FW: To All My Valued Employees, (ANOTHER PERSPECTIVE)

[chriswv6]

Originally Posted by Leland

I've been thinking about the original letter for a while now, and I think that while initially, I thought it was pretty good, on further consideration I think the author is an idiot. I can sympathize with the frustration of living lean and working hard to make oneself successful, only see other get handouts when times turn rough. I've worked very hard to make sure my wife & I live a rich life. I don't own my own business, but I have saved a lot of money while owning nice things, enjoyed life and traveled. I am one of a handful of people worldwide who can do what I do, and I'm one of the very best. Siemens doesn't collect $250/hr for me for no reason.

However, I wonder what you business owners think as you read further? This guy says he's surrounded himself with 14 employees who show up at 9 & don't really work until noon. Sounds to me like he's not hiring well. I would think one would want to surround themselves with people who shared some passion for what they do. What about the mantra, "hire people better than you?" Seems to me to that he is probably a control freak & micro-manager, based on his comments that he is basically working 24/7. Now,l I can sympathize. I'm pretty jaded & personally believe that 90% of human beings aren't basically competent to tie their shoes, lest do their job, but his statements lead me to believe he's surround himself with idiots.

Most fundamentally, he's holding a Sword of Damacles over the heads of his employees about an issue over which they have no control. I would totally respect him if he told them to work harder, more hours, work more efficiently, stop belly-aching or whatever. But to terrify one's employees over taxes, which they have no control and also have to pay, is just dumb. I'm sure he'll find that the result of this is that any excellent employees he has (in 14, he's got to have at least 1 or 2 that's really good) will jump ship leaving him saddled with the riff-raff.

I hope he knows that even laying on the beach, being an American citizen will mean he STILL owes taxes to Uncle Sam.

Are you that shortsighted to realize that these employees without the self-motivation of this business owner wouldn't have their jobs? WOW.

My staff is great. I love them and treat them with respect and compensate them as if they were owners (bonus on the bottom line). HOWEVER, the younger generations like mine are very different. No loyalty, the "what have you done for me lately?" mentality, and more importantly the sense of entitlement that I see over and over. It might as well be like reparations for their ancestors hard work. That's not to say that everyone is like that, but you'd be surprised.

An owner working 24/7 is ensuring that his people have stability in their incomes and workflow. I worked 70 hours this week and haven't seen my office staff in the last three days. I know they're on task most of the time and often stay late and work through lunches without being asked to manage their workflow.

There are lean times for every business. I pay my staff before I pay myself and have been late on my own bills over time as a result. Get your head out of your azz. You work for a large diversified company. Your perspective is appreciated but comes across as being very limited in understanding what it is like to be accountable for yourself let alone other people's families like a small business owner is.

[scottnmos]

Originally Posted by Leland

The government's staggering debt and incompetence, the average American citizen's apparent lack of ANY understanding of basic economics and the financial industry's lack of self-assessment of risk.

This is the heart of the issue. People are basically lemmings. They will follow blindly into the abyss as long as they are keeping up with the Jones'. This entitlement mentality, coupled with a complete lack of financial discipline, has me digging deep into my pockets to pay for their stupidity. That is what REALLY pisses me off. I think that every person living outside their means should fall on their faces along with the financial institutions that loaned the money to them. I dont care if someone makes bad decisions so long as it only effects them....but when I have to dig into my pockets to pay for their stupidity, the inner rage is released....apparently to the tune of 825B dollars now. That will easily skyrocket over 1Trillion. With that kind of money being spent and no one watching what is happening......no wonder its going down the toilet. It would be better to just have a channel on tv where some guy throws wads of 100 dollar bills into a fire pit and watches it burn. 24hours a day......Even the head of the Union said they have no stipulations with regards to the bailout monies and have no reason to believe anything will change. They have made no move to change the way business is handled, nor is anything slated for removal. So there it is.... no strings attached.... the fruit of OUR (thats right....all of us) labor being burned in a giant bonfire and all I can think is I f'ing told you so.......bailouts are bull$h!t.......let them fall....

[Highwaylizard]

Originally Posted by scottnmos

This is the heart of the issue. People are basically lemmings. They will follow blindly into the abyss as long as they are keeping up with the Jones'. This entitlement mentality, coupled with a complete lack of financial discipline, has me digging deep into my pockets to pay for their stupidity. That is what REALLY pisses me off. I think that every person living outside their means should fall on their faces along with the financial institutions that loaned the money to them. I dont care if someone makes bad decisions so long as it only effects them....but when I have to dig into my pockets to pay for their stupidity, the inner rage is released....apparently to the tune of 825B dollars now. That will easily skyrocket over 1Trillion. With that kind of money being spent and no one watching what is happening......no wonder its going down the toilet. It would be better to just have a channel on tv where some guy throws wads of 100 dollar bills into a fire pit and watches it burn. 24hours a day......Even the head of the Union said they have no stipulations with regards to the bailout monies and have no reason to believe anything will change. They have made no move to change the way business is handled, nor is anything slated for removal. So there it is.... no strings attached.... the fruit of OUR (thats right....all of us) labor being burned in a giant bonfire and all I can think is I f'ing told you so.......bailouts are bull$h!t.......let them fall....

