Update on machinist trainee

That "late and you are fired" routine when the shoe is on the other foot? When machines break down and need fixing, or a big order needs to go out? I'll bet they complain they can't get anyone to do any extra effort. It cuts both ways, and being reasonable and flexible is a low cost way to make employees happy. It goes without saying that if it is abused, something has to be done. Geoff

snip-----

Clearly, a case of one's vantage point, or perspective, at least as I see it. I see the glass as half full, where you see it as half empty. Regardless of one's position, any time wages are paid that are beyond value, inflation can't (and won't) be far behind. We Americans appear to be too damned stupid to see that we must make compromises, not demand yet more. This discussion is akin to that of a union man versus one that can't stand a union. There will never be common ground--------not until the jobs are all gone, and each party is scratching their heads, wondering where the hell did everything go? I'm pretty sure I already know.

More later, I have to work on the house I'm building.

Harold

In my younger years I would have jumped at the opportunity you have given this guy. You sound like a great boss!

If they were to treat their machines like they want to treat their employees (like garbage), then as soon as their $75,000 machine breaks down a.k.a. is late to work, they will have to throw it out and get a new one. Can't tolerate any late to works, regardless of the excuse, no working on repairing the machine, just throw it out and get a new one...

It's just as ridiculous when it's applied to humans, but more disgusting. Disposable employees.

Pete C.

Welcome to the "brave new world order." The people coming into the workforce have observed how the people that were in the workforce before them [ilel their parents] have been treated. They see no reason to make the effort to get into work every day, on time, ready to go to work [not hungover and with their safety glasses ...] when they can and most likely will be laid off next week or even tomorrow. Businesses went for the fast buck and it is now payback time.

What goes around comes around.

Uncle George

We must be reading different threads. The one I am reading started with an employer explaining (and lamenting) having to let someone go who had habitual attendance problems, but who was otherwise quite promising. What thread are _you_ reading?

The portion of the same thread that referenced a particular employer that had a policy where if you were late for work regardless of the excuse, you were fired.

"well after a few weeks I had car trouble and came in about 45 minutes late , got called into H.R and was told in no uncertain terms that you only get to come in late once

that the second occasion , regardless the reason you would be fired ..... now I knew why all the other guys arrived one half to three quarters of an hour early every day"

Pete C.

There can be lasting effects from increasing the minimum wage. The effects are to change so that the labor is not done by minimum wage people. It can happen two ways. One is that the U.S. minimum wage moves jobs off shore. And the other is that it makes it more economical to use some sort of automation or machinery. So unskilled jobs as ditch digging become backhoe jobs. Manufacturing jobs go over seas or as in the case of a company that makes bolts ( Nucor ), the job becomes so automated that the second and third shifts are only two guys ( neither of them is a minimum wage job ).

Dan

Pete C. wrote: Do

Is a high school kid worth $7 / hour? Well I think they probably are. When I was in high school, I had a minimum wage job the summer I turned

1. I started at 92.5 cents an hour but the minimum wage went up and soon I was making over a dollar an hour. I think it jumped a dime to .025 per hour. But exactly how much was I getting? Even at the lower wage, I was making 18 cokes an hour. Cokes being $.05 at the time. Today Cokes are at least $.50 from a coke machine. So my wages were the same as / hour.

At the time tuition at Harvard was $250 a year. Now it is more like $25,000 a year. So my wages at the time were worth $100 an hour in terms of college tuition.

Dan

I think that comment serves to show that your position cannot be correct. The market is so large and so fluid, that the wages that are paid are, by definition, always at the correct value level.

You can make the argument that the miniumum wage subverts the prefection of the marketplace, and you are of course correct, but the number of true minimum wage jobs out there is pretty small by comparison to the total number.

Jim

Good concept. However, When I was a plant protection one summer before starting a contract job - I had 3 insurance policies (medical all of them) (100% of EVERYTHING covered) Glasses, boots (safety naturally) (uniform) (keeps streets clean and little use) Life insurance bene's out to all out doors. I was salary, but the workers were hourly. Their contract drove ours. I got more money then in one summer than I got in the next contractual year. By far. I only wished I could work there every summer - but to many wanted in on the deal.

This was in 69 - when the cool cars were being taken off the line :-)

Martin Martin Eastburn @ home at Lions' Lair with our computer lionslair at consolidated dot net NRA LOH, NRA Life NRA Second Amendment Task Force Charter Founder

snipped-for-privacy@i> >

Then there's the figure of what the labor comes out as an hourly part of the product. Where I work, and this information is _several_ years old, my employer charged the customer $100/hr for our time. That includes the total wage package of the employee, as well as the overhead and employees required to keep that employee on the job and not wasting it doing someone else's job just so they can do theirs.

| > That "late and you are fired" routine when the shoe is on the other foot? | > When machines break down and need fixing, or a big order needs to go out? | > I'll bet they complain they can't get anyone to do any extra effort. | > It cuts both ways, and being reasonable and flexible is a low cost way to | > make employees happy. It goes without saying that if it is abused, | > something has to be done. | > Geoff | | If they were to treat their machines like they want to treat their | employees (like garbage), then as soon as their $75,000 machine breaks | down a.k.a. is late to work, they will have to throw it out and get a | new one. Can't tolerate any late to works, regardless of the excuse, no | working on repairing the machine, just throw it out and get a new one... | | It's just as ridiculous when it's applied to humans, but more | disgusting. Disposable employees. | | Pete C.

Well, I look at it simply. All objects must follow the same laws of physics as everything else in the world. Humans, on the other hand........

You can hire for the right attitude or you can hire for skills. You can always give someone skills, but you can't give them the right attitude, therefore attitude is phenomenally more important than skills. The wrong attitude is not a deficit that can be corrected by anyone other than the person with the attitude, and therefore impossible to change in an employee (not necessarily the case with SWMBO adjusting _your_ attitude!) if they don't feel like it.

Anyone who has to hire will gladly pay out the nose for an employee with a great attitude, but it tends to make the rest with attitudes not so great really hard to deal with, which limits how much you can pay your best people, unfortunately. That's why many outfits ban discussions about their pay.

I did check. The most valuable advice (Ithought) was from his foreman (he was working when I hired him) and his ex-girlfriend. She worked for me as a temp a couple years ago. She was a hard worker, always on time, and not afraid to use her intelligence. He got good grades. I guess the job didn't interest him enough. Maybe he thought he would like to be a machinist and discovered later that wasn't the case. ERS

Well Pete, you can parse it any way you want. ERS

So, isn't that the reason people take risks and start businesses?

I help my 89 year old neighbor by shoveling his driveway when it snows. Do I profit from it? Well, I feel good about is, so I guess I do. Just don't call emotional benefit 'profit' too loudly, or those left-wingers will want to tax you on it.

Tillman

Well, I guess if that $75,000 machine was continually breaking down and causing missed deadlines on a regular basis, the negative impact it would have on the bottom line, in repair costs, lost production, and lost jobs because of missed deadlines would soon make it a liability deserving to be dumped (or sold at a loss, which is more akin to what happens when an employee is let go. Since most employers don't fire the chronically tardy, they just lay them off. It costs that company to do that, in increased unemployment insurance taxes, and in the investment to find and train a replacement.

Tillman

Sounds like _she_ might make a good machinist trainee...

Not all banks accept direct deposits from other banks. I would love it but you can't expect an employee to change banks as a condition of employment.