Take this job and shove it!

[Gipper]

Not Hiring: The Untold Story of Small Business in America

Robert F., a small-business employer for 22 years, shares the rarely-addressed point of view of the employer:

I own a security firm in a major Western-U.S. city. I have been an employer for 22 years. What a nightmare it is! Few seem to understand why businesses don't want to hire--here's my perspective.
Once I hire someone, I am party to a relationship that is full of risk. What usually happens is the "check harvesting" situation where just enough work is done to extract a paycheck. I am on the hook for matching Social Security tax, medicare tax, city occupational tax, unemployment tax, federal unemployment tax, workers comp insurance and all the abuse that goes along with that system. I have to withold State and Federal income taxes with ridiculous penalties for late payments. Often I will get served with a garnishment or child support levy for an employee, and I am on the hook for all this. If I fail to withold on a garnishment I become liable to pay the debt.

To take one real-life example of many: after all this, the employee can't get along with others, grows a beard and says it's a religious right, needs weekends off because he goes to church and it's descriminatory for me not to give him time off for his beliefs.... soon I'm looking for a way to fire him. Now the rage begins! I am subject to violence, attacks, retribution, slander-- everything all because the employee won't/can't do the job he accepted.

I have been through terminations where I was threatened with a gun, had to call the cops, etc. The usual take is that the police will take action after the homicide spree is done with. My nice Chrysler car got a cinder block thrown throught the window a few years back (oh, but there's no proof it's the guy I fired one week ago who punched his fist throught the window and had the paramedics haul off out of my office.)

Sure, I've had some great employees too--people who I only have good things to say about. I also paid them every cent I owed them and they often got more than their base pay--bonuses, extras, etc. But I could write another two pages on malicious lawsuits. For example, I promote some guy and a woman is burned up because she didn't get it and "it's discrimination." One guy is gay and other employees tease-- my job to step in and mediate and manage the mess and "This is a hatefull workplace-I'm going to be talking to a lawyer."

If I advertise for a job opening, my office fills up with the angry, over-qualified, alcoholic dead-beats and weed smokers... they all have rights of course and I owe them a job. So, Obama says employers need to hire the uenmployed? Yeah, sure! Sorry if I sound bitter-- this is my last year doing this and then I am going solo/free-lance. While I might earn less, I will have my sanity!

Many non-employers will read this and dismiss it as hyperbole or atypical; those of us who have had burdensome payrolls know it is simply realistic. The issues of high costs and multiple risks are societal and cannot be reduced to econometric quantification; the burdens and entitlements built into the labor market are not fully revealed by statistics.

As someone who has experience as an employee, as an entrepreneur who ran a small business with dozen or more employees, and as someone who has spent decades as a self-employed free-lance contractor, I understand the compelling benefits of sole proprietorship in which all labor is subcontracted to other free-lancers/sole proprietors: the taxes, healthcare, insurance and all the rest are the responsibility of each free-lancer/contractor.

This arrangement places a premium on professional conduct: in this world, each sole proprietor agrees to do X work for Y compensation paid in Z timeframe. A focus on entitlement is of no interest to people expecting professional behavior and results. An "entitlement/employee" attitude will quickly alienate those who just need X work done in Y timeframe, and unprofessional work or conduct will result in a loss of future work.

The 1980s song proclaimed "take this job and shove it:" in this era, it's small business owners who are muttering, "take this business and shove it, I'm outta here."
http://www.oftwominds.com/blog.html

Anyone familiar with the travails of small business ownership knows Robert's comments are accurate. I suppose some libs are completely unfamiliar with this terrible situation or as Charles points out, will consider these comments as overblown.

And libs wonder why small business is not hiring!!! It was a terrible hiring environment before BO rose to power. It is much worse after his accession an getting worse by the day.

We can thank liberal and progressive politicians for this horrendous situation.

 

[dogtowner]

Says it all Gip.

 

[Dr.Who]

I used to hire for a small company and I surely have my stories, though I don't know how reflective they are of fed politics.

I interviewed one guy and when I was checking his references I got an odd vibe. One of his references said something cryptic that I did not understand until months later when I learned that he was an alcoholic who would drink on the job. One night I got a call saying that he was drunk on duty. I left my family and went over there and when I looked in the window he was drinking from a "mouthwash" bottle. I went in and told him his shift was done and we would talk in the morning. But I could not send him home because if he tried to go home drunk and got in trouble I feared I would be liable. It was a headache to fire him.

It is a shame that people who give references are afraid to speak their minds candidly. It is a shame that it is hard to fire people and we always have to worry about liabilities.

 

[steveox]

 

[bododie]

I too have had experience in Human Resources hiring and firing. It was a joy. California, during the affirmative action days. You had to jump through hoops to fire ANYONE, (verbal warning, written warnings), much less someone who got the job because of affirmative action.

Maybe one of the reasons Texas can grow jobs where other places can't is because along with everything else it is offering companies to come here, it's a right to work state. Cuts out all the bureaucratic special interest crap. Do a good job, you have your job. Goof off, see ya.

Wanna know why libs are cryin' foul about unions? They might have to get by on their abilities instead. Lol.

 

[Gipper]

Is it any wonder business start ups are way down...and is it any wonder business owners are not hiring?

Who is at fault for this man made disaster? A big omnipresent tyrannical government is and yet, libs want more of it....

Libs like to say global warming is a man made disaster...which of course is BS. Everything libs touch becomes a man made disaster, but they are not smart enough to recognize it.

 

[bododie]

Everything libs touch becomes a man made disaster, but they are not smart enough to recognize it

That's because they're cowards. When everything they were SO SURE of from one of their own fails, they jump ship and disappear and don't every have the integrity to admit they were wrong. If only they WOULD go down with the ship, I would be happy to give them respect..afterward.