Date: Thu, 9 Feb 2017 12:50:41 -0500
From: “John R Dykers”
Subject: wages vs value
Cryptic wrote, in part:
My post was about paying people their worth. You might have missed it because I framed it as “if you don’t pay what people are worth, the only people that you’ll get won’t be worth what little you DO pay.” If they pay garbage for a skilled trade then they deserve to get the only kind of people that will accept such pay for such work: the kind that either can’t do it competently or that will quickly leave once they’ve exploited the company’s “good will” as a practice field in which to make all their mistakes and climb up to a better-paying job.
The balance is supply and demand. You are correct that those who value themselves above the offered starting wage may decide not to apply. Beginners have to start somewhere.
Any job is better than no job. Talent may apply for a wage below their percieved value, and the worth of the employee to the employer may result in a raise. Or an employee may be prove to be of no value and lