30 August, 2013

You Are NOT Entitled to More!!!

Unless you've been asleep for the last couple of months or you just are clueless as to what is going on in the world, then you are well aware of the movement where workers of fast food restaurants like McDonald's, Wendy's, et al. have been staging nationwide walk offs and protests at their job sites demanding $15 per hour. Can I just say up front, this is absolute ignorance or even stupidity. For goodness sake, the EMT/A's who work to save your life on the ambulance usually don't even make this much! Get a clue people. Let's face facts... the fast food work type jobs are low skill jobs that are meant to be stepping stones for teenagers who are developing skills and a work ethic. (Oh my goodness, could I write another piece about "work ethic"! I just recently had a conversation with a young lady who had lost her third job in a matter of months and she actually could not understand why they fired her for calling off work too many times!) Of course there are those who this is the extent of their job skills, and if that is the case, they simply have no right to "demand" higher pay. Then there are those who take a second or part-time job at a fast food place to make some extra money. The point I'm making is that working at McDonald's or Arby's was NEVER meant to be a career unless you had designs on working hard and climbing the ladder into management. No one with an ounce of ambition in life should make it their aim in life to drop fries or flip burgers. That is not what reasonable people do. Rather, they develop skills, get an education, learn a trade or even start their own business. This is how it is done. But since the 1960's we in America have created an entitlement mentality where everyone thinks that someone else owes them. We now have a man sitting in the Oval Office who shares this belief and he is pushing the agenda. And in case you are a little thick between the ears, let me spell it out for you... this is Socialism. Socialism has NEVER worked in the history of mankind. Never has, never will. Just study history. If you want a clue of how futile it is, just check out this quote by Vlad Putin, leader of Russia when he spoke at the opening ceremony of the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland: "In the 20th century, the Soviet Union made the states role absolute... In the long run this made the Soviet economy totally uncompetitive. This lesson cost us dearly. I am sure nobody wants to see it repeated."  Sadly, Obama and the liberal crowd did not get the memo and they are pushing us toward this same mistake, which is what is fueling people to think the government should step in and make the "greedy" people share the wealth. We are one step from repeating the mistakes of the Soviet Union.

Let me give you an example from my own life of how the free enterprise system is supposed to work. 

When I was in college, I was hired by a mental health center to be a substance abuse counselor. Now understand, my ONLY experience and skills in this area were that I was/am a recovering alcoholic and drug addict. But the bosses saw in me something worth their investing in me, so they took a chance and hired and trained me. They started me out at a whopping $11,000 a year. I was in college and they were willing to work around my school schedule. At the time I was delivering pizzas for Domino's so I saw this as a good move to start my climb up the ladder. I was stunned the first day on my new job that I actually had my own office, and it was a big office. I remember that right after my boss left that office I picked up the phone and called my wife and said to her, "I have my own office!"  I was SO excited! For weeks, all I did was read and watch videos and go to training sessions. Then I began to sit in with other counselors in their sessions with clients. Before long I started seeing my own clients... then doing group sessions. I learned and grew. I began realizing that when I was doing group sessions that the company was making upwards of of $1,100 - $2,000 per hour and $100 per hour for my individual clients, while they paid me less than $6.00 per hour. I calculated that they were making roughly $6,000 per week off my work while paying me around $210 per week. Rather than protest or quit, I saw an opportunity in the making. I began working hard to build my case load, especially the groups in two juvenile detention centers  until the point that they were making more than $8,000 per week. Then I went in and presented my case to the Director and I was given a raise of about $4000 per year. They were still making a killing off me, but I figured that I was still in college and I was climbing the ladder. I kept working harder. I asked them to pay to send me to conferences and workshops to better myself, which they gladly did. This just made me better and more indispensable to them. 

The day came when I graduated college and I walked in and told them that I needed more money. They bumped my pay another $2,000 per year which I took, but I also began to market my services elsewhere. It was only about six weeks later that an in-patient drug rehab in Chattanooga made me an offer of $10,000 more per year. I accepted the job and turned in my two weeks notice to my employer. I had been with them now for a little over two years and they tried to guilt me into staying saying that I owed them because they had "invested" in me. I acknowledged that they indeed had and that I was grateful, but I told them that I knew exactly how much they were making from my services and told them that they either match the offer, or even though I dearly loved my co-workers, I would be leaving. We agreed to part ways. On the last day of employment, as I was cleaning my office out the Executive Director of the Mental Health Center knocked on my door and asked if he could speak with me. He looked me in the eye and said, "Darrell, you are great at what you do and we cannot lose you. Would you stay for $28,000 a year and an extra weeks vacation and a promise for more in the future?" We shook hands and I called the other company and resigned before I ever started. 

This is how the free enterprise system works boys and girls. Yes, they were still making a killing off my services, but I was climbing the ladder. I had been there for a little more than 2 years and had gone from $11,000 per year to $28,000 per year by making myself indispensable to them. It takes hard work, but anyone can do it. By the way, less than a year later, my boss left for a better job a few months later and when she did, the Executive Director walked into my office again and offered me her job, at $60,000 per year. (Remember, all this was back in the late 80's so the dollar values are compounded by today's standards.) I turned it down because I had just accepted my first church to pastor, but you see... this is how our system works. By the way... to take that church, I not only turned down $60 K a year... I went to a church that paid me $200 a week again. Sometimes to find fulfillment in life and you have to start over on a brand new ladder. Just saying. I've never matched that $60 K a year figure again in more than 23 years as a pastor. But just like those who take a second job at McDonald's, I have branched out and have started two side businesses to boost my income. You cannot EVER further yourself by standing there with your hand out and crying that someone owes you. No... you owe it to yourself and your family to better yourself!

If you are at a job making minimum wage, you be the best worker they have, with your mind set on making $10 per hour and it will come... or if that opportunity is not there, then you move to another job where the opportunity is there, or you go back to school to better yourself. But get this into you head NOW... NO ONE OWES YOU ANYTHING! You have to aim high and give it all you've got until you reach the next rung on the ladder. Then you do it again and again. Don't begrudge those who make more... you go after it yourself! Remember this... you live in a nation where you have the opportunity to grow and make something of yourself. Take advantage of it... before we find ourselves like other nations with no such freedoms. We are very close to that place right now, and you entitlement minded folks are pushing us closer and closer toward that cliff.

1 comment:

jack69 said...

Very good entry and I agree witht he ethic involved. Worked for me. But for some reason, the young fellows of today cannot understand 'entry level'.