Inadequate help

[templeton]

I'm so glad I don't have to deal with employees...I'd be a very soft touch and be out of business in no time.
Good luck with the drought, and the workers, and the clients, steev. (not forgetting the sweetheart
)
But hey, when you get the presidency-for-life, it'll be write your own cheques...

[steev]

Oh, you betcha; I'll print so much money you can use it for TP. I mean to say not that I have no respect for TP, but that I have very little for money (TP is a very useful commodity, both hygienically and socially; money, not so much). You can eat a veggie, but what is money good for? Now that it's globally traded, really, what's it good for? Sustaining the incomes of people who never get their hands in the dirt? Why should I support that?

Soil is real and limited. Produce is real and situationally limited. Money is finance, which is a scam, and can be framed to appear unlimited (pie in the sky), but it feeds nobody.

When I'm in charge, things will be different!

"Presidency-for-life"? Sounds somewhat third-world-ish. Really, I think "Grand Poobah" strikes the right balance of humility and grandeur., and if that isn't me, what is?

[mcool61]

I was given a new guy to help me stack cheese when I was a teenager. He was in his early 60's I believe. Blocks of cheese went 9 to a layer & then the next layer goes on in reverse order to tie it all together. He just couldn't get it. I finally said, just sit them on the pallet & I'll put them where they go because this is taking too long. After 2 hrs. he said, I have to go to the bathroom. I never saw him again. I remember thinking, how does someone so stupid live so long?

[steev]

While it is difficult to survive under some circumstances, that doesn't mean that it is difficult to survive, given unstrictured circumstances; that is to say, when the living is easy, it ain't so hard to get by, even if not so well, but sustainably.

When times get tough, it's a whole 'nother matter, and those that aren't up to the challenge tend to get squeezed out; happens to individuals; happens to species. One wonders whether it's our responsibility to prevent this. That's not a settled question, not even near settled; prolly won't ever be settled, unless the biome gets drastically reduced to the point of threatening human survival, in which case, I don't doubt we will sacrifice anything, until we resort to soylent-green, but my opinion of Humanity is admittedly jaundiced. I so hope to be proven wrong; to see that Humanity can get its shit together and not destroy the environment, the Earth's ecosystems, our multi-myriad cousins, and ourselves!

I live in an area that is "in flux"; I assure you, we are fluxed up. My part of Oakland is getting the rush of young people forced out of San Francisco by Manhattanization. I'm not against these folks; they are fueling a re-vitalization of an area long plagued by stagnation, but gentrification is obvious. For many months, there has been an older woman squatting, a block up, in an industrial area, living in an improvised "packing crate"; she would panhandle on a nearby corner. Today, I saw three prowl cars there, and later, her stuff was gone; I have no idea whether she was able to "high-grade" her stuff before it was carted off to the land-fill; I saw the three prowlers getting coffee (and donuts?) at the nearby 7-11, later. Having lived in this area mostly the past fifty years, I wonder: was this really the best use of police services? How do people so stupid live so well off the public trough? I'm not referring to the homeless woman, there. No doubt the officers were detailed to do this "work"; so they did their "duty". I've had clients who were cops; I've known cops who were sphincters. If I catch somebody in my backyard, I can't get a prowler in less than half an hour; am I supposed to detain the trespasser that long? What if I just shoot him, to keep him quiet and to prevent him from being a threat?

So, in any event, stupid is only a bar to survival under rigorous conditions; under generous conditions, even a moron can become President of the USA!

Those of you in the rest of the world: be afraid; be very afraid; the USA has elections!

[steev]

So today the good helper tells me they talked to a tax advisor, who says they can't report cash or personal checks as income, for tax purposes, so tomorrow he has to go see whether he can deal with a company he worked for last year, because they'll pay him on company checks. I'd rather not say that tax advisor has his head where the sun don't shine, but I've gotten along just fine in my business, being paid with personal checks, the last 35 years. I may need to do a tax tutorial for my helper.

In the meantime, he may show up Thursday; he may know a cousin who needs work and wants to stay around long enough to be useful; the farm may be eaten by wildfire; I'm getting tired of dealing with changes in my cage; maybe I need to just shuffle the shavings around and run on the exercise wheel, to hell with the rat-race.

