Where are the employees?

ManglerYJ said:
The problem is that when $15 an hour becomes the de facto standard minimum wage, required or not, the wages above havn't moved the needle. I am still seeing want ads for skilled jobs requiring degrees paying $30,000 a year. Do the math, that's $15 an hour. Why should a degree'd professional be getting the same as the fry guy with a paper hat?

It's kind of insulting to a guy that worked to get a degree, gets skilled in his field and then sees his pay stay the same when others who have put no effort into their occupation of choice see their pay increased to match that of the skilled dude. I'm all for paying people what they are worth, but this "living wage" bs is getting old. Work for your money. The .gov has screwed this up for too long and they can't un-ring the bell.
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THIS.Chic-fila had a sign saying they were hiring and starting pay was $12..Jake drove by that sign everday on his way to class to get a degree so he could get a $9'hr fulltime job at the radio station.Its hard to stay motivated when you see that.
 
1-tonmudder said:
THIS.Chic-fila had a sign saying they were hiring and starting pay was $12..Jake drove by that sign everday on his way to class to get a degree so he could get a $9'hr fulltime job at the radio station.Its hard to stay motivated when you see that.
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Sounds like he needs to rethink his career choices then. It sounds like he's got the same problem a lot of my firefighter buddies have. They have fun jobs with crappyish pay. None of them want to change professions, but they want to be paid more. You don't get to play both sides of the fence here. I've generally found that you can have a fun job and bad pay, or a soul sucking job with good pay. Very seldom do you ever hear of someone getting the fun jobs AND good pay.
 
UNCC-CRAWLER said:
Well seldom is happening right now! I work for Harbor Feight Tools (Just started in October) my job simply put, I work on the team that develops power tools. #humblebrag

So far, not too much blood has been sucked, but every job has its internal challenges, but I do get to use and improve power tools daily as my job.
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Maybe you can lend them a hand in the jack stand department when you get settled in.
 
ManglerYJ said:
The problem is that when $15 an hour becomes the de facto standard minimum wage, required or not, the wages above havn't moved the needle. I am still seeing want ads for skilled jobs requiring degrees paying $30,000 a year. Do the math, that's $15 an hour. Why should a degree'd professional be getting the same as the fry guy with a paper hat?

It's kind of insulting to a guy that worked to get a degree, gets skilled in his field and then sees his pay stay the same when others who have put no effort into their occupation of choice see their pay increased to match that of the skilled dude. I'm all for paying people what they are worth, but this "living wage" bs is getting old. Work for your money. The .gov has screwed this up for too long and they can't un-ring the bell.
Click to expand...

I’m a ‘get a degree’ guy all day long. Whether you use it or not is moot. I don’t see a need to be insulted about pay, with that degree, you’re probably not nearly as capped as that fry guy. A degree doesn’t guarantee wealth or success, just that it makes the barrier of entry easier to break through. You may still be a shitty employee or suck at your job, a degree isn’t going to fix that. Just like going into the trades, sure there’s potential there to make bank, but the best are the best for a reason. Not everyone can be the best and make the most, you may be a shitty tradesman too. My first real job was Food Lion corporate, at a salaried $30k in 2010…adjusted for inflation that’s $38k today…or what would be the equivalent of $15/hr and 17-18% OT at time and a half. The vast majority of folks working that $10-15/hr job, probably won’t do much better over the course of their life. I’m not pissed or insulted a burger flipper or coffee barista is essentially making what I made, good for them. Instead I busted my ass, so I wouldn’t have to live like them. If the wages for your degree are capped…I woulda found something else to get in to. If you got your degree because it was the noble thing to do, or it was your passion, stick with that, don’t bitch about not getting paid once you’re in it. If there’s a shortage of employees, guess what will happen. Not to mention something like 70-80% of all employed folks with a degree arent in the field their degree was for. Somewhere along the line people seem to have forgotten the goal is to better yourself, not bitch about making minimum wage or what someone else is making that may or may not be justified. You want to make more or think you’re worth more, go out and get it, no one is stopping you.

Edit…using ‘you’ wasn’t directed at anyone…just my take on wages and degrees.
 
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UNCC-CRAWLER said:
Well seldom is happening right now! I work for Harbor Feight Tools (Just started in October) my job simply put, I work on the team that develops power tools. #humblebrag

So far, not too much blood has been sucked, but every job has its internal challenges, but I do get to use and improve power tools daily as my job.
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Harbor Freight has something other than warehouses and stores in the US? I thought everything came from China..... You know Cheap Chinese Tools!
 
