Taking care of the help

I have posted several times on this blog about employees not wanting to work. They may be lazy, but the way some employers have treated the help in the past haven’t encouraged a work ethic.

My first job in Kansas was loading cabinets at a cabinet company in Neodesha, about 30 miles from my house. The temp agency was paying $9.35 an hour, the same starting wage as the shipping employees. This was a dollar an hour more than the starting wage of the rest of the employees. The building was not air conditioned and barely heated. Shipping department people worked long hours so with the overtime I got by.

Just before the plant moved to Coffeyville, I got hired by the company with no pay raise. When the plant moved to Coffeyville, the employees got a small gas allowance raise which varied between ten and fifty cents an hour depending on how much farther they had to drive. Meanwhile they raised the starting pay for new hires by a dollar because they couldn’t even get people to apply. A third of the employees made less than people coming in off the street. The company said the current employees would get a raise at the annual wage review four months later. Some employees left. It’s a wonder all of them didn’t.

The rest did get a raise that put them just above the new hires, but the damage to morale was done. Word got out in town that this was about the last place you wanted to work and the plant shut down at the end of the year.

Showing  up is half the battle….

….staying until the job is done is the other half.  Last night at work someone went home early because of a toothache. This is starting to become a problem. At least last night we had enough people to get the job done.

I am starting to worry about the resilience of the younger generations. When I was at the bottled water company, Hemroid Harry would have either dipped into the other toolbox and given you an over the counter painkiller or grabbed a pair of pliers and yanked the tooth out right there. One of the things we told temps who survived their first few days was Hemroid Harry was a Corpsman during the Vietnam War and knew what he was doing if you got sick or hurt. This weeded out malingerers and encouraged the rest of us to work safely.

On the other hand, people will go above and beyond as a common virtue if they believe loyalty is a two-way street. If they do not sense loyalty returned, none will be given and people will have no problem doing the minimum or less. I’ll elaborate on this point tomorrow.

Fireworks

When I moved to Kansas in 2006, it was the first time I lived in a state where fireworks were legal to use. What was even better was only being an hour from Missouri, where almost everything was legal.

I moved right after July Fourth in 2006 then missed 2007 because severe flooding eliminated fireworks celebrations. The next dozen years were a great time shooting off fireworks. Eventually the thrill wore off and in 2020 I was working for Wally World and had to work during the next three fireworks seasons. This year I have the Fourth off, and I feel the need to make up for lost time.

Calling off work

I got a flat tire at work this morning. I managed to put enough air to get home, then fell asleep. By the time I got up it got hotter than normal. Sure enough the tire was flat and I had to put the donut tire on. I think I might have a case of heat exaustion, so I called off of work tonight. It took me a while to find the calloff number since I hadn’t used it in over a year. I have got to write that number down again.

Footy comes to Kansas in a big way

As far as I know there has never been a game of Australian Rules Football played in Kansas. This changes on Saturday as 16 teams from across the eastern two thirds of the United States come to Olathe for a combined Eastern and Central super regional tournament. I’m thinking about calling in on Friday night to drive up there. If you are near Kansas City, you should check this out.