UPDATE 8.6.11: Wage Theft Today, Not Fun

Hey Barry:

Aside from numbers, you may be interested in what really goes on in a job today.

It's not fun Barry, not fun. Keep your day job for awhile.

August 6, 2011: Here's a new one about trucking: http://www.startribune.com/opinion/otherviews/126619568.html

When you're hired into a job, it's likely you get the job because the person who was doing the job is too slow by maybe 5%, or that person ticked off someone working there and the boss listened to the ticked off person.

Going in, you have a problem. Either you have to be 100% efficient from the get-go to keep the job - which is impossible - or you are dealing with a boss who has no common sense and listens to stories.

Now, what happens if the business suffers a little from a sales decline?

Well, all that gets even more pronounced. The gossipers make up stories ragging about co-workers from whole cloth because they are afraid of losing their job. The boss with no common sense fears for the future and wants to lay off somebody. Probably the person to go is the person whom the gossipers target.

Here's the dilemma: sell your soul and lie about fellow workers or lose your job to someone who lies.

Or maybe you work in a place where the boss commandeers all the tips and insists on four to six hour shifts with no breaks.

If you complain about either, you're gone. There are lots of hungry people out there waiting for a chance to work at less than minimum wage and in violation of labor standards.

See the article on wage theft - national disgrace: http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2011/07/18/MNGB1KAIB2.DTL&tsp=1

One of the jokes about it goes like this:

Question: "Did you get that job at McD's as a cook?"

Answer: "Nah. All the openings were filled by the Stanford grads."

Question: "What about the BK toilet cleaning jobs?"

Answer: "Those were all filled by the Harvard grads."

That's the way it is.

Your pal,