I am going crazy...

[Ozymandous]

Sorry not going of on your tangent. We're talking here in the US not China or some place like that.

None of the jobs Doc describes are "sweatshop" jobs, so your whole premise is moot. If you want to protest those working conditions then go protest in China, just watch out for the tanks!

The real fact is that a lot of folks here in the US will *not* do jobs they think are 'beneath' them, yet these same folks are the people who bitch about the 'government' not getting them a job or complain about outsourcing jobs overseas.

It's amusing, in a sad sort of way, to see all the union workers bitching about their plants shutting down because the global economy has stuff cheaper in other parts of the worls, yet the same people seem to be the same folks who want the US to go through the UN for everything else. So which is it, do we embrace the 'world society' even if it means that you, American worker, might have to actually make YOURSELF employable, or do we go it alone as a ountry. Can't have it both ways I don't think, but anyway...

Yeah Doc, picking pea's sucks, I did it one summer when my dad had the bright idea of planing about 2 acre's of blackeye pea's for our three person family. Hell, he had all this land I had spent the previous summer turning from woodland to a tree nursery that didn't work, so I got to pick a dozen bushell's of peas, and untold pounds of okra. Okra is real fun to pick when it's about 6' tall before it even bud's and in the hot, rainy FL summer... :P

[Doc]

You nailed it Ozy.

Most of the mill jobs here have closed. A lot of the manufacturing jobs are gone. The BMW plant, when it hires, takes a min of a basic college degree, something that about 80% of the people living in this area do not have. Most never finish high school, and, we have problems with middle school drop outs. SC has the worst schools in the country. Folks here are dumb as a sack of door knobs. The labour jobs, like roofing and construction, are all migrants now. Local contractors wont actually hire citizens. Min wage is to high they say, so they hire transient migrants who can legally work for a buck or two an hour and like it. It's a hell of a lot of money to them. Heck, most pizza delivery folks have quit working, as they get paid one buck and two bits per hour plus tips, they can't afford the gas costs and upkeep. The local pizza industry is in a real snit. It's bad all over. It is almost physically impossible to find a job in retail. Wal-Mart actually has a waiting list that is estimated to be at least two years long of people actually waiting for retail employment. Mostly, there are empty "boxes." Massive retail stores in strip malls that have closed their doors, leaving behind buildings that get vandalized and trashed and quickly become eye sores.

Inspite of all this, there are TONS of jobs. Our local economy is in the toilet because people are picky and lazy. In about 2 weeks, another mill is closing it's doors forever, with no compensation or anything to it's workers. About 700 people are about to be out of work. I am already gearing up for the incoming swarm of people who will be applying for jobs and aid. People who could loose their houses or their mobile homes. People who will be both expecting and demanding a job just as good if not better then the one they have just lost. And I suspect that there will be much disapointment, much weeping and gnashing of teeth. On the 16th of April, it will be Doomsday for many families.

Going to be total hell for the next few weeks. Dante and I send our reguards.

[Griselda]

What would your proposal do, besides satisfy your anger and frustration? Would it help your work program? I can't see how, since if anything it would shrink your pool of available (even if they don't yet feel available) laborers. Would it help the non-workers? Only if it actually convinced them to take the job in the first place. I'm not sure it would have that effect. Would it help their children? Of course not!

I think Occhi's hit the nail on the head with the emotional response that people are having to the job offers, and I think that some sort of career counseling might be in order. You might even think about having a delay between the time that people actually hear about the structure of your program and the time that the job is actually offered. Have them come in and speak to someone who explains the system. They could clarify that the starting jobs were terrible, but also explain the way that the entry-level jobs could lead to better jobs later on. Make sure they understand that concept, before even specifiying what type of work is available. I'd almost think a 24-hour waiting period at that point (with emergency food for the day or whatever if it was that serious) might help people to go home and think about what their options really were, and decide what they were willing to accept at that point.

-Griselda

[Doc]

How the system works is already explained in depth and in detail. In both spoken word as well as written print for those that can read. We even have spoken word available in Spanish, French, Russian, and, on Thursdays, Cantonese.

