I have struggled with this for the last year. It blows my mind that people dont want to work. I tried hiring kids out of high school paying them really well, treating them good, training them etc. I felt like they did have enough responsibility to HAVE to come to work everyday. I started finding/looking for guys with experience, families, responsibilities people have where they have to work to survive. My luck has been a little better. Whats hard is I feel like someone with quality skills and experience deserves to be paid well and as a small startup company its hard to hire 2 guys at $25 to $30 an hour and still make it profitable. I guess im still learning how to navigate all this. Doing everything in the business by myself has made it hard for me to create efficient systems. But i agree good employees are hard to come about.
I definitely feel like I was not ready for any type of job that required tons of followup (like an office/phone answering job) right out of high school. Menial, physical tasks were ok. By that time, I had only volunteered at a few places and was still learning sense of urgency (I consider myself a late bloomer). With "kids", I think it's better for them to stick to small jobs and slowly get handed more responsibility once they get the easy stuff down. I got my first job that payed above minimum wage when I was around 21 and by then I had already gotten through college and understood how to manage my time better. I still had coworkers my age who struggled at past temp jobs I've had, but I'm noticing that those types of people get washed out with time. It makes it harder for the rest of us who do want to work, but I kind of understand your perspective as well. I'm in my late 20s now, so I'm not sure if I still count as one of the "kids who don't want to work" anymore in the eyes of management, but please don't forget that some of us were still taught the value and sacrifice (however big or small) of working and earning money.
