Wednesday, April 13, 2011

How smart is it to take a job, that you really do not plan on working to keep?

How smart is it to take a job, that you really do not plan on working to keep?  I would have to say, not very. 

As an Investor, I am a medium to large stake holder in 3 closely held businesses, and a small to medium stake holder in over 20 other businesses, with 7 of them (exclusive of the 3 closely held businesses).  By stakeholder, I am stating that I am a large shareholder.  I may not have a lot to do with the day to day of each of these businesses, but when I send over my do not hire list, they do not hire these people. 

Which leads me to the point of this post, do not just show up to see if this job is for you, especially if you already know that you do not want to do that kind of work.  REASON - you never know how that will effect your job searching in the future. 

For instance, picture this, you take JOB A, only because your bills are falling behind, and you know that you need a job, otherwise your phone, cable, and possibly lights will be going off, along with getting evicted.  So, you take JOB A, you fill out the application with all of the fluffy stuff that will get you an interview, then on the interview you seem interested and eager, your job history is not great, but the interviewer is willing to give you a chance, EVEN THOUGH - they have seen your previous 20 applications for the same position get dumped into the circular file in lieu of better qualified applicants (people that have good-verifiable job history, and really seem that they are interested in working for a living).  So the interviewer talks with management, and makes the case that, if we hire them now, maybe they will stop applying for this job, if it doesn't work out.  Management laughs and says, sure, good point, go ahead, JUST MAKE SURE WE MAKE MONEY FROM THEM, before they screw up.  Interviewer responds, no problem, we have a system for that. 

Long story short, the JOB TASTE TESTER, gets the job, they do not even get to see the training video, the company is weeding them out via HARD WORK first.  Sure enough, day 2 - the bad attitude employee gets canned at the END OF THE LONG WORK DAY.  Day 3, MISSION ACCOMPLISHED, the other trainee sees that the amount listed in the employment ad requires WORK, and that employee does not show up for work.  Guess what, that is why most smart companies pay only minimum wage during training.  So, after taxes these 2 geniuses worked for $53.38 each, 1.5 hours of the trainer telling them that this is hard work, and filling out employment paperwork, and 6 hours of HARD WORK (designed to break the less than serious, and leave the real employees to earn the real money). 

Oh yeah, what did the company make from all of their HARD WORK, $603.00 after all costs.  Company invested $136 in hiring them, and having them work unsupervised at a location, to get a full return of $603, that is actually a 443% return on the investment. 

Morale of this story: 
You are not teaching anyone a lesson, you are wasting your valuable time, and possibly hurting your chances of being hired later, when you really need it (very possibly by a company owned or partially owned by the job that you left on poor terms - PUN INTENDED).

We developed this system over 8 years ago, after thinking that if you pay people a huge salary, they will do their best right away, and be very loyal employees, WRONG.  Instead we learned, most unskilled, uneducated employees, do not feel worthy, and will self sabotage, once they do make it to the big bucks, if they make it there at all. 

Well, good luck to M.S. and H.T. - and oh yeah, thanks for your work on Tuesday, I will use the $600 for my summer wardrobe, my wife's hair cut, and lunch on Wednesday.  I hope that your $49.64 each (what you get after taxes), was worth it.   

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