Posted on 09/03/2007 11:07:38 AM PDT by afraidfortherepublic
Most are in their late 20’s early 30’s. I also raise Quarter Horses for cutting. Work with kids in that area also. Some older people get burned out from all the politics in business today. All they want to do is do their job, make a decent salary and be treated as though they are worth something to the company. Younger people today believe they can run the company better rather than take the time to learn. Many don’t want to learn from the older folks.
The people I have a hard time replacing are the touch up people, the test people, the machine operators, machinists, the basic manufacturing skills. And, of course, anybody with a work ethic is almost impossible these days. On time? (forget it!) Over-time? (forget it!) Work a full 40 hours in a week? (forget it) Show up every day? (forget it) They are really good while they are on probation, and the minute they qualify for full benefits, their attention and dedication deteriorates.
We have the best luck with vets, when we can getthem. I have a wonderful Iraq vet (Marine) who is finishing college and he works for us part time. But, I am going to lose him soon as he leaves to try an office job in preparation for his graduation. He is not an engineer, or I'd put him in my office, and he has his sights set on something higher than purchasing. I am really going to miss him.
Might be a real adventure.
At some point the dirtiest mechanic, the main Man, might take interest and start showing you how things worked, if you showed talent. He then lead you through more difficult tasks and eventually you got drafted, I enlisted an insane act that was prompted by similar insane acts by male members of my family for the last 380 years.
If you want to learn engine mechanics, join the Army or the Navy, Regulars, Reserves, or NG, small engines, Diesel. Don't be a grunt unless you love the rush, as I did.
I don’t and never did like the idea of probation....unless it was 6 months or longer. People can make do on 30-60 day probation periods. One thing for sure, never call a person a permanent employee. EEO can kill you on that if you try and get rid of them. I’ve fired a few people that didn’t show up for work. You’ll see the slackers always take of on Mondays or Fridays.....I’d warn them one time.
I gotta say that's contradictory. A good circuit board designer would not design without a computer any more then a good draftsperson would pull out triangles and vellum. He would know how for simple jobs but will also know that the computer will do a better job in less time. Best tools for the job and all.
Yes, I've laid out simple PC boards using a resist pen and I'm old enough to know how to draft by hand (BSEE). I also understand the problems with CAD. You do need to understand what the program is doing or you wind up with right angles on traces running MHz signals. Intel had major problems, digitial thinkers, one old Ham in the mix would have saved them years back in the 66MHz bus days.
The reason American corporate and business leaders have no feelings about their workers is because when they went to college they learned business knowledge devoid of moral eduction. Today people are taught to make money fast, before the product becomes a problem, and hopefully you would retire rich and let the successor (or taxpayer) solve the problem. Just look at the subprime bubble, the hight tech bubble, the junk bond bubble, the Enron, the Worldcom, Social Security pyramid, Medicare pyramid, illegal immigration, soon transfer of private health care obligation to federal thru national health care, etc, etc, etc. Interesting, many of these schemers are extremely intelligent and some are educated in our best schools (Yale/Havard/etc etc). All this happen when colleges excluded ethics and morality form education. President Theodore Roosevelt once commented that providing an education to a man devoid of morality and you will end up with an educated menace.
Yeah, Iran has one.... I don't really want to build weapons for other countries to use on us if you don't mind.
My mother has almost 2 million safe miles driving truck for Schneider and is only a year or two away from retirement. They haven’t given her a load to haul in almost a month.
Is that the way you were treated in your career?
The people I need the most are the people with fine motor skills who clean up the circuit board AFTER it comes off the machine. As far as I know, there is no machine that can do that. Shoot, sometimes I have to put my HUSBAND on the touch up line, and he’s the President! Same with the test lab. My husband disappears for hours in there tweaking stuff. The younger workers just don’t care. They will scrap an expensive circuit board, rather than make it work.
well, do you think a spanish speaking person of illegal citizenship status can compete with that?
Yeah I know....computers can do it faster but not always better. The designer has to know what he/she wants first. I worked for Tektronix in Oregon. We designed 14 layer boards. Did some for Intel when the 286 and 386 motherboards came out.
This has been a really interesting thread with lots of useful thoughts, experiences, and comments. I would like to add a few as a retired college graduate, craftsperson, social activist.
