Diminishing quality of the labor pool

a reply to: DBCowboy

But then again, earning a good job requires effort.

In my experience, earning a good job requires nothing more than who you know or who you're related to

originally posted by: DBCowboy
a reply to: seasonal

I'd be more than happy to start someone out at 80K, but they have to be clean, professional, ambitious, smart, educated, and willing to work nights, weekends, and answer the phone at all hours.

OMG! You want people that have proper work ethics AND will actually work???? Shame on you for those extreme expectations, and uh, hey, good luck.

a reply to: AssiduousSpook
That seems pretty insulting to someone...no it doesn't, it is insulting.
In fact Einstein was pretty dishevelled looking much of the time, and he was dyslexic, so were Leonardo da Vinci and Thomas Edison, Pierre Curie, A.G. Bell, Possilbly Churchill, (who was also pretty dishevelled at times, and didn't know how to stagger correctly) Pete Waterman spends much of his time covered in coal dust as do miners.....
On the other hand, somewhere in deepest America, workers are building the BMW X3 pretty well, with some very novel techniques involved, while the latest home grown domestic motors are looking pretty good.
So there you have it, some people are a bit iffy, some people are gross, while some never clean their IPads.

What I am talking about is a general intelligence level as well as competency on basic levels. It seems like I can't go anywhere without feel like I'm swimming in a sea of stupidity.

The labor force seems to be lacking as previously stated in this thread partially because of the dumbing down of education and pushing people through the system. My frustration comes not from seeing these people bringing me hambugers or pouring me drinks but when I see people that don't have the intellectual or educational background to hold the job they have. This incompetence effects all of us society because people are less productive and many are barely able to perform the functions for which they were hired.

It drives me mad because I live just outside DC and many of the people I speak of are government employees, either state or federal.

Employers are partially the problem with the workforce but not the larger problem. Employers seem to want to squeeze every drop of blood and sweat from employees. But that is another discussion.

Schools are turning out some blank stare stoopid people. I have spent the majority of my career in R&D, engineering and design more specifically. We get college interns every year. The quality has dropped to a staggering low. Our last intern was an engineering student. We determined in less than one day that he should, under no circumstances, be allowed anywhere near engineering. We ended up sending him to the shop to help out there. As is typical for our shop guys, there was some kidding around. Think of it as a right of passage. They told him that one of the machinists drilled some holes in the wrong places in a piece of steel and we needed to fix the mistake. They sent him to the tool crib to get a "hole puller" so we could pull out the holes and re-insert them in the right place. It took him about an hour, but damned if he didn't find one... The shop foreman, ever so quick on his feet, took one look at it and said, "Nope. That's standard. We need metric..." We didn't see the kid again for the rest of the day. The next day they had him pushing a broom. It didn't take long before he showed up at the shop foreman's office with a two piece broom. The shop foreman told him to take it to the welders and ask them if they could weld it together for him. He went and asked and the lead welder sent him to the tool crib to get some oak welding rod. We never saw him again...

originally posted by: AssiduousSpook

My frustration comes not from seeing these people bringing me hambugers or pouring me drinks....

Funny that, If I should see Churchill, or any of the others I mentioned, bringing me a hamburger, I would really be worried.

originally posted by: AssiduousSpook
Has anyone else noticed that the quality of labor pool for the United States is on the decline?

I think a lot of it has to do with the system we have in place and the pessimistic attitude prevalent all around
The markets and economy is rigged and upward mobility is at an all time low compared to the past.
Because of Globalism, they will have it worse no matter how hard they try compared to their parents

www.epi.org...

I think they are smart enough to see how the game is played

Only Globalists want them to accept a lower standard of living and work just as hard as those in the past did to keep their game going

originally posted by: seasonal
a reply to: AssiduousSpook

Like it or not better pay begets better help. Ever notice when you are in an expensive restaurant the waitstaff is friendly and tables cleanliness are set at a higher standard?

We apply that maxim when we want to get the top talent to run our companies, but somehow, loose that maxim when it comes to lower level workers
I can go to India and see the same thing at the lower levels.
Pay peanuts, you get peanut level quality work

We talk about paying a basic income to people and then question where is the incentive to work if we do that
We pay people peanuts and then wonder why they do not have the incentive to work? Umm

There is a high suicide rate among the younger crowd as well, so the idea of starving them to work will not work either

It's disenfranchising to get on jobsites with a bunch of politics and nepotism and as soon as you start working hard you become a threat and a target to anyone who's been there.

