Immigrant Workers Taking American Jobs

[Beefy]

Anyone heard of Adam Smith and his Invisible Hand? Of course you have, you're all college educated (sarcasm not intended a viciously as it reads ).

I'm a high school drop out with a GED.

Maybe that explains why I'm having such a difficult time running a small business!

Oh, well. I read a lot of books (How to Run a Small Business for Dummies is my favorite, next to One Fish, Two Fish, Red Fish Blue Fish). I'm supposedly a pretty smart kid-30 composite on ACT's while severly hungover and no studying-but that was a few years ago in high school. I can't accurately gauge wheather I've gotten dumber since high school. Well, let me re-phrase...I can't accurately measure the degree of regression that has occurred in the 4 years post high school.

Anyways, thanks for the info Kayz, CiniQ, Bob, Grizz, and everybody else except JoeyCrabCakes (just kidding). I hired on two more Mexicans today, and I plan on firing an American tomorrow because he had his 5th or 6th no call/no show today.

Beefy

 

[CyniQ]

I wouldn't tolerate any NCNS if I were you. THAT leads to low worker morale. I think that NOT have a higher education can help you in business. I'm relatively successful and I have no extra letters behind my name. Education is great but consider this. IF you train in martial arts for years, does that mean that you will win that fight you get into in a bar Sat night? Alot of times MA training does not translate into success on the street. The movements just aren't always applicable in an unpredictable situation. Same with all formal education IMO. It may help. But many MBA's are failures at business. I think it's likely because they try to make every difficulty fit into the mold they learned in school. Doesn't always work in the real world.

How long have you been in business?

 

[Kayz]

I wouldn't tolerate any NCNS if I were you. THAT leads to low worker morale. I think that NOT have a higher education can help you in business. I'm relatively successful and I have no extra letters behind my name. Education is great but consider this. IF you train in martial arts for years, does that mean that you will win that fight you get into in a bar Sat night? Alot of times MA training does not translate into success on the street. The movements just aren't always applicable in an unpredictable situation. Same with all formal education IMO. It may help. But many MBA's are failures at business. I think it's likely because they try to make every difficulty fit into the mold they learned in school. Doesn't always work in the real world.

How long have you been in business?

I would agree with this. My educational background is in biology/biochemistry as my initial career goal was medicine. It has done NOTHING for my business ventures. In fact, there have been times where I've thought to myself "...I could have skipped college and still be doing what I'm doing now...". I'm glad I didn't because I'll always have my education and the college experiences; however, I think especially in business, education can be overrated. Most of what you will learn is thru trial and error. There's no book teaching you how to deal with people or how to talk to prospective clients in the appropriate manner.

My grandfather dropped out of high school in the 10th grade, lied about his age to join the military to support his brothers and sisters, and later founded one of the most successful real estate firms in my state. He's passed away now, but the man made an absolute fortune in real estate with zero education.

 

[Grizzly]

In fact, there have been times where I've thought to myself "...I could have skipped college and still be doing what I'm doing now...". I'm glad I didn't because I'll always have my education and the college experiences;

Hey, me too! I'm making a whopping 27k/yr doing a job that doesn't even require a high school education, though one can argue that no job requires very much education. I could have skipped the college, went to work at Yellow Freight on the docks making $14.75 to start and been at a good $19-21/hr by now. What the fuck was I thinking?????

 

[CyniQ]

And it is not only workers, but also the classes who exploit them directly or indirectly, who become enslaved by the instruments of their activities, as a result of the division of labour: the petty bourgeois, by his capital and desire for profit; the lawyer by his ossified juridical ideas which rule over him like an independent force; the educated classes in general, by their particular local limitations and one-sidedness, their physical shortcomings and spiritual myopia. They are crippled by their education which trains them for a certain speciality, by their lifelong enslavery to this speciality, even if this speciality is doing nothing at all. Engels - Anti Durhing(sp?)

Hear me my proletariat brothers! It's time.

Time to rise up against the bourgeoisie oppressors!

 

[Beefy]

This is our 4th year, but the first three we never hired on many people...it was just three or four of us. We have enough work now to keep more than 15 people busy year round, but so far I've only been able to keep a steady 9-10 people (I think mainly because I seem to scrap the bottom of the barrel when I hire).

It's weird what Grizz was talking about at Yellow...I got on at UPS right out of high school, and when ever I hit hard times now I think, "If I had only stuck with UPS I'd be making at least $15/hour doing easy work with great benefits and no chance of being fired (teamster's)"...Ahhh, well. I've choosen a different path...