Capital Or Labor

[JCCWIS]

Kay , I think losing the work ethic can be placed on alot of baby boomer parents. I have heard many parents comment " I don't want my kids to work as hard as I had to "..........My reply " I want my boys to work harder than I did.....maybe they will be better for it !!! "

 As a side note : Our three boys [ men today] are all doing very well today moneywise and retirement planning .

 John

[Kay/NC]

There was a period in my lifetime when I heard several people say to me that I was " the hardesy working woman x(they) knew". I know that as a teenaged girl of the sixties, my father " liberated" me from domestic chires, because he figured ( correctly) that I coukd drive a tractor, in place of him hiring another man.
Mike worked aphard, but in a vert different way...taking public jobs off the small family farm from about age 13. He worked rsilriad conductor/brakeman shifts, and farmed on tne side, do I could be at home with the kids.

This is why I do not feel so bad, when people do not comprehend our less-demanding duties now, at age 59 and counting. I have had to work since I was six, and so did my husband. We had tobacco and pesnut tasks in season, along with livestock and poultry chores ecery day of the year.

Our kids have worked hard, too. The daughter that passed was in the crazy hours of retail management. The other one is the hardest working woman I know, now. Our son does several different forms of contracting and art work, so marches to a bit different drummer, but still has to root hog or die. It woukd be a lot easier for him to take a job and let someone else have the headaches.

I think we all do our kids a favor by letting them work as early in life as they can. Our grandson, who just turned two in November, has found that he feels important whenever he gets to " he-yulp". I always say that kids would rather work with an adult, than be told to "go play" on their own. It may take twice as long to do a job with that second tiny pair of hands involved, but the bond that forms in shared tasks is priceless.

[wt51015]

Also doesn't hurt to teach them that a clean house makes life after the hard day at work so much easier. Too much time is taken up by not knowing where things are when you need them. 

[smokeyjay]

Sw, I modified the plan.  My school lacked one critical statistics course for me to take and then sit for the exam.  I did do accounting work for a company and later did  tax and general accounting work on a contractual basis. 

[sw363535]

Thanks Smokey,  It has been obvious that you are well versed in economic and management issues.  I continue to *injoy your posts.

On the subject of labor ------------ You can't teach experience.  Experience is the power that makes the lightbulb come on.  I read this thread the last couple of days and last night I went to a local com. college basketball game and wondered how many of the 20 yr olds I was watching had any experience in work responsibilities.  

[Kay/NC]

They really cannot be blamed for lack of a resume'... A 20-year-old today was fifteen in 2008, when the rug was jerked unceremoniously from under the American economy. Fifteen is too young to get a work permit most places. Opportunities have not been great for job experience in their available window of years to enter the workforce.

If the family they drew in the birth lottery provides them a good example and some responsibilities to teach them proper work habits and pride in their accomplishments, then they are among the lucky few who get that these days.

[Kay/NC]

Being the repository of knowledge of the location of every item on all the places in both states takes up a lot of my memory banks. Mike wanted one particular box of fasteners the other day, and I had to stop what I was doing, and channel the last time I touched that item, where I was standing, why I was moving it, etc.

We often look at each other now, that we are back active on his Virginia place again, and ask ourselves, " Is it in Virginia or Carolina?" To avoid doing without something for a day or two between trips, we have developed a sort of system of organizing work further ahead, making sure everything is in place.

When you work where you live, it is easy to let things get too casual in the workplace. Discipline can be accommodated by how you arrange things and pay attention to habits like putting things away when you are done with them. It is hard to tesch these, except by good example.

[belarus]

One other point in our decision making process.  The easiest equipment for us to justify economically are those that replace eight hour or sixteen hour a day full time employees.  Everything else ends up cutting work load but not employees and employees seem to find a way to fill hours.  The clearest peice of processing equipment for us to pay for from a labor savings has been our VC999 rollstock packaging machine.  Price was $130,000.  With three people it does the packaging that would take the right 10-12 to do with vacuum pouches and a double chamber vacuum machine.  You do the DIRTI five costs of owning a machine.....depreciation, interest, repairs, taxes, and insurance and then compare labor before you realise the packages from the new machine look so much more professional at its a no brainer after the fact.  The probelm is we have to speculate on how a machine will really change our payroll profile.  And we have to remember economically, it does nothing if it just lowers hours of a sole proprietor and doesn't lower employees.   Economics are different if you are hiring help.  If not, new larger paint can easily lower bank accounts instead of raising them.  

[sw363535]

I should be used to it after all these years but I wonder if the difference between the pay an employee recieves to spend and the cost of the employee to the employer has ever been greater.  I am sure it will get bigger as we fight through the new legislation going into effect.

[Kay/NC]

Do you harvest timber for logs or firewood?