It's a two way street.

originally posted by: seasonal
a reply to: AssiduousSpook

I think the problem is there is to much power shifted toward one side
To much organized business and not enough organized labor
The world would be a better place if China, Mexico, and so on organized labor to fight back
The TPP created by organized business would not exist in its current conception if workers had a say


David Rockefeller
The supranational sovereignty of an intellectual elite and world bankers ... is surely preferable to the national auto determination practiced in the past centuries

originally posted by: DBCowboy
a reply to: swanne

You want to make good money and have a successful career?

Then earn it.

Supply and Demand DBCowboy
If we our a global market place, do you expect young Americans where their parents had it better to shack up 10 to a room to compete with India or China?

I support these people younger than me doing absolutely NOTHING and let the system crash

Just getting a new worker to show up is amazing. After a few weeks incrementally there starts the coming in late AND leaving early. Then the no show days even though they know it's unpaid personal time off.

originally posted by: DBCowboy
a reply to: Kali74

Entry level engineering.

100K

hahahahahahahahahahahaha

Cool

Contact your puppet politician to bring in an Indian worker or someone from China
Why bother with National Market Forces

Just don't call me to reenlist when we are under attack
You can go do the fighting yourself since nation first does not matter anymore

originally posted by: roadgravel
Have skills, work hard, produce, get a good salary then you get canned. The money is meant to go to CEOs and/or stock owners.

That is the problem in the nutshell

We used to have Capitalism based on Consumer Demand in this country
Witness the High Quality Products we used to Build
Craftsman - Now Made in China - Garbage
Kenmore - Now Overseas - Garbage
And So on


It changed from Consumer Based Capitalism to Shareholder Based Capitalism where the Shareholders matter more than the consumers which is why the shipped it all overseas to third world labor countries

Thanks to Corporate and Banking Lobbyists that own our politicians
They destroyed a good working model for a quick buck for their quarterly earnings

a reply to: Vroomfondel

sounds like you guys are a bunch of jerks tbh.

Kids can't learn anything because old people think they should already know everything. people don't come off the farms anymore nor it is easy to work on one's car as a hobby tinkerer. The opportunities for young people to learn as teen are not there.

I work in construction as a laborer for my fathers, someday to possibly run it.
I repeatedly these past couple weeks have corrected the inability of older people to read blueprints use scales and do middle school math(typically slope percents), let alone yesterday wasting 5 minutes trying to convince this senior citizen that his simple addition of adding 1'4"+4'11" was not 6'2" but 6'3" .
I hold that as Proof that old people have really dropped in quality/sarc

Or

The best is to watch the reactions to when a old guy messes up and its laughed off by coworkers, to when the young guy makes a mistake and is berated called an idiot etc, which then leads into a kids are worthless these days conversation.

I believe there was this time where people were taught things. Now employers expect to hire only fully trained workers. This essentially keeps a labor pool of not trained workers as no one wants to invest.

As for fast food workers. If my job was fast food I would definitely make mistakes as I would be bored out of my mind not being able to pay attention. As a thought experiment go outside and pull weeds for 8 hours with no break, I'm sure it'll be great.

I find it ironic how the conservatives bitch about the younger work force being lazy and stupid but want to send the hard working Hispanics back to Mexico because they are stealing our jobs.

www.houstonchronicle.com...

originally posted by: Metallicus
a reply to: Kali74


.finding good help is near impossible these days.

I heard that line in the early 80's by employers when I was washing dishes at 15 years old at a Airline Caterer
Nothing Changes with time

originally posted by: Metallicus
a reply to: Kali74


.finding good help is near impossible these days.

I heard that line in the early 80's by employers when I was washing dishes at 15 years old at a Airline Caterer
Nothing Changes with time.
Me, the boss and the shift manager were outside taking a break after canning some guy that was throwing the dishes away rather than washing them



That was back in the days when you had real dishes returning from planes to wash, not plastic crap

originally posted by: olaru12
I find it ironic how the conservatives bitch about the younger work force being lazy and stupid but want to send the hard working Hispanics back to Mexico because they are stealing our jobs.

www.houstonchronicle.com...

The youth aren't even getting a chance.

There's plenty of hardworking Americans unless you live in California or NYC or Portland. The rest of America works hard.

originally posted by: jacobe001

originally posted by: DBCowboy
a reply to: Kali74

Entry level engineering.

100K

hahahahahahahahahahahaha

Cool

Contact your puppet politician to bring in an Indian worker or someone from China
Why bother with National Market Forces

Just don't call me to reenlist when we are under attack
You can go do the fighting yourself since nation first does not matter anymore

Could not agree more.