On Friday, June 16, 2017 at 10:31:14 PM UTC-5, -MIKE- wrote:

Here you go again arguing for the sake of arguing.
Some times you have great input an information and other times you just
argue for the sake of arguing with nothing of value to contribute.

-MIKE-

Wow, this has gone from surreal to bizarre. Who is treating employees like dogs? Who has a "master/slave" relationship with their employees? Who is abusing their employees with their tyrannical ways?

I showed one of my good guys that has been with me for a few years now this post and he laughed his ass off. He immediately started with "hey dude... I wanna go get an oil change this afternoon while I am on the clock. Can I get you to pay for it too?" and "Robert, since it is so hot, I need a nap now and then during the day. You OK with that?" Now the joke across the boys is that they are all abused by me and I owe them lunch.

Due to the extreme near hysterics here, I ran some of it by my fellow business owners, and they all got a pretty good laugh. None took any of it seriously.

In my end of business, construction, it must be quite different than the other business many here have participated in. No doubt with the surfeit if retirees, the business model of today is different than even 20 years ago, making it hard for some to understand.

Today's employee/employer relationship in the world of small business is more of a group effort, with the owner being at the front of the parade. Most small business owners feel like they work for their employees to some extent, and none feel like they run the business. With the State employee commission ready to hear ANY grievance, television attorneys (here, anyway) screaming for you to call them if you feel you have been wronged in any way conceivable by your employer, the stringent NLRB rules that are an umbrella for any state/federal guidelines that must be followed, the increased burden put on businesses for reporting employee activity and the need to keep accurate records on each employee in case any of the above examples are off a tick, no one I know feels as an employer that they work for themselves.

I will agree that everyone here is would be the kind of employee that someone would consider a gift from on high, you might be surprised at how you are treated in today's business world.

If I had it to do over again, I wouldn't be self employed. I should have gone to work at a government job, a civil service job, gone to the military, the public utilities, or even one of the big monster companies that were big in their day. 30 years, and out. Then (having most likely achieved all I wanted) I could sit back and joint the lecture on how the world works from a cocoon of security firmly wrapped around me at all times. Sure, I might have missed a promotion, been wrongfully fired (but eventually rehired) and had the other travails that plague corporate folks. Some of my friends have done that, but that wasn't my path, and truthfully, I am no sorry. What gets me to think about these things is that there are indeed plenty of people that sleep during the work day, shop, walk off early when they want, run personal errands during the work day, and generally do as they please while getting paid. I feel like an idiot for not signing up.

I think the last really large companies that I know that employ pretty Draconian measures (by this group's standards) for their workforce is Amazon, Toyota, and for new hires, USAA. All have a huge presence here, between Toyota and USAA alone they have over 30,000 workers. So everyone here knows someone that works at one of those.

Here's the nasty rule of employee law they use on their employees:

- you must be at your station WORKING when your shift starts. No excuses (car broke down, grandmother #6 died this morning but I cam to work anyway, wife sick, kid sick, ate something bad, dog ate my homework, etc.) go undocumented. Excessive documented absence means termination

- no more than 2 bathroom breaks in the morning, and nor more than 2 in the afternoon

- you have one break you must take of 15 minutes in the morning, and one in the afternoon

- you must take lunch every day

- no sleeping during your shift

- no eating during your shift (unless medically needed such as a glucose tablet for diabetics)

- no personal errands while on the company clock

- no cell phone used unless on break or lunch

- no unauthorized time off

- sick days are valid only if the employee calls in. Excessive absence may require proof of doctor visit

- you must take all Federal holidays

- no unauthorized overtime (recent rules mean that even salaried people cannot work more than the Federal mandate even under salary)

- you have to maintain a clean appearance, observe personal hygiene, and dress appropriately (each has their own dress code)

They all pay low to start, wanting to separate the wheat from the chaff, winnowing out the folks that don't want to be there. Your commitment is an indicator of your earnest attitude to be a good employee.

All that sounds great to me! But I can see that for most here, that wouldn't fly for a second. And as an owner of a small business, I can't be that stringent because employees take everything (like here) very, very personally.

My painter called this morning... "Robert, I am running a few late. Just wanted you to know so you can wait for me. Got into again with my old lady.... she always waits until I am walking out the door to start her ****..."

So he is 30 minutes late. Blows my morning schedule up. He works for a couple of hours and says, "hey, I will need to get off early today to pick up the kids from school. My Mom has a doctor's appointment today so she can't pick them up". He thinks since he is a responsible father, I should pay him for the whole day, as well as they days he takes his kids to the doctor because his non working wife doesn't want to, or has to take a 3 hour lunch to resolve something at the kid's school. But he will get in around 5 1/2 hours today as I don't pay for wife fights. By Friday will have forgotten all about it, and will wonder why his check isn't full. He had a short week last week, and I gave him a chance to make up the hours on Saturday, but since he and his wife are fighting he decided to pass. Then he shows up late today.

I would say with the last 20 years or so under my belt, this is a typical worker. His upside is that he works like a demon when he gets here, but when distracted makes as many mistakes as daily progress. So typical.

When I get a good employee, I treat them like gold. They don't lie to me, they take care of my tools, they work hard for a full day, they are reliable and show up on time, they have pride in their work... they own me. I have a couple like that. They don't work for me full time as they get a few side jobs, the go off and do those for a handful of cash (no doubt unreported) and they call me when they run out of work. Great guys, good workers, a pleasure to have on your job, but lucky me, really crappy business men.

One of them gets more done in 6 hours than anyone I have had doing the same job gets done in 8. He has pretty bad health, so he doesn't work fast, but not a wasted stroke from him and he never takes a break, only a 30 minute lunch. I don't mind paying him for a full day. But he doesn't sleep at work, he doesn't walk off to do personal crap during he business day leaving his coworkers in the lurch, either. He knows he is important, and understands his responsibilities. I love having him around.

As you guys have said that I would be an ass to work for, I cannot imagine what it would be like to have you guys as co workers (the correct term for small business employee/employer relations in my mind). I cannot imagine the job site rolling along with all of us working, tools in hand (including me) what my reaction would be to have a guy we were counting on saunter up the job when he felt like it. I did find an employee sleeping in my company truck once after he had gone missing for about an hour. That didn't go well. For me.

Nah... I think only -MIKE- gets it because he is rowing the same boat. You can only work with the workforce that is available. I'll take my guys anytime over the rest of the crap. I think too, my employees are pretty happy as they know what is expected of them, and that I will back them as needed.. They sure have been enjoying giving me a lot of crap after I read some of this to them. One even conjured up Monty Python's "help! help! I'm being repressed!"

Now they have all seen this:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZtYU87QNjPw

And I am listening as of last week to bad replicas of English accents while being accused of "repression". At least this thread puts a smile on the guys faces when they think about it. Hopefully this week they will stop asking me if they can go get an oil change during the day. They are having waaayyy to much fun with this.

They are a confident group, and should be. I stand by all of my decisions; if I tell them to do something wrong, I pay them to fix it. If they make a mistake and it wasn't because they were shopping on their phone for the best oil change deal, I will pay them to fix their own mistakes. MY next perfect day will be my first one. I don't make daily mistakes, but I make up for that by making some really big ones, or several a day.

I would really love to hear the collective's take on things when they have 30 years of being a check writing employer. Wonder what it would be like then.

Robert