I think a lot of employees are looking for decent pay and someone that appreciates them, the h2a amigos from Mexico are getting $14.10 an hour, that what the government says we must pay, I know of atleast 3 that sent over $40,000 back to Mexico in 9 months. It’s hard to pay a man 15 or 16 when the part time helps getting paid 14.10 tax free
 
YotaOnRocks said:
Maybe you can lend them a hand in the jack stand department when you get settled in.
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Or mechanic's seats...
Screenshot_20220209-195039_Facebook.jpg
 
UTfball68 said:
I’m a ‘get a degree’ guy all day long. Whether you use it or not is moot. I don’t see a need to be insulted about pay, with that degree, you’re probably not nearly as capped as that fry guy. A degree doesn’t guarantee wealth or success, just that it makes the barrier of entry easier to break through. You may still be a shitty employee or suck at your job, a degree isn’t going to fix that. Just like going into the trades, sure there’s potential there to make bank, but the best are the best for a reason. Not everyone can be the best and make the most, you may be a shitty tradesman too. My first real job was Food Lion corporate, at a salaried $30k in 2010…adjusted for inflation that’s $38k today…or what would be the equivalent of $15/hr and 17-18% OT at time and a half. The vast majority of folks working that $10-15/hr job, probably won’t do much better over the course of their life. I’m not pissed or insulted a burger flipper or coffee barista is essentially making what I made, good for them. Instead I busted my ass, so I wouldn’t have to live like them. If the wages for your degree are capped…I woulda found something else to get in to. If you got your degree because it was the noble thing to do, or it was your passion, stick with that, don’t bitch about not getting paid once you’re in it. If there’s a shortage of employees, guess what will happen. Not to mention something like 70-80% of all employed folks with a degree arent in the field their degree was for. Somewhere along the line people seem to have forgotten the goal is to better yourself, not bitch about making minimum wage or what someone else is making that may or may not be justified. You want to make more or think you’re worth more, go out and get it, no one is stopping you.

Edit…using ‘you’ wasn’t directed at anyone…just my take on wages and degrees.
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This post is spot on for me. I went to school for HVAC, I knew going in that I had zero interest in residential as I have zero desire to be under a house in a crawl space. Was working at a grocery store for $8 an hour while I was finishing high school and my trade classes (started them as a junior in high school) finished up, took a job on the industrial side of things, hated it, went back to grocery business. I negotiated my way to an assistant meat market manager having left as a meat cutter at the time, a $3 raise and went from there. All said and done I went to school for HVAC and ended up running a meat market for $24+ an hour for a local grocery chain. I started life as a mere bagger/cashier. I knew that’s not what I wanted to stay as and I wanted to make the most money I could, the meat dept is where the money is so I went after it.
 
ghost said:
Harbor Freight has something other than warehouses and stores in the US? I thought everything came from China..... You know Cheap Chinese Tools!
Click to expand...

The HQ is in CA, majority of the factories we work with are in Asia, but that’s par for the course for power tools. Maybe some of the ICON hand tools are made state side but I’m not on that team and don’t know.
 
Ive been told that in some grocery stores the head meat cutter makes more than the store manager.
 
awheelterd said:
Ive been told that in some grocery stores the head meat cutter makes more than the store manager.
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When I worked for FL this was the case in several stores. My BIL is a store manager, I'll have to ask him next time I see him.

Duane
 
ManglerYJ said:
The problem is that when $15 an hour becomes the de facto standard minimum wage, required or not, the wages above havn't moved the needle. I am still seeing want ads for skilled jobs requiring degrees paying $30,000 a year. Do the math, that's $15 an hour. Why should a degree'd professional be getting the same as the fry guy with a paper hat?

It's kind of insulting to a guy that worked to get a degree, gets skilled in his field and then sees his pay stay the same when others who have put no effort into their occupation of choice see their pay increased to match that of the skilled dude. I'm all for paying people what they are worth, but this "living wage" bs is getting old. Work for your money. The .gov has screwed this up for too long and they can't un-ring the bell.
Click to expand...
NIH pay scale for a starting post-doc is $54k. This is somebody that has put in a solid 9 years minimum of post secondary education, to get $27 an hour. Oh yeah standard stipend for pre-docs is $25k.... thats somebody that has a degree already and is working as lab slave labor in a higher research degree lab.... for less than the fry guy.
Luckily, to Ben's point, the long term potential is much higher. But when the pay rates for the road to get there are set by the gov, which is years behind the real fluctuations of the market, it makes it a shity road to traverse in the meantime.
 