The problem here, honestly, is the white folks. I do not seem to have this problem with any other demographic. My services can offer a job to any body else and they are more then happy to take anything that pays. The problem here is, the white folks coming in for jobs honestly feels that entry levels positions are (insert racial slur for black folks here) work. They refuse to work in this environment. Time and time again. Nobody, and I mean nobody else complains. In the South, where I live, is something called "The White Wall." And these folks are dead set not to cross it. They wont cut tobacco, pick peaches, wash crates, toss sacks, or wash dishes. If they did, their buddies would razz them to death and they prolly feel they would never be respected ever again. And on the rare occasion one of them takes a Pit Job, they quit in the first five minutes if they find out the super isn't white. They simply will not take orders from folks who ain't white. When I provide a labourer who can't cut the mustard, that makes me look bad. I can't have that. I run a business that not only runs on contracts, but, hand shakes and spoken word. My word, and more importantly, the word of my higher ups in charge, means something. I can not allow anything to tarnish this, which is why I hold a zero tolerance policy for everything. Failure is met with termination. It weeds out the weak and undesireables. It has killed all of the slow leaks. I have everything running tight as can be, and, more importantly, it is because of my iron clad policies that I have made everything self supporting and profitable, and there is absolutely ZERO in government funds coming in for support. While my way is considered cruel, draconian, and even despotic, I have taken a failing system and turned it into a model of industry and working order. I make the trains run on time. This proposal is here to protect everybody, both my interests and the interests of those I serve. If people don't want to work, let them go on welfare and free hand outs from other sources. Let them bleed the tax payers. Let them leach off of the endless tit of the system that gives them enough to get by but never enough to get out. My time, and the time of everybody that works for me, is valuable. There are only so many hours in a day. There are a lot of folks in need. We have started taking appointments now. Walk ins always welcome, take a ticket, sit in line. When these folks come in and take up my time and my resources and take time away from others who need it just as bad, only to turn their nose up and bad mouth a system that is there to help them, well, screw them. They can frankly, go to hell. Down the street is the Salvation Army, The United Way, and the YMCA. Good luck. If people come in my door, they can expect to play by my rules, because, my rules work. They get results. I not only get people jobs, I bring stability and order in their lives. They do things my way because I have proven my way works. They bring home paychecks and food. They get rent assistance if they can't pay for housing on a min wage job and still pay for other things like power. I know these jobs stink don't bring in enough money, but, there is a safety net. My way gets them on their feet again, gives them new financial stability as they learn to do things like budget their finances better, and other things like bargain shopping. My way changes lives, usually for the better. My way gets people ahead, not wasting away in fetid welfare squallour. My way involves no government hand outs. So when I institute these policies, it's to protect the whole system. Yes, it's hardass. I don't like it. Not one bit. But I have a whole lot riding on very little support. If one element goes out, the whole system shudders a bit. I can not afford to have something go wrong. Something tells me this will be the worst policy I will ever have passed. It just stinks. Lots of folks are going to be screwed, but they are being screwed by their own bad attitude, it is not my doing. I can't help everybody... so this will be a divining rod of sorts as to the sorts of people I can depend on to allow into the system and not endanger the process.

I can't give everybody what they feel they are owed. I can't seat them into positions of power to lord over others, I can't get folks their 40 acres and a mule. All I can do is arm them with a set of skills, a desire to get ahead, and nuture their will to do so, and turn them loose in the world.

[Sirian]

Most of the mill jobs here have closed. A lot of the manufacturing jobs are gone. The BMW plant, when it hires, takes a min of a basic college degree, something that about 80% of the people living in this area do not have. Most never finish high school, and, we have problems with middle school drop outs.

Are ALL the jobs at the BMW plant so complex they genuinely require a college degree? And what is the point of ONLY hiring out of a company's entry-level worker pool if there are qualified workers available and jobs needing to be filled? I'm sorry, Doc, companies in your area don't appear to be structured to be competitive in the emerging global market. Being picky/prissy about requiring employees to "pay their dues" down in the bowels of the organization doesn't fly so well any more. People hiring on with one company for the entire length of their professional career is a dead concept. Folks operating on dinosaur mentality, running their businesses in a way in which they expect experienced professionals to drop back to entry level for no particularly good reason may rightfully leave them with oodles of jobs unfilled.

See, that's the other half of the problem. Business is just as much to blame.