AMEN!!!!

Time for Darwinian Economics

[TundraBay]

Originally Posted by scottnmos

This is the heart of the issue. People are basically lemmings. They will follow blindly into the abyss as long as they are keeping up with the Jones'. This entitlement mentality, coupled with a complete lack of financial discipline, has me digging deep into my pockets to pay for their stupidity. That is what REALLY pisses me off. I think that every person living outside their means should fall on their faces along with the financial institutions that loaned the money to them. I dont care if someone makes bad decisions so long as it only effects them....but when I have to dig into my pockets to pay for their stupidity, the inner rage is released....apparently to the tune of 825B dollars now. That will easily skyrocket over 1Trillion. With that kind of money being spent and no one watching what is happening......no wonder its going down the toilet. It would be better to just have a channel on tv where some guy throws wads of 100 dollar bills into a fire pit and watches it burn. 24hours a day......Even the head of the Union said they have no stipulations with regards to the bailout monies and have no reason to believe anything will change. They have made no move to change the way business is handled, nor is anything slated for removal. So there it is.... no strings attached.... the fruit of OUR (thats right....all of us) labor being burned in a giant bonfire and all I can think is I f'ing told you so.......bailouts are bull$h!t.......let them fall....

Well we're in agreement there.

[Leland]

Originally Posted by chriswv6

Are you that shortsighted to realize that these employees without the self-motivation of this business owner wouldn't have their jobs? WOW.

Hardly. I just can't understand why a small business owner would put up with this. I plan to start my own business in about a decade or so, and can't imagine surrounding myself with people who don't carry their weight or add value.

Originally Posted by chriswv6

My staff is great. I love them and treat them with respect and compensate them as if they were owners (bonus on the bottom line). HOWEVER, the younger generations like mine are very different. No loyalty, the "what have you done for me lately?" mentality, and more importantly the sense of entitlement that I see over and over. It might as well be like reparations for their ancestors hard work. That's not to say that everyone is like that, but you'd be surprised.

An owner working 24/7 is ensuring that his people have stability in their incomes and workflow. I worked 70 hours this week and haven't seen my office staff in the last three days. I know they're on task most of the time and often stay late and work through lunches without being asked to manage their workflow.

There are lean times for every business. I pay my staff before I pay myself and have been late on my own bills over time as a result. Get your head out of your azz. You work for a large diversified company. Your perspective is appreciated but comes across as being very limited in understanding what it is like to be accountable for yourself let alone other people's families like a small business owner is.

Yea, because in a large company there's no one who doesn't pull their own weight? I work for a big company, but believe me, I spend more than 50% of my time at work (which often spans much more than 60-70 hour weeks) making up for the laziness, stupidity and entitlement of others. If anything, I'd expect the entitlement to be much worse in my big company, as it's MUCH easier for individuals to hide. BTW, I'm 34, and I see people of all ages with this sense of entitlement--from 20 to 65.

You seem to have surrounded yourself with great people. I furthermore applaud your dedication to your staff. However, back to my previous post, the original author seemed to indicate that he had a staff of lemmings on autopilot. Clock in @ 9, out @ 5 with probably 3 hours of real work in between; which would be, in general no different than my office. Would you really employ people like that? This is what I was really getting at.

You mention feeling accountable for employee's families, but that should be a two-way street. If they don't feel accountable for your business, what's your motivation to compensate them? It's a business, not a charity. You're not "too-big-to-fail" GM who's doing the nation a favor by employing useless jerks. Re-read what I posted. I said that I would totally have respected him for telling them to work harder to pull their weight, but he didn't. Instead he was complaining about taxes, and that was why he was going to lay them off--something they can't do anything about.

[UnSub]

LeLand, you may have missed that chriswv6 is the original poster.
I talked to a guy in his 70s last year that started a plastics company when he was a young man. He had financial security but stayed on to run the company because he felt responsible for the employees and their families that had helped him succeed in life. He thought of them as his extended family and wanted them to have security. He faced issues of outsourcing and taxes. He cared about his employees however, and they cared about him. That is the way it should be.

[chriswv6]

Originally Posted by Leland

You seem to have surrounded yourself with great people. I furthermore applaud your dedication to your staff. However, back to my previous post, the original author seemed to indicate that he had a staff of lemmings on autopilot. Clock in @ 9, out @ 5 with probably 3 hours of real work in between; which would be, in general no different than my office. Would you really employ people like that? This is what I was really getting at.

