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My idea of fine differs from yours. I can sit at home, no tv, and eat a bologna and cheese sandwich or a cup of ramen noodles. I dont smoke, i dont drink, i dont go see movies. i dont go driving around wasting gas. if i dont have to go to work or go get groceries i dont leave the house. i dont have to buy birthday & Christmas presents. There are no kids living with us. We cook roughly one meal a week. Our rent is $700 a month for a 2/2 on 2 acres of land. Youre probably bored already but i have no problem sitting outside watching the deer eat, or the hummingbirds eat, the meteor showers, the sky full of stars at night, laying in bed reading a book, etc. Doesnt take a bit of money to do that.
Everyone has different levels of comfort. Someone who has a more expensive lifestyle will just attain more money. Someone who has a less expensive lifestyle will just attain less money. It's a fairly linear formula.
Everyone has different levels of comfort. Someone who has a more expensive lifestyle will just attain more money. Someone who has a less expensive lifestyle will just attain less money. It's a fairly linear formula.
That is very true. We live around people that have to go out partying and drinking every single night and go on vacations once a month. My wife and I sit at home watching reruns on tv or just talking to each other. Our version of "going out" is to go to the local video store to see what new movies have come out and buy some groceries at walmart. Then its back home. And we are perfectly happy with that.
In other words, when it comes to the amount of effort you put out on your job, would you say that your employer...."gets what they pay for", or would you give 100 percent effort regardless of whether you were making $12,000 a year or $30,000 per year?
Just wondering, y'all
20yrsinBranson
Sure I would and you would to unless you're an idiot. But then there appears to be ever increasing numbers of idiots in the country today.
I've been an employer for 25 of my 40 years in the work force having anywhere from 5 to 25 employees working for me. Small companies to be sure but everything always grossed over $1 million and I was most comfortable when grossing $2 to $3 million range. They were small companies but they were mine and I had control.
I've given my employees a number of promotions and opportunities over the years but I never gave them to a lazy ass that had the attitude "All I am getting is $10/hr so I am not going to work that hard because I am not getting paid what I am worth...... blah blah." That really irks me.
Over the years a number of employees stand out for me.
One I hired in 1998 and if I remember right I hired him in at $9.00 plus benefits. I was one the last companies in the area to pay 100% of medical insurance and I offered 2 weeks paid vacation and 7 paid holidays. The work really sucked, it was hard, demanding and physical with travel 30% of the jobs involving overnight stays in a motel. But he worked hard, did his best and treated every job as important.
He didn't know it but he caught my attention and I was watching and monitoring his performance very closely.
Just three years later, 2001, he was a member of a crew doing federal government prevailing wage jobs earning $32.75/hour in Ashtabula, Ohio and that $32.75/hr was what I paid him not including benefits that he still received.
One year later I made him foreman of his own crew and the lowest he ever made was $24.75/hr and there were projects where he ended up earning near $35.00/hr. If I remember right the highest prevailing wage in our area at the time was $34.25/hr.
Point is if he had not demonstrated his ability and drive when working for $9.00 I would have never given him a chance to sniff a prevailing wage job. He would have been stuck earning $9.00 to $12.00 his entire working life with me and I wouldn't have cared. I wouldn't have cared because he didn't care.
Amazingly these prevailing wage jobs are still around today, mostly at military bases, but if I hire you at $12 and you don't show enthusiasm I can guarantee you'll never even get a shot at a job where I have to pay you $35/hr.
My idea of fine differs from yours. I can sit at home, no tv, and eat a bologna and cheese sandwich or a cup of ramen noodles. I dont smoke, i dont drink, i dont go see movies. i dont go driving around wasting gas. if i dont have to go to work or go get groceries i dont leave the house. i dont have to buy birthday & Christmas presents. There are no kids living with us. We cook roughly one meal a week. Our rent is $700 a month for a 2/2 on 2 acres of land. Youre probably bored already but i have no problem sitting outside watching the deer eat, or the hummingbirds eat, the meteor showers, the sky full of stars at night, laying in bed reading a book, etc. Doesnt take a bit of money to do that.
So you're a farmer or woodsman living in the middle of nowhere...
Sure I would and you would to unless you're an idiot. But then there appears to be ever increasing numbers of idiots in the country today.
I've been an employer for 25 of my 40 years in the work force having anywhere from 5 to 25 employees working for me. Small companies to be sure but everything always grossed over $1 million and I was most comfortable when grossing $2 to $3 million range. They were small companies but they were mine and I had control.
I've given my employees a number of promotions and opportunities over the years but I never gave them to a lazy ass that had the attitude "All I am getting is $10/hr so I am not going to work that hard because I am not getting paid what I am worth...... blah blah." That really irks me.
Over the years a number of employees stand out for me.
One I hired in 1998 and if I remember right I hired him in at $9.00 plus benefits. I was one the last companies in the area to pay 100% of medical insurance and I offered 2 weeks paid vacation and 7 paid holidays. The work really sucked, it was hard, demanding and physical with travel 30% of the jobs involving overnight stays in a motel. But he worked hard, did his best and treated every job as important.
He didn't know it but he caught my attention and I was watching and monitoring his performance very closely.
Just three years later, 2001, he was a member of a crew doing federal government prevailing wage jobs earning $32.75/hour in Ashtabula, Ohio and that $32.75/hr was what I paid him not including benefits that he still received.
One year later I made him foreman of his own crew and the lowest he ever made was $24.75/hr and there were projects where he ended up earning near $35.00/hr. If I remember right the highest prevailing wage in our area at the time was $34.25/hr.
Point is if he had not demonstrated his ability and drive when working for $9.00 I would have never given him a chance to sniff a prevailing wage job. He would have been stuck earning $9.00 to $12.00 his entire working life with me and I wouldn't have cared. I wouldn't have cared because he didn't care.
Amazingly these prevailing wage jobs are still around today, mostly at military bases, but if I hire you at $12 and you don't show enthusiasm I can guarantee you'll never even get a shot at a job where I have to pay you $35/hr.
According to your post, you sound like a good, reasonable employer. We need more employers like you out there. I think the people you see here complaining are typically complaining about bad employers who abuse that system. In other words, they'll pay them $9/hr while dangling a carrot in their faces for that bigger role (and paycheck) down the road while it never comes to fruition. In cases like that, employers tend to lose good employees left and right. But if they're willing to take that sort of advantage over an employee in the first place, they probably don't care about losing them either. Some employers totally have the mentality that employees are a dime a dozen and have absolutely no loyalty whatsoever to them. If they've learned to make that system work in their favor, that's fine. All the power to them. It is their business after all. I think in a lot of cases, though, it ends up hurting them more than it helps them. Of course, I've never been an employer; I'm only going off articles and studies I've read in regards to the struggles that some companies have with retaining talented employees. It seems like it's obviously an issue that matters in the world of business, or else why so many articles and studies? (rhetorical)
Most of the time on these forums I think people are referring to the extreme cases, rather than the example you presented. I think people WANT to work for a classy employer like yourself.
I wouldn't accept a job that paid me less than $17 an hour, so there is no way that I would take a job that paid $8 an hour. I have a college education and great experience/skill set in my field, thus I would not work for pennies.
I wouldn't accept a job that paid me less than $17 an hour, so there is no way that I would take a job that paid $8 an hour. I have a college education and great experience/skill set in my field, thus I would not work for pennies.
That's a different scenario. Obviously if things were so dire, that me or my "so" were not able to find jobs and my son was starving then yes I would take any job, but that is not the case. And that wasn't the original question.
I believe the basics of the question was "would you rather be jobless or have an $8 an hour job?"
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