SNIP
Don't misunderstand, Eric. I think you did something very
good-----particularly the pay. I started in the trade, in the missile
industry, for $1.50/hr. Your $14 is far better, at least I think it is,
even considering inflation. I think the point I'm trying to make is that
you could have offered $50/hr, you wouldn't have received any better from
this individual. People have been programmed to expect rewards for no
effort.

If he offered $50/hr vs. $14/hr he would have had more qualified
candidates to choose from and would not have hired this particular one.
The gamble he made was that he would be able to find a less experienced
candidate that he could train to do the job and that he could pay less
than he would have to pay for a candidate that already possessed the
necessary skills. He lost the gamble, simple as that. If the had offered
an appropriate wage for a reliable experienced machinist, he would have
been able to hire one. Had his gamble paid off his profit would have
been the ability to have this worker perform a given job at a lower than
market rate for some period of time. He would eventually have to pay
this worker the going market rate or they would leave to work somewhere
else.
SNIP

Pete,
You obviously missed the point of my decision to hire the trainee in
the first place. Maybe you didn't read the thread from the beginning.
I wanted to pass the trade to the next generation. I think the USA
needs skilled machinists. And the lack of skilled manual labor is now
hurting the USA and in the future will cause even more problems. The
reason I hired this guy in the first place was to teach someone to be
a machinist. At least, what I know about being a machinist. He would
eventually have to work at other shops to get a better education. So
the gamble was not that I thought I could train someone for cheap and
reap the rewards of this cheap labor. The gamble was whether the guy
would learn and whether he would put forth the effort to give me 40
hours a week of his time while I paid him to both make parts and to
learn the trade. In fact, I lost money on several of the jobs he did.
I expected this. I had planned for this. That's why I carefully
interviewed him and why I called his last employer. He was
enthusiastic at first, but after a while it apparently was too much to
ask him to be at the shop 40 hours a week. Hopefully the next person I
hire will have a better work ethic. In the future please make sure
that you really know what you are talking about when you assign
motives to me.
Eric R Snow,
E T Precision Machine