We've got over here on the left, a bunch of lonely fellas. Then over here on the right, we've got ourselves a bunch of lonely gals. Fellas need gals, gals need fellas, seems like a no-brainer. But no, no. All the fellas want the supermodels and WON'T ACCEPT LESS, and all the gals want the millionaires and WON'T ACCEPT LESS, so there ain't much "hookin up" going on because ALL of em are living in a fantasy world where they have confused the words "ideal" and "obtainable".

Well that's just the way it goes in a free society.

The irony is that Doc is piling all the blame on the gals and none on the fellas. I find that ironic. All of his outrage is directed (racially) at the workers, with not a shred (in this case) directed toward the employers.

Now I agree, folks who are going to lose their mortgages or facing other emergencies can't afford any degree of pickiness at all. Take a damn entry job already, and salvage the ten or twenty years already invested into that mortgage. Stupid not to.

Folks whose whole line of work is drying up... not good for them. They may indeed have to retrain and start over again as low man on the totem pole. Them folks needs help badly. That is, if they don't have skills and experience to match with jobs that need to be done, they are stuck either with unskilled labor or with a quest to obtain new skills, and they don't have ANY options or legitimate hope of finding new work at the same level of the old they've lost.

As for everybody else... whether or not to take the work depends on the level of need for the money. Just as whether or not to hire folks depends on the level of need for the labor.

I'm with Jaffa on this one. Companies hold too many of the cards. They can put more squeeze on workers who have to put food on the table for children. Having a loud, angry curmudgeon blaming the WORKERS for not taking entry level work and cutting off all future aid/assistance/help/handouts to any who refuse to subject themselves to the "seniority" game instead of having their skills put to best use, well it's like a dream come true for greedy companies who'd love nothing more than to be underpaying laborers who have no choice but to take what's on the table even if it's a really lousy offer. Blame companies for demanding that workers play that seniority game? Not Doc. Doc plays the game himself. If a worker won't debase himself or herself before Doc by putting in three months of free labor "to prove they love the job and aren't there for the money", Doc tells em to take a hike.

Hello? Our economy runs on money. EVERYBODY is in it for the money. That's called trade. Currency. Trade your labor for money, trade your money for somebody else's labor. When there's no such thing as a free lunch, you're a sucker if you undersell yourself.

You've got workers coming out of jobs lost in many cases because the company has just burned these workers, and you want them to turn around and VOLUNTEER to be burned again? To come in and WORK FOR FREE for ninety days? Or in effect the same thing, to take entry level work and "pay their dues", bow down at the altar of the company and take whatever scraps are being offered, because they don't and shouldn't have choices?

HELLO? Doc? You can't be serious. Life is a negotiation. What's so wrong with workers, collectively, the whole friggin lot of them, exerting collective pressure on companies by refusing to be suckers?

If I came to you looking for job help, and I was in a total bind, my house going to be lost, car repossessed, yeah I'd take the best option on the table. If I'm not in that much of a bind, I'm going to negotiate (hold out) for the best option for me. WHO'S LOOKING OUT FOR ME? Not you. You're looking out for companies, ready to stand firm and be their warrior to help them negotiate, to hold the line on their initial offers, which in many cases are frankly pretty lousy looking from here.

Got a problem? Take the sledge hammer to it. One-size-fits-all solution, Doc style. May not fix anything, but it will "end" the problem and take it off your hands. Go for it.


- Sirian

[Sirian]

The problem here, honestly, is the white folks. I do not seem to have this problem with any other demographic. My services can offer a job to any body else and they are more then happy to take anything that pays.

More than happy to take anything that pays is not always an asset.

The above quote is racist.

There's truth and validity, and good sense, in many of your remarks, but that doesn't excuse the racism. You do a lot of good works for a lot of people, and NO DOUBT the problem of racism in your area is far worse among the white (majority), some of whom work very hard to preserve it. But you didn't blame racists. You blamed white folks. That makes you part of the problem, Doc.


I love you, Doc. But this thread is reminding me why I don't belong in this discussion. I'd like to help, but you try so hard to help others, you get in way over your head, and then when you grow frustrated at your inability to fix as many things as you wish you could, it's steam-blowing time. Open the valve and let out the pressure before your head explodes. Swing the sledge hammer at anything that caused you to build up that much frustration in the first place, then limp home and try to regroup. If I try to help, I would lead you out of your own comfort zone and demand high standards from you on some things you're not really well equipped to deliver on, therefore I'm only going to make things worse and I should leave well enough alone.