[rowan]

Seems a bit strange since there are many businesses and contractors that get paid cash and, I would guess, have no problems with their tax returns.

[steev]

I'm assuming that it's a problem of ignorance/fear on their part and lack of interest on the tax "expert's", hence my suspicion that I may need to do a tutorial.

I'm dealing with undocumented immigrants, here, who have concerns about possible deportation and minimal experience of bureaucracy.

[rowan]

I tend to forget about those sorts of problems over there. If we get caught with an undocumented/illegal worker here the fines are so severe that we can be bankrupted so it doesn't happen that often.

[steev]

Yeah; here there is lots of bombast about "illegal aliens", but large employers are not commonly targeted and certainly not fined, nation-wide. Here in Cali, it is generally recognized that much of agriculture and service work could not occur without that work-force, which is mostly paid inadequate wages (well, what do they expect, being "illegal"?)

The folks in many states that enjoy cheap produce from Cali (unsubsidized, unlike the commodities that prop up commodity-dependent Agribusiness in states that have fewer "illegal aliens", being heavily mechanized, thanks to extreme monoculture) need to ask themselves whether they want to pay for produce based on the prices demanded by Americans for that sort of shit-work. I've done that sort of work in the fields; it's a bitch. That anyone would be willing to do it for less than minimum wage amazes me, being an educated, English-speaking, American citizen, but I have alternatives, of course.

The USA has devastated Meso-America's peasant economy with NAFTA and its "War on Drugs" and now the refugees ("illegal aliens") are being interned in for-profit facilities for the crime of having unlawfully fled the conditions we have promoted. I can't say the USA doesn't have reason to feel threatened, having fucked-over so many people, world-wide. What goes around, comes around.

[mcool61]

Aug 6, 2015 2:21:16 GMT -5 steev said:

 What goes around, comes around.

I'm losing faith in that.  I suppose there is still time.

[steev]

The bigger the steam-roller, the slower it goes, but the more it levels things out, when it comes.

[steev]

So the guy who was supposed to show on Monday, didn't, apparently preferring a day or two of work, weekly, to a regular job. However, the good helper had had a sobering revelation: the company in SF, that he'd thought to work for, wasn't going to pay any part of his commuting costs, so he showed up to work. We will discuss the future course of the business, on down the road.

It's all a learning experience; when you can no longer react appropriately to change, it's time to move "on".

When he needs to be off at 3, he's always gotten it; when he needs his pay fronted, he's always gotten it; it's about human relationships, not corporate guidelines. Because I've done the work, I know how long it will take him, having been trained by me, so I know how long I have to do other work, while he's busy. So he's valuable to me and I pay him well; we'll see what we can do about his tax situation.

[steev]

So he's going back to where he's worked before, thinking he needs tax documentation; he'd brought a possible replacement; he later volunteered that that guy was a loser, being content to watch work with no desire to join in, unless specifically ordered to do so.

We discussed tax forms: a tutorial; his familiarity with my clients and me; my general fatigue with this business and inclination to sell my accounts, instead of just dropping them; the possibility of him starting his own business.

He wants not to burn his bridges, expecting to be laid off in December; it will be hard for me if the rain returns, as there will be a rush of work and me with relatively ignorant help. Nevertheless, I hope to have his help to build a house on the farm in the Spring; he's a quick study; just the sort of person we need in Cali.

[steev]

The worker he recommended to me last week is an ignorant teen-ager; hard-working and intelligent, but clue-less; after a week, he still wants to use my eyes, instead of his own, to see what needs doing. We only work Mon-Thurs (I've gotta be on the farm to irrigate, drought and all), so he signed up for six months of English lessons which take five hours off Wednesdays (oh, man!). This may work, but if the rain returns and business goes nuts, I dunno. Of course, if the rain comes, I'll not need the farm-time so much, so we can work Fridays. I'd be a much less happy man if I thought I should be totally in control; don't suppose I'd be a gardener/farmer, either; one must be flexible and capable of dealing with what IS, not what one plans and wants.

[ferdzy]

Aaah, Steev; teenagers have just spent 10+ years being trained not to take any initiative. It takes a while for the training to wear off. He'll be okay, especially once he makes a few bloopers and you shrug and say, "Ay mi! Que lastima!"