291–300 of 606 posts
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Drug test measure whether you smoked weed anytime last weeks, up to three months if I recall right. It has little to do with whether you are high first day on the job. It has more to do with drug war then with incidents.
It’s more to do with liability/lawsuits and insurance premiums than drug war.
I worked with small / medium manufacturers in the prosperous part of the Southeast. Hiring is brutal currently. Last week one company setup interviews with 20 possible new workers. One showed up for his interview, and one wandered in the next day. 18 nonshows. Another local company is seeing 50% of new hires failing their first drug test. Anecdotaly, about 20% of new hires under 30 don’t understand the concept of sho…
> the prosperous part of the Southeast For those of us who are unfamiliar or ignorant about this, which parts of the Southeast are most prosperous?
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Shortage at what price? There’s always a shortage of bread for people willing to pay 1 cent per loaf, and never a shortage for people willing to pay $10. One could argue that, while you think you’re experiencing a shortage, reality is that you’re simply not willing to pay enough.
There can be 10 people willing to spend $inf for a loaf of bread and only 5 loaves. Supply of skilled work isn't immediately elastic.
But I will happily bake you a loaf of bread for $10,000 each. In fact, I’d quit my day job to do that. That shortage wouldn’t last long.
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I worked at a startup doing exactly this last year[1], [2], [3]. Unfortunately, the parent company shut us down after we ran out of runway but it was starting to gain traction. One issue we had was ultimately a lot of people wanted someone to come out anyway and to make sure we had the right quality (and so gain customer/brand trust) we had to do this in-house - i.e. hire actual plumbers and handymen to be on call as…
Well, having someone over video sounds like it would have value :) (even though eventually you get a house visit), I'd love that service. I have some exterior window blinds that need fixing, I'd love for someone to see it over a video call and get a quote before them coming. That startup sounded great, I'm sad it failed :(
One thing we were looking to do was to offer it to companies as an employee perk - so the company would buy a certain amount of hours that could be used. Then staff could have a face to face call with the relevant tradesperson to discuss anything they like. It was too near the end though to get going :(
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I'm happy to be at work at 9am on the dot, if my boss is happy for me to leave at 5pm on the dot, and not read any email or slack until 9am next morning. In my experience it is basically impossible in modern tech jobs to do that.
Seriously. Some companies want it both ways- constant access via email/slack/on call rotations, but a strict clock-out time of 5pm? "You aren't a team player."
I worked with small / medium manufacturers in the prosperous part of the Southeast. Hiring is brutal currently. Last week one company setup interviews with 20 possible new workers. One showed up for his interview, and one wandered in the next day. 18 nonshows. Another local company is seeing 50% of new hires failing their first drug test. Anecdotaly, about 20% of new hires under 30 don’t understand the concept of sho…
I hate the drug testing bs. How is that relevant? If the worker is present, is sober, and not hungover what business is it of the employers what the employee does on their own time? The drugs that are readily detectable are mostly the ones that don’t matter too, while the ones that are more concerning (to me anyway) are either not tested for or are not detectable fairly fast. And alcohol is ok to abuse. Why? It would…
Have you ever seen a lathe accident, for example?
You can't spot test for being high on marijuana or pills like you can for drunkenness, so you rely on the urine test to keep everyone on the floor safe from being crushed in a press by a stoned co-worker (or themselves.)
>> "Anecdotaly, about 20% of new hires under 30 don’t understand the concept of showing up on time (or at all)" Don't kid yourself. Those new hires are at other jobs making more money. I am booked for a roofer in feb 2018 (fingers crossed - friend of a friend). Blue skills are in extremely high demand. And those guys are working extremely hard making really high incomes (400k+). These guys are highly paid and are not…
Where can one go to learn these "blue collar" skills? As a recent home owner I'm learning first hand how valuable these skills are by way of my wallet. Seems like most people I meet who do these kinds of jobs were "born into it", and learned by helping a family member who was already in the industry. Are there IIT type schools which teach these kinds of things on a part time basis?
Another key factor is that a lot of baby boomers are reaching retirement age. With every kid being told college is the only path to become "successful," there's going to be a lack of talent in the trades at least in the near term that's going to continue driving wages higher.
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There can be 10 people willing to spend $inf for a loaf of bread and only 5 loaves. Supply of skilled work isn't immediately elastic.
No. No person owns an infinite number of dollars. But I will happily bake you a loaf of bread for $10,000 each. In fact, I’d quit my day job to do that. That shortage wouldn’t last long.
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Is there a case at all to be made for personal responsibility when such a large percentage don't even bother to show up? How can one possibly ever get out of poverty if s/he can't even make it to an interview?
They say "There are no bad dogs, just bad owners." I think the problems are cultural. (a) Two working parents or a single parent family may result in children "being raised by wolves" to some extent. These are good parents/people but child rearing is a time intensive business. (b) Lack of jobs for young people. In my neighborhood, a lot of lawn mowing jobs are done by services instead of the neighborhood kid. The "en…
In the vision of life that is projected for students, the trades do not find themselves anywhere in that vision. It should come as no surprise that we have a shortage right now, it should only surprise us that it's not worse. Immigrant labor has long hidden the fact that American's are raising their kids to avoid the trades, and we will all pay the price for it.