Best wishes sorting this out. I need to stay out of this forum.


We're starting up a new tournament for a game that plays on Mac as well as PC. That could involve you. If you're interested, we might finally get to play something together. Maybe I'll see you around.


- Sirian

[LKendter]

Originally posted by Sirian@Apr 3 2004, 02:21 PM

[b]The problem here, honestly, is the white folks. I do not seem to have this problem with any other demographic. My services can offer a job to any body else and they are more then happy to take anything that pays.

More than happy to take anything that pays is not always an asset.

The above quote is racist.

[/b]

Thanks Sirian for putting this in the proper perspective. Something had been botering me reading this post, and know it is clear why.

How it is said makes a big difference - I complain about to many IT job going overseas / or to foreign imports. Someone else complains about "Habib" getting all the jobs. The way he uses "Habib" as the equivalent of calling a black person the N word.

If this subject keeps going, let's keep the focus clear and not pin labels.

[Doc]

Some clarification.

The three month period is for people who work directly for me in my agencies. I had a real problem with getting folks who had no business working with other people. This weeds out folks who might become problems later. I had problems with folks stealing money, and generally doing undesireable things. The three month adjustment period has solved all of that. This has nothing to do with folks who hire onto jobs outside.

I provide job services with basic outfits. While I do have some contact with other businesses, most of the positions I fill are common jobs. Hospital work, bakeries, daries, ag work, and occasionally some machine shop work. These are the contacts I have that hire every day of the week. People who come seeking work right away have these options. You can have any colour you want so long as it's black. These are mostly, temporary jobs. People do get hired out of the Pit Jobs, but, many folks have these jobs to tide them over till they find actual work. That is all they are.

Most of these folks can't read to well, and are well, forgive me for saying this, hampsters. Many of them, for many years, have stood in one spot and pulled a lever or flipped a switch or loaded up a new spindle. They ain't exactly experienced. They do not have skills. Yes, BMW requires a college degree of some sort. Greenville Tech offers courses that allow folks to apply for BMW. Of course, the lowest paying job at the BMW plant pays 19 bucks an hour, and that's for machine cleaning. So for pay that damn good, they have a right to make what ever restrictions they want. I am not dealing with the best and the brightest. I am dealing with people, most of whom have never made a serious choice for themselves in their whole lives. Most of the applicants dropped out of school, and then stood in one spot for God knows how long pulling the level day in and day out, and had somebody to tell them what to do, when to do it, when to go to the bath room, when to have lunch, and when to quit for the day. These are not the sharpest knives in the drawer. That's why they come looking for help to find a job because they honestly do not know what to do or even how to do it. Other folks, gifted folks, generally know how to look after themselves and I don't see to many of those. So, Sirian, you are reading entirely to much into this and making assumptions. These are usually people who have made bad choices all their lives. They live beyond their means. They live on credit. They live, hand to mouth, pay check to pay check, have no real skills, and would have a tough time selling them selves to any other outfits on their own. Retrain? You assume to much. Most of these folks were never trained for anything in the first place. They want high paying welding jobs, or driving a truck jobs, or the "fun" jobs that pay well, but what good is a truck driver that can't even read his own delivery orders? That bird don't fly. If you were an employer, would you hire a man for a welding job that didn't know how to weld? Would any of you hire a man who planned to "wing it for a while and watch others and just get the hang of it." Want that man welding your metals? Want a man working in your bakery that can't even do the math it takes to properly mix your goods? HELL NO. Nobody does. These Pit Jobs are a pool. People get hired from these pools. And, time and effort permitting, they get on the job training and work their way into a better job, a little training, and perhaps a little night school. These folks are lucky to even get these jobs... If not for me arranging the deals I have made, would any of you that own your own business hire somebody that could barely spell his own name, or, worse, signed his name with an "X"? Welcome to the Deep South, where Ignorance is King! With the mills closing, stupid people are out of work. And there's not much that caters to them any more. ALL of the local fast food joints, like Hardees and Jack in the Box, require that you have a HSD or a GED, or, be attending HS. You need to be able to read, do math, have people skills, etc etc etc. And these businesses are having a damn hard time finding enough people to do the job. Who would have thunk it, the fast food industry is having a hard time finding idiots to man the drive through windows. We got a serious problem here. We have a very small pool of reasonably skilled workers, a whole bunch of job openings that take skills, and not enough workers to fill them. We have a surplus of idiots who think they be the shiznit that do not want to take the jobs they are qualified for. They instead, make unreasonable demands to get into a job slot they have no business being in. And they throw fits when they can't have it.