Topic: Scholastic vs Technical Education. Yes, we have had a harmful attitude of seeking white collar employment vs. blue colar jobs. My father was the kind who tried to do everything. Repaired his own car, grew a lot of our food, built a large addition on to our house, while working a regular job. When I married, I assumed my husband would fix cars and the house too. I discovered too late when he said: “I didn’t spend 4 years in college just to get my hands dirty.” We kids had to help out and learned useful skills in the process. I learned entrepreneurship and sales from selling the surplus garden veggies that my father let me keep the money from. Learned building skills from helping my father build a Popular Mechanics masonite covered trailer. Am currently renovating two houses doing part of the work myself and training unskilled people to do what is too heavy for me. When I left for college my younger brothers learned skills. One brother became an architect. The dyslexic brother became a craftsman/builder. He once said early in adulthood he had learned 3 things growing up and earned money at all 3 — auto mechanics, cooking and carpentry.
Unfortunately, our schools have really dropped the ball on technical education. People wonder why there are so many Latino immigrants working at the trades and so few black people. The inner city schools are not teaching useful trades at any meaningful level. Black colleges have stressed academic education, becoming a doctor, dentist, teacher, etc. In the past this may have made sense as the White Man could not steal what was in your mind. Now that social conditions have improved the Black political and educational institutions need to revise they way they influence their young people. I served for several years on a Mayoral committee for street vending. Big business was very hostile, and the local Black college was also anti vending—so much for Black entrepreneurship. Youngsters of both races need to learn skills that cannot be outsourced. My dyslexic son, after years of difficulty in school, has become an electrician with lots of work in Miami. There are many young people who are dyslexic, but with the right training could become useful, paid workers in this society. My son did not get the help he needed in school. After several years of drifting I persuaded a friend with a graphic arts/sign building business to mentor him, but not put up with a bad attitude, and he finally got on the right road. I had always told my son that with his people skills he should not led the reading problem handicap him. Now he often supervises crews of from 3 to 5 people.
Topic: Big vs Small Business. Please don’t FLAME me on this one, I know it is controversial. To what extent is all this outsourcing caused by the incredible increase in upper level management and CEO compensation. Thirty years ago CEOs were paid about 40 times the wages of their low level employees. Now instead of 40:1, the ratio is from 400-1,000:1. Granted there are a lot of good MBA programs out there, but I doubt that top executives are 10 to 25 TIMES more productive, creative, valuable than they were 30 years ago. If they are getting such a big piece of the Profit pie, then, of course, they have to underpay their workers or send the jobs overseas. Incidentally, I think it is very important for any creative/contributing person to realize a reasonable profit. Learning the kind of work that cannot be outsourced, working for yourself or a small local company seem to be the safest routes to follow.
Topic: Older Workers vs Younger Workers. Our government has recognized that keeping workers on the job longer is important for being able to contribute to the Social Security/Medicare pot, since the birth rate has gone down. Already retirement ages have been legally increased. This is not so bad for white collar workers and some types of blue collar work. However, some blue collar work is so physically stressful, that it is grossly unfair to force these workers to the same longevity standards. There also needs to be more flexibility for older workers, such as working fewer hours or days a month, and allowing longer vacation periods, not necessarily paid, for recuperation. There should also be programs in place for these experienced workers to mentor the young. Whatever happened to apprenticeships? Perhaps local tinkering clubs could be established to bring young and old together making and fixing things. Governments need to establish insurance programs to protect people and groups who are only trying to do worthwhile things. Kind of a “good Samaritan” insurance.
"Young" being anyone under 50....
I sure wouldn't want to work for you.
He rented Cindy Shehag?
Scrap????? Dirty word! We use to have a 10% accepted scrap rate on circuit boards. The problem with that is that you always go 7-8% scrap and people were comfortable with that.....as long as they stayed below 10%. We changed it to 0% scrap rate and the actual scrap rate droped to 2-3%. Not only that, all scrap had to be documented and determined why it happened. Could be in manufacturing or the original design.
Slackers! Fire 'em, right RC2?
You know the mistakes those younguns make?
We geezers already made em! (and plenty more!)
And learned from it.
>>Not at all. They put their house up for sale at an astronomical price and fled the state to build again in MO, where land is cheaper.Their house was NOT marketable at the price they asked (IMO) but, they lucked out, got their price and got away wit
WHY am i not surprised?
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.