Hiring Emplyees

HIRING EMPLOYEES

It’s a sort of win/lose situation with employees. This is America, right? And in America, capitalist pigs are supposed to get rich off the labor of the unwashed masses. At least that’s what I was taught when I earned my Bachelor’s Degree in Economics and I don’t see much evidence of that being untrue when I look around. There are capitalist pigs of all shapes and sizes getting rich by exploiting the labor market around them. More today than there were yesterday and not as many as tomorrow. And the only hue and cry I ever hear is the never ending chant of, “WE WANT MORE JOBS!” from those very same exploited workers. In fact the only thing that’s changed is that the chant now comes in many different languages and from as far away as India and China. Apparently, the entire world wants to make us rich by letting us exploit them. So I say, “OK! Let’s give them what they want! Let’s hire them at wages just high enough to avoid starvation while we grow fat and rich selling the products they make while their minds and bodies rot in our factories.” I mean really, what’s a guy to do?

So now you have to hire some people to work for you at your, uh, widget company. (Widgets, by the way, are the product that is hypothetically manufactured in every class in economics, in every school in the world. If somebody really invented something called a widget, every business schoolteacher on the planet would have a stroke.) You could turn to an employment agency which makes your job easier by sending you only those applicants who are actually qualified to do the job you have available. But where’s the fun in that? Every boss wants to have a shot at being that Simon guy on American Idol, laughing at the dorks who parade through your office door trying to fake their way into a job. They’ll never admit it, in fact they’ll actively deny it, but it’s true. At night they (we) all get together and laugh mightily over expensive wines and tiny servings of overpriced food about just that.

Plan B, and every successful boss has to have one, is that you’ll put an ad in the local newspaper classifieds section and then sit back and wait for the phone to ring. If there are people who have stopped chanting about wanting jobs in your area long enough to read the paper, they’ll be calling. You’ll schedule them about thirty minutes apart, all day long and still, somehow, they’ll all arrive at the same time. Three hours later your place of business will be empty (and dirty), you’ll have a headache and need a drink. Later that night you’ll go over the applications, try to remember what they looked like and fall asleep laughing. You’ll wake up the next morning, frozen with fear that one of the people you interviewed will actually be working for you. But which one?

Here’s some rules:

1)The good looking guy who told you the funniest jokes you’ve ever heard and made you feel like the two of you were “buds”, is out. He’s lazy, he’ll steal from you and somehow he’ll convince you it was all your fault.

2) The babe with the big, uh, well she’s out too.
3) The old lady with 40 years of experience doing exactly what you needed is out. Why? Well, if she did the same job for 40 years and she’s willing to do it again for you, how good could she really be? I mean really, would you interview for a job you’d been doing for 40 years only to have to start over somewhere else? I think not.

4) The young guy, just out of college is out. You know he’ll leave as soon as he gets his hands on your manufacturing secrets and customer list, or as soon as his zits clear up.

5) That boring, badly dressed, complete and total nerd who smelled up your office – he’s the one for you! Why? Because he’s got nowhere else to go. He’ll do that job and whatever other jobs you create for him for the rest of his life and the only thing he’ll ever ask for is a crust of bread at Christmas time for Tiny Tim. He’ll devote his body and soul to making your business grow if only because it’s a place for him to go in the morning when he wakes up alone in his crappy little apartment.

So that’s what you need – an entire work force made up of smelly nerds who have absolutely no life outside of your place of business. They won’t steal from you, they won’t leave to go into their own business and they’ll work themselves to death for you. The only thing to watch out for, and this is important so pay attention, is if you see them commingling with each other. If they start to bond, having nerdy little relationships with each other, hanging out, and (God forbid!) mating, euuuuuu, you’ll have to get rid of them and start fresh. This is the boss’ burden. However, it is absolutely the main reason why we make the big bucks!