Perhaps what is hard to measure is the effectiveness of your employee's time spent at work. I hear time and again how hard it is to find good hardworking people and I couldn't agree more. I'm focused and on task almost 100% of the time I'm working. If driving I'm on the phone (notice no TS posts during the day from me!)

I interviewed a young man on Thursday who at the end of the meeting somehow missed the point of my desire to not have traditional "Employee's". I was providing him an interest free loan to start a business and was willing to mentor him into my already successful practice without any risk to him - just too shortsighted to see it. He went from enterpreneur to employee in just a few words that nearly turned me off to even considering him.

[ThirdHorseman]

I love the family that owns our company (and many more businesses). Even though they've been successful for 80+ years and several generations, they are very modest by nature, and live very frugally considering their tremendous worth. They drive the vehicles that their dealerships sell, in particular, the Lincoln MKS. They don't drive the Town Car, or even the Navigator. They are the farthest thing from nouveau riche, and it goes a long way. I consider them as part of my extended family. They are very altruistic and dedicated to charitable causes, etc.

They are involved in all company events, even though there are thousands of employees. When I first came on board 2.5 years ago, I thought everyone was just drinking the rah-rah kool-aid, but then I realized that the company really does care about the staff, and it made me just want to work harder

[got wake?]

Originally Posted by Leland

Hardly. I just can't understand why a small business owner would put up with this. I plan to start my own business in about a decade or so, and can't imagine surrounding myself with people who don't carry their weight or add value.

good luck finding good employees. i currently employ 15 people and have fired over 50 in the past 3.5 years. i tell all my potential employees that they will only be limited by themselves. if they prove they can do more than the job they are currently doing, i will promote them accordingly with an appropriate pay raise. i've employed people ranging from 18 to 67, and i've come to the conclusion that it doesn't matter their age, the entitlement issues of today's society is absolutely disgusting. not to mention the lack of work ethics anymore. i've said it before and i'll say it again, if i didn't have problems with employees, my company would have grown twice as fast that it has.

[stevencrosbie]

Originally Posted by scottnmos

I blame Bush for a lot. I admire the man, but I do not agree with him. I am and always will be against any type of bailout and handout what-so-ever. But blaming Bush for the collapse of the bridge (hmmm is that a White House issue or a local one) and the massive amounts of people actually living BELOW sea level...... dont think so. If you actually live in an area below sea level, then after REPEATEDLY warned to leave in the face of a massive hurricane, then get rescued (most likely by friends of mine that risked their lives) only to turn around and blame the government for your problems.....doesnt fly with me. I have had it with lack of personal responsibility. It is always someone else who is at fault. Never me. Hey I cant verify my income and dont have a social security number, I just bought a million dollar house, and now I cant afford the payments that are not interest only......please Uncle Sam....HELP ME!
A little education can go a long way. I remember reading an article a few weeks back about people whining that they had to have good credit, 2 years of solid work history, and 15 to 20% down on a home. WOW......that is the way it was before the ARM explosion and how it should have been all along. But who do we blame? The banks and the lenders. How about the guy who got the loan. Look at who de-regulated the banks. Republicans are not all to blame, nor are democrats. I dont care who did it, it was irresponsible. Many lenders were mandated to give loans to people who usually were not qualified for home ownership. Then when the ship sinks.... they all point the finger. Congress placed these requirements on the lenders, whether they be republican or democrat I dont care....... they are to blame for this and a trillion dollars more in govt spending to clean up their mistakes are not the answer.

Once we get our feet under ourselves and start taking responsibility for our actions, will this nation recover. Until then we will all argue and point the finger. While they are busy blaming everyone else, I'll be buying foreclosed homes at a cut rate and making a fortune. Let them sort out that crap.

Being around people like you in the military are the many reasons why I enjoy being in the AF so much.

Heck, I enjoy this forum as much as I do b/c of all of the people who think like me.

I enjoyed the letter. If only a real owner could say that without being sued by those who didn't agree with him / her.

[TundraBay]

One of the reasons I enjoy this form is because I think it is useful to expose myself to thoughtful people who DON'T think like me.

I'm generally pretty diplomatic, and to use an undiplomatic phrase "I don't want to sh!t in anyone's cornflakes".

I will say, however, that we all are too quick to take credit for our successes, and place blame for our failures.

I've been successful, and I've worked hard. But no doubt there are people who have worked harder, committed themselves more, and found less success than I.

I think it helps keep you honest if you acknowledge that often success is the result of fortunate circumstances.

Regarding failure, even when meeting failure in one's life, even when it is clearly brought on externally, it makes sense that I see what role did I play in these circumstances, and more importantly, what can I learn from this failure? Placing the blame on others only enables me to more failure.