Do not make assumptions. What we are dealing with here is no where as complicated as you might wish for it to be. Take the "Keep It Simple Stupid" path here, and don't look to much into it. Don't inflate it, and don't give these poor saps more credit then they deserve. If only you knew just what it was we deal with down here in these parts, you would flee back North fearing that the rampant idiocy and ignorance might be contagious. We are not ready for a global market. Bloody frigging hell, we are barely fit for an industrial society. Simple things, like knowing how to read, is NOT a common skill down here in these parts. Silly things, like that for example, is something you folks take for granted. I know folks who can't count to one hundred. As I have stated many times, we are very much a fuedal society down here. Education is one of the dividing factors. Those that have it stand as Gods among insects. Those that don't just muddle through life taking what ever life gives them. The mills and factories are closing. And a real crisis is about to hit this area, a REALLY BAD crisis. I have answers. I have solutions. While they are far from perfect, at least I am making some effort to change the small piece of the world around me. What I do works.

Speaking of reading, my wife has progressed to the point where she can sit down and read the Condensed Works of Beatrix Potter all by her lonesome. She is trying to tackle the Chronicles of Narnia. She is a good indicator that even in the worst of cases, progress is possible.

[Ozymandous]

Being picky/prissy about requiring employees to "pay their dues" down in the bowels of the organization doesn't fly so well any more. People hiring on with one company for the entire length of their professional career is a dead concept. Folks operating on dinosaur mentality, running their businesses in a way in which they expect experienced professionals to drop back to entry level for no particularly good reason may rightfully leave them with oodles of jobs unfilled.

Sorry but this premise is just plain flawed. Businesses have every right to make people start at the bottom of the ladder, if said people have *zero* experience in whatever the field in question is. I don't care if you were a livestock warehouse foreman for 30 years if you move to roofing and expect to be a foreman there as well.

Doesn't work that way, and ANY business you expect to take people on with ZERO experience in that field just because they had some experience in another field shows you haven't been out in the real working world in quite some time. I've moved around quite a bit in the past ten years before I found a 'career' field, probably had 15-20 jobs and I *never* expected anything but entry level because I knew I had to earn my way up.

If I was a company like BMW, and knew I could get plenty of higly educated and qualified folks to move and work in my plant and not have to worry about some poor schlub who couldn't even sleep his/her way through HS and get a diploma, your damn right I would do it.

It's up to each and every individual to make THEMSELVES employable, not the government, not the business, not you or me. If these folks won't even do that, and then turn down the jobs they *are* qualified for, well I don't have much sympathy for them at all.

[Doc]

Originally posted by Ozymandous@Apr 3 2004, 04:36 PM


If I was a company like BMW, and knew I could get plenty of higly educated and qualified folks to move and work in my plant and not have to worry about some poor schlub who couldn't even sleep his/her way through HS and get a diploma, your damn right I would do it.

It's up to each and every individual to make THEMSELVES employable, not the government, not the business, not you or me. If these folks won't even do that, and then turn down the jobs they *are* qualified for, well I don't have much sympathy for them at all.

Ahhh... Somebody finally gets it. Thank you Ozy, for a moment I was feeling as if I was talking to a brick wall... That pretty much sums up what I am working against here.

And, as a reply, I am not trying to be racist. I am merely stating obvious fact. It's a real problem, and, the only folks that seem to have that problem all share roughly the same colour of skin. Call it a demographics issue, call it a race issue, call it what ever you will, but, understand, it's these folks who are calling it a race issue in the first place saying that the employment offered discriminates against white folks. Which is simply not true. They discriminate against the jobs they are offered and suffer accordingly.