Today's Kids

Hired a local 13 yo fella to descale and paint a back blade and a box scraper. He showed up on time, listened to my safety spiel then went to work. 4 hours later, he had both completely descaled of rust and old paint and was laying down the base coat. That kid was one of the hardest workers I have ever seen. Gives you hope for the next generation. . I pay by the job, so there was incentive...

Aaron

Yes, there ARE kids out there who know what it is to work, and are willing to. Teenager who has worked for me off and on since last summer has been good, too...but lyme's disease has really had him down lately.

Hired an 18 year old in our machine shop. He was the best hire in the last 5 years. He is better than a bunch of the 22-25 year olds we hired. He will get a nice raise this fall, and a bonus too. He will be the next blue collar generation of workers that makes a good living for themselves by working hard, being honest, and cooperating with coworkers. Sad thing is, he is probably in the 1% of the kids...

I don't have a lot of work that I can't do without help.
But recently I hired a young man and his wife to build a large outdoor deck.
Before starting we had a lengthy discussion about hourly wage and working conditions.
I also took my stand about cell phones.
I would think C-P would be a big problem with today's workers, but I made myself clear as to what was acceptable.

(quoted from post at 15:29:22 08/12/14)I also took my stand about cell phones.
I would think C-P would be a big problem with today's workers, but I made myself clear as to what was acceptable.

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What kind of things did you set out regarding cell phones. I never thought of bringing that up to a helper, but it makes sense.

Thanks

Sw

Great, that's encouraging!

I told them that a minute or so, was ok. Any longer or numerous calls, they were to time out this amount of time.
No problems because they actually would subtract lengthy calls from their daily time and that was only a few times. They only worked on their off days.
No--I did not make them time out for eating and actually started their time when they left their home!
I have eight grandchildren with three grown kids and I know that cell phones greatly interfere with our monthly gatherings. Not just phone calls- texting, but internet and such.
I do not restrict them but they know how I feel.
Too much of anything can be a problem!

We've hired 3 brothers and a cousin for the last few years for our hay crew- hard workers, cell phones stayed in their car. Their folks don't give them money in the summer, so they'll work for it. I always round the time upward, pay $10 an hour, they seem happy for the work.

Also had my house re-roofed last summer- mostly Mexicans, but one white kid- and he said "I remember this place- I hayed for you several years ago." To which I replied, "Man, you're out of the frying pan and into the fire, huh?" He laughed and said, "Yeah, and I thought haying was hard. But a guy's gotta eat." They did a 30 square take-off (2 layers) and re-roof in one day. Great job, complimented the foreman on it- he said "We've found we don't get complaints if we don't give folks anything to complain about. Funny how that works." I had wondered when I came home at lunch- stray shingles that had missed the truck laying around everywhere, their lunch wastepaper strewn about, etc. Didn't say anything. Came home after work- job done, they're gone, not a sign that they had ever been there, except a few grains of mineral surface in the garden. Foreman said they've found its more time efficient if they leave everything where it falls until the end- then whole crew has garbage cans and picks up everything (even including any litter that was there before).

That is good news and we can all use a little positive feedback on todays youth.

(quoted from post at 07:11:31 08/12/14) Hired an 18 year old in our machine shop. He was the best hire in the last 5 years. He is better than a bunch of the 22-25 year olds we hired. He will get a nice raise this fall, and a bonus too. He will be the next blue collar generation of workers that makes a good living for themselves by working hard, being honest, and cooperating with coworkers. Sad thing is, he is probably in the 1% of the kids...

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f he was anything like me then You won't have him for long.
These are the guys that start a business of their own as soon as they can.....The good pay won't keep him either. :wink:

If he can't woek some days because of Lyme, then he should record those days. He has a legitimate disability there and can get SSB payments for that.

Impressive,

My son is learning, he is 13 now. Grass cutting and tree work, stack logs, bust up brush and put in the fire pit.

My son will start painting soon, I showed him an End table that I would like for him to refinish, sand and restain.

There's a few good ones around in all the chaff. My son hired one recently about 16-17 or so. Typical teenage kid. gets himself in a jam here and there, but he shows up on time does what he's told, and doesn't have to be told to do the same chores day after day like some do. He just bought a dirt bike recently. His mother wasn't too happy because she figgered he had enough bills to pay right now without the added expense of a dirt bike. He's only had it about 3 weeks and he has come to the same conclusion on his own and now has it up for sale. So there's some hope for this one.

Too bad he's gotta sell the bike though. At one time, myself and each of my four kids had dirt bikes. Lotta fun and a lot of quality family time together.

Good post Aaron.
It's encouraging to hear.
There's a nice post on the Ford Board right now - Luke's 4000.
I suspect that boy will be a worker too.
He has a good role model in his dad.

My 16yr old works at the local butcher shop. He came home last week with his chest puffed out pretty far.

The husband and wife that own it were talking about what to do for the upcoming week because two other employees were going to be gone on vacation.

The wife asked if they needed to call in some extra help from a couple family members, and the husband said, no, Kaleb works like two people anyway.

When I got home from work he was standing at the door like he did when he was little, just waiting for me to come in so he could tell me that.

Compliments like that don't come in a paycheck, but I swear sometimes they are worth more than the pay.

I had to go down state today to pick up a new corn head and tried to take my 9 year old son, but he wanted to stay home to help finish shoveling wheat out of the grain bin. Works for me!

We had three teenagers come help us with some hay over the weekend and they did great. I've had mixed luck over the years but these three did very well. Us old folks threw the bales down and they did the toting and stacking.

I have been pretty skeptical about kids. A friend who owns some JD dealerships was telling me about spending a Sat. PM at one of his dealerships on the sales floor, because his salesmen don't want to work weekends. He had sold an L&G tractor and this new kid had finished the prep pretty quickly, and was then going over the operation with the customer in a very positive manner. my friend told the store manager to be sure that he retains this kid, who is interested primarily in mechanics but obviously has a lot on the ball besides the mechanical.