Affirming Others

Those of us with any responsibilities in life at all, those of who own businesses have all gone through the processes of hiring people. Only a family operated business does not have the need for others. I do not mind paying people to do things that I cannot do for myself. The trouble comes in finding an employee capable of work, one with work ethic, one who needs the job and needs to get paid, not someone who just wants to get paid for nothing.

I could write a book about my experiences with employees, over the years through the ups and downs of many businesses. But, if I wrote one book it would turn into a library. Such has been the problems with hired help. If you go to the largest business in a city, if you go to the smallest business in a city, you will find that they all have the same business problem, employees. I have found that money, money paid for a job, has little to do with performance because, if you hire an employee with so little intelligence that they do not realize the importance of performance, they will never realize the importance of pay.

Give little attention to resumes, with these computer concocted resumes which anyone who can type can extract, anyone can turn in a good resume. All one of my assistants must do is just start reading a resume to me. When I hear such words as “people person,” “multitasker,” hard worker, etc., we know we have an employee in masquerade costume. I always say, I will know in a few days, and like a wife (I have been divorced twice), if you see it is not going to work out, you are far far better off to bring things to an amicable end. It will save you much time, money and stress.

An employee's personal life is none of my business except as it affects my business. Certainly, anyone with two pekingese brain cells still functioning, knows that a blind man must have employees he can trust, trust not only in taking dictation, typing a document to which he must affix his signature, but trustworthy of driving his car, even helping him with money. Often taking money out of pocket, I will say , “is this a five?” Now, if it is a twenty and the person says, “it is a five” (the employee will have made a bonus for the day), the employee does not know that often I have marked my money. Just as often I will put a five dollar bill down in a walkway, as if I had dropped it out of my pocket to see if the employee will ask, “did you drop this money?.” In one of my businesses, with seven cash registers, with a new employee, my bookkeeper would always add an additional ten dollars to the register money for the day. Each one responsible for the register had to sign a receipt verifying amount of money. If the employee did not bring the extra ten back, we knew we had a problem and we released the employee immediately. It cost me money but I hired “spectators” to view all business activity. Believe me, some employees never realize that every transaction was timed. Most American businesses could charge much less if there were not so much thievery.

When you have responsible employees, you learn much about their lifestyle just through conversation. Martha was a very attractive young lady (I am totally blind, but that is what I was told). She was a real estate broker, knew how to meet and greet people, could certainly do my work for me but, in the area of common sense there was much to be desired. For instance, she was a single mother, several children, not one of the same father, a struggle for survival, but she told me her children would not eat leftovers. She told me that her boys would only wear clothes with designer labels which came out of special shops. For a man, whose entire wardrobe is from a thrift store (I don't have one shirt that cost over 25 cents, a man who has never thrown away one spoonful of food in his life), (traveling through 157 countries, I have seen too many starving people). I have little patience with spoiled children, pampering mothers, people who do not value a dollar... NONCONSERVATIVES.

Conservatism is more than politics. It is a mindset. I do not believe any business or life can be successful without the employment of conservative principles.

God hates idolatry and unbelief more than anything else. Working people do not need many of the”toys” of the elite, the idols of this world. Working for me is the equivalent of a college education, I have been told so by many educators and by students. As in church, there is a difference in teaching and preaching. Working for me is a learning experience. But many people just want to survive in life. They will be as much a blank sheet of paper when they die as when they were born. The difference in a workplace is a matter of thinking and performing. You can teach a dog to do tricks, a parrot to talk. Most employees are a culmination of parental and school education, and we all know that parents and schools do very little educating, particularly, when it comes to reasoning and common sense.

The most glaring example showing a total lack of common sense, a woman reared in England came to me for a part-time job, online, she had fallen for a man here in NC. He persuaded her to leave England, move here and marry him. Much to her family's dismay, she sold her home and “charged across the ocean.” He did marry her, took her money, laid down the rules of her servitude, and then told her to go out and get a job. She did not even have a green card and did not have funds to return to England.

The state Employment Security Commission knows little about employees or employers, like most government agencies, the people who work there are just glad to have a good paying job and they care little for your trauma as an employer. Staffing services are interested in their position. Generally speaking, the employer sinks or swims by his decisions. The three “A's” of employment, the employee's attitude, the employee's amplitude, will certainly determine the employee's altitude.