I think what sets people apart is a lot of what @UTfball68 said. I started off not liking that post, but I trust his judgment when he says it’s gonna be a good time and he’ll be a gentlemen, promising just the tip I believe him. So I kept on reading and sure enough, I agreed. But I’m the opposite. No degree here. In fact I didn’t even finish high school. I’m not proud of that, but it is what it is. However I beat the odds. I was never satisfied with basic parameters of what one thinks was “supposed” to be good pay. I’m not here to beat my chest but I am a very skilled person in the art of negotiation, problem solving, critical thinking, networking, and flipping over vehicles. 5 out of 6 of those skills are profitable, 1 of them is costly. I Took the former and put my best foot forward. I recently put together a list of all the jobs I’d been approached for over the last 6 months and went to my boss and said I have these options but I want to stay here instead, and here is what I want to stay and I’ll throw all these options out and pretend I didn’t see them. They obliged and gave me what I asked for. In return, I’ll most likely make them $1M this year in profit. I think most people want all the credit, clout and pay, without any of the hard work and assertiveness required for that. Part of what makes me good at my career is my willingness to stand firm and have uncomfortable conversations.
I say all that to say that like Ben said, degree or not, it’s the person that determines their success. Rather it be maxing out their pay climbing to the top of a grocery store, or corporate America white collar world. No shame in either but the drive in you reflects what you get paid.
 
awheelterd said:
Sounds like he needs to rethink his career choices then. It sounds like he's got the same problem a lot of my firefighter buddies have. They have fun jobs with crappyish pay. None of them want to change professions, but they want to be paid more. You don't get to play both sides of the fence here. I've generally found that you can have a fun job and bad pay, or a soul sucking job with good pay. Very seldom do you ever hear of someone getting the fun jobs AND good pay.
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He knows he's gonna have to go somewhere else (another town) to make any money.
 
UTfball68 said:
I’m a ‘get a degree’ guy all day long. Whether you use it or not is moot. I don’t see a need to be insulted about pay, with that degree, you’re probably not nearly as capped as that fry guy. A degree doesn’t guarantee wealth or success, just that it makes the barrier of entry easier to break through. You may still be a shitty employee or suck at your job, a degree isn’t going to fix that. Just like going into the trades, sure there’s potential there to make bank, but the best are the best for a reason. Not everyone can be the best and make the most, you may be a shitty tradesman too. My first real job was Food Lion corporate, at a salaried $30k in 2010…adjusted for inflation that’s $38k today…or what would be the equivalent of $15/hr and 17-18% OT at time and a half. The vast majority of folks working that $10-15/hr job, probably won’t do much better over the course of their life. I’m not pissed or insulted a burger flipper or coffee barista is essentially making what I made, good for them. Instead I busted my ass, so I wouldn’t have to live like them. If the wages for your degree are capped…I woulda found something else to get in to. If you got your degree because it was the noble thing to do, or it was your passion, stick with that, don’t bitch about not getting paid once you’re in it. If there’s a shortage of employees, guess what will happen. Not to mention something like 70-80% of all employed folks with a degree arent in the field their degree was for. Somewhere along the line people seem to have forgotten the goal is to better yourself, not bitch about making minimum wage or what someone else is making that may or may not be justified. You want to make more or think you’re worth more, go out and get it, no one is stopping you.

Edit…using ‘you’ wasn’t directed at anyone…just my take on wages and degrees.
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So the 100k in debt is worth the price of “bettering” one’s self? Doesn’t seem justified to me.

Trade school x2. Went a second time for a lateral move within the co but decided not to pursue at this time. Total cost of 5k (for both). Made over 60k last year.
 
I had a sales rep stop by this morning and we were talking about the employment situation. He told me that he had been at a chicken processing plant recently and was talking to the maintenance manager when lunch break rolled around. A whole shift of employees were lining up to clock out and go on break. The manager told him that ten of that crew wouldn't show back up after lunch. Salesman thought he was joking, but he wasn't. They average 10 walkouts per lunch break per day. Wow
 
Futbalfantic said:
So the 100k in debt is worth the price of “bettering” one’s self? Doesn’t seem justified to me.
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It all depends what you do with it.
100k for a degree in education? Nope, unless you really just love teaching. (and for those folks, kudos, we just acknowledge thats a choice of passion vs financial security)
Degree in EE, ECES, etc, that will net you a 20k change in career path with a higher ceiling? Yes, it will pay back its value.
Is that right for everybody? Hell no.
 
Futbalfantic said:
So the 100k in debt is worth the price of “bettering” one’s self? Doesn’t seem justified to me.

