he hired me to replace a 55 year old guy who was getting back surgery from blown discs to manually dig out a 600sqft x 6' deep basement by myself, using 5gal buckets.  I didn't learn anything that summer either, other than my back was fragile. It was my own stupid fault. I learned more working for a YMCA summer camp as maintenance for 3 months the next year than I had in 9 months working for those general contractors. It was just a different environment, different culture. 

For me, and some others, it might just be a difference in job satisfaction. I tend to prefer the labor and hardwork as a "relief" from the stress of constantly using my brain, but if I start a job and never use my brain, I just constantly wonder "where is this going?" BTW I've been doing tons of backbreaking, dirty, sweaty landscaping projects around my house, so it's not like I'm scared of hard work, it's just that it's gotta have a purpose aside from someone being too lazy or cheap to rent a piece of equipment. 

I do blame some of this on the inability of young people to demand what they want out of their job besides money. Today, as an adult, I could go to a plumber or electrician and say "hey, I want to learn your trade, but I aint gonna be a ditch digger." Yea, I might get a few guys who would say "get bent!" but eventually I might find someone who is willing to actually train the next generation of tradespeople. I'd probably still dig some ditches, but at least my boss would understand what I came for. 

Perhaps that's just it: we tend to think everyone is just out there for the money, when in reality, some people want to learn something new in a welcoming environment. Hard to create innovation or better ways of doing things when you're paying people not to think. That extends far beyond the trades or construction industries. 

My hope is to learn some of these trades on my own, so I can keep my easy going job that pays really well with great benefits and a pension, while still getting the cathartic use of my hands to improve my home. Hopefully I can get some local community college courses in various trades.

Maybe some day when I've got a comfortable retirement, paid off house, my wife is working full-time, and my kid is older, I'll get a trade job just for the fun of it. 

barefootskater said:

 

My inner crotchety old man says schools coddle us too much.

My inner abused apprentice says jobs should be more understanding and patient for us to learn. And willing to reward us when we do learn.

My inner cynical rebel wants schools (which we are legally required to attend) to stop preaching about how school is the only way to get anywhere.

My inner repressed insecure and nervous self wants even entry level jobs to take a vested interest in making sure we can actually survive (or find a way to grow quickly) financially after devoting 1/3 of our precious time to the company.

 

 

Bolded the precious part, because it is so important. And if you have a commute, and have to do prep for the job that you wouldn't normally do, it is more than that. For instance, when I had to go into the office every day, it was a 30 minute commute each way (25 minute in the morning, 35 in the evening), I had to shower and shave every day, and I had to iron my shirts (not every day). This adds up to about an extra 75-90 minutes a day of activities that are specifically for my job that I don't have to do now*. An extra 6% of my day, after I'm already giving them 33% of my day. 

*I still shower, but not every day as I don't care what my hair looks like and I don't smell that bad. And I can fit it in where it works with my schedule.

In our shop, we teach our apprentices as much as we can because the boss and I both went through the "old school" trades system.

That being said, if you can't run a broom properly, what makes you think I'm going to give you anything harder to do?

I think you'd find that some very brilliant minds can't sweep to save their asses. 

My wife is one of them. She's an excellent employee. Very focused and driven. Often given tasks way above her pay grade. 

She really struggles with basic "trades" tasks. The woman can't operate a kitchen knife. As a result, she'd never be able to get a trade/skilled labor job. 

Sometimes, what's simple for you is hard for me, and what's hard for you is easy for me. The trouble is, we give up on a lot of good employees because we don't have patience for what we deem the "easy" stuff is. 

I'm not saying we should handhold someone through every task, but maybe the problem isn't the newbie's broom handling skills, it's their teacher not explaining things that might appear obvious. 

If the newbie wants to learn, that's the important part. I'd argue that the guy who thinks he knows everything and has no interested in learning anything new is probably more damaging to the overall workplace culture than the newbie who needs to dial in some muscle memory. 

In the corporate world, this is called an "inclusive workplace" it's not just about hiring minorities or LGBTQ or women or whatever, it's also about understanding that we all work a little different, and rather than immediately firing someone because they might not be great at one task, the goal is to find the task they are good at.  The hope being, you find someone who really is brilliant at doing a specific task, or maybe they are good at doing a wide variety of things, just not that one thing, and maybe they'll offset someone else who is really good at the thing they aren't good at. 

In reply to Antihero (Forum Supporter) :

This is my second foray into working for my dad. The first time I was 18 and a little hot headed and a lot more emotional. It didn't last a year. 
These days, I can understand that he does want me to succeed and gives me a lot of leeway for family things and I know I've got a pretty good deal. My pay isn't as good as I'd like, but I've had two raises since starting in January so we'll get there. 
The yelling is not frequent, and almost always comes from what I'll call a difference in communication*. And when I fee it is out of line I do speak up. 
There are differences in how we work, and what we want, but I am pretty lucky to be able to have the flexibility I do and while I don't have your standard benefits, I do have perks. 
That said, I've been on plenty of job sites where I wouldn't have worked for any of the bosses but mine. Concrete and stucco crews especially. 
 

* probably not unlike the different abilities and skill alluded to in this thread. 

Brett_Murphy (Ex-Patrón) said:

Had a discussion with a guy that does excavation and grading. He's struggling to find people for his team. He can't even get help from temp agencies because people can't pass a drug test.

Apparently the method they're going to use is to hire more people than they need and see which ones last more than a week. 

 

It might be down to the employer has no vision for the employee they are hiring and when they have been there a week, a month, or maybe 90 days and they are doing to same old E36 M3 without hope of something else, they walk on. And it stems from "how long do I have to dig a ditch to learning something else?" It doesn't have to be everyday different either. I worked delivering newspapers from the printing facility to where the people who actually delivered to your house wanted to pick them up. I almost quit not because it was mid winter in Michigan but because I was stuck on the same route for 2 months every weekend I worked. Then I finally got to learn a different part of town and the cycle would continue until I knew waaaay too much of West Michigan and just drove to whereever they sent me. That lasted 10.5 years until the recession hit Michigan and it was time to fly away for warmer climates....

If you can go and say to the new hire, "it's gonna suck for a bit, but in about 60-90 days, you prove you show up and do the work, I'll teach you some other things." And suddenly there is a carrot for them to stay and work their ass off.

Ranger50 said:

BoostedBrandon said:

Well here we are, 3am and guess what. My phone rings, and I have to run his route today.

I've got four dumpsters in two different counties on my dispatch board already, no telling what will get added.

You can only stretch your good employees so far.

If your boss isn't helping out running the routes, they ain't no boss worth working for. Ever.

This. One of my techs is on vacation this week. Had some jobs that had to get done. Did an oil change, a brake hose and a rotate and balance for my a++ tech and he was able to get a big job done and can button up the rest of the one I was working on in under an hour instead of 2 or more tomorrow morning. 

Ranger50 said:

If you can go and say to the new hire, "it's gonna suck for a bit, but in about 60-90 days, you prove you show up and do the work, I'll teach you some other things." And suddenly there is a carrot for them to stay and work their ass off.

I would agree with this. Give people some incentive, outside of the paycheck. 

A lot of people, when given that carrot, will say "well what happens if I master thing easy task real quick, will I move on to the new task sooner?" 

I think a lot of folks need to see the light at the end of the tunnel. We all do. Whether it's Friday, whether it's pay day, whether it's a promotion, or retirement. 

Typed a thing about brittle people.  Deleted it.