In article .com,
"mr electron" wrote:

What were you paying your "trainee"? I worked at a parts jobber and the
management's frequent lament was "why can't we find anyone who shows up
for work?" The $5.20/hr starting wage never once struck them between
the eyes like a brick.

That can depend a great deal on how long you are stuck with the starting
wage, and where it goes from there. If there's a real concrete prospect
of making better money when you have better knowledge, or have passed a
probationary period, rather than an expectation that the company will
never give you a raise once you are hired, there can be good motivation
to get to the point of making good money, despite a low starting wage.
An employee capable of seeing beyond the current week is generally good.

When the starting wage drags on for an exploitatively long period, one
can expect high employee turnover (an employee capable of seeing that
the coming week, month, and year are going to offer no reward for more
work will think fondly of other jobs, and go look for them). There are
certain local jobs which I'm certain suck (pay, boss, or otherwise),
simply based on how frequently they are advertised, without any other
direct information about them...

Could be any new trainee-prospect needs to spend 2 months doing
janitorial-like tasks to see if he'll show the heck up for work
regularly before being promoted to bothering to train. Akin to typical
apprentice starting tasks in days of yore. Unlike the days of yore, you
might want to point that out to them rather explicitly, and then think
about what needs painting or cleaning.

Frankly, if I recall correctly some of the work Eric has posted pictures
of, I'd be interested in working for him, but relocating is not high on
my list of good things to do at present, and I don't have the sort of
industrial experience expected for most such jobs anyway, having picked
up a lot of casual machining experience in lab work over the years, and
at home... (and worse yet, I've got college courses in welding).

Finding good employers is probably at least as hard as finding good
employees, I fear.

--
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