Trade school x2. Went a second time for a lateral move within the co but decided not to pursue at this time. Total cost of 5k (for both). Made over 60k last year.
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It's ultimately risk reward, which is what I was trying to convey. Try getting to a legitimate C suite these days without that $100k degree...and probably another $80k in a masters. $100k (didn't cost me that though) degree is a pittance to what it's yielded me. On the same token, I acknowledge I've hit the professional lottery, and there are 200 people below me that would love to have my wage, but don't have the qualifications. So in this little subset of people there's a .5% chance of getting my job...expand that to the trucking company behind my plant and the prefab home building business beside me, across the town, across the city, county, state, country. The standard deviation of available qualified heads among those businesses will have a narrow window. Not everyone can or wants to do what I do. If you told me I was going to end up capped at $50-60k/yr, I probably would have looked at alternative career paths. But I bet on myself, and won. That's not the case for everyone, nor does everyone want that. There's a break even point for everyone, they just need to figure out what it is. Now on to the trade school part, and this is what I always hate, it turns in to trades vs degrees...when in reality the discussion should be 'just don't suck and you'll be ok in whatever you do'. Congrats, you made $60k...now compare that across your industry...is that good or bad or middle of the road? I have no idea...but maybe there's a guy out there that invested the same $5k you did and yielded $20k in wages...he probably won't be as happy as you. I'm sure there are more expensive ways to get the training you did as well...so maybe another guy spent $20k to make $60k. And I'm sure we all have a buddy who spent the same $5k you did, worked for a decade, started his own business is now making $500k/yr and has one of each of you employed on his staff. That same guy and business probably exists but now he's doing continuing education through Wharton because he has a 5 year plan to quadruple his size and area and feels he needs additional tools. Point of all that being, there are different paths, some easier, some harder...some you may never even get to experience because they're a $30k/yr tradesman and that's the best they can do...and that's totally fine, because that $500k/yr guy needs a lot more of those $30k/yr guys than he does $100k/yr guys. There's a reason there's one CEO/business owner and several employees...not everyone is as qualified to do that job, but everyone does have their slot in life, whether it's a $30k/yr job with a $100k student loan bill, or $60k/yr tradesman.
 
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awheelterd said:
I had a sales rep stop by this morning and we were talking about the employment situation. He told me that he had been at a chicken processing plant recently and was talking to the maintenance manager when lunch break rolled around. A whole shift of employees were lining up to clock out and go on break. The manager told him that ten of that crew wouldn't show back up after lunch. Salesman thought he was joking, but he wasn't. They average 10 walkouts per lunch break per day. Wow
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They were tired from all the chicken chokin.
 
RatLabGuy said:
It all depends what you do with it.
100k for a degree in education? Nope, unless you really just love teaching. (and for those folks, kudos, we just acknowledge thats a choice of passion vs financial security)
Degree in EE, ECES, etc, that will net you a 20k change in career path with a higher ceiling? Yes, it will pay back its value.
Is that right for everybody? Hell no.
Click to expand...
8/10 years ago John Deere took volunteers to go to the local elem schools and work for a couple of months during their off season and JD paid their wages.The JD folks got to talking to some of the teachers and found out that,counting all their bonuses,they were making more a year than the teachers.Now things might have changed since then but its pretty sad that they spent all that money to be a teacher and still weren't making as much as a factory worker.
 
1-tonmudder said:
8/10 years ago John Deere took volunteers to go to the local elem schools and work for a couple of months during their off season and JD paid their wages.The JD folks got to talking to some of the teachers and found out that,counting all their bonuses,they were making more a year than the teachers.Now things might have changed since then but its pretty sad that they spent all that money to be a teacher and still weren't making as much as a factory worker.
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I think it’s a well known, and agreed with, fact, that teachers get paid squat. I once dated a girl that had her bachelors and was attending classes for her masters in education, a current teacher, knowing good and well the potential salary that awaited her. I think it just goes back to what @RatLabGuy was saying, it’s about passion. That’s what she wanted to do regardless of pay. I also feel like the kids today LACK passion. They want top dollar first, and EARN it second…….in fact I had this very discussion with a subordinate of mine when I was running a meat market, a young buck that was hungry and had the drive, I have no doubt he’s going places, but he was wanting top dollar right out the gate to be an assistant. So I tried to explain to him the rate they proposed to him was a good rate given he’s gonna be an entry level assistant. Was his work ethic good? Absolutely. Did he know the job? Yep but still had things to learn. Problem is kids these days want you to pay up front and they earn it on the back end and that’s just not how it works…….that got a little off topic from that initial response lol, just felt to add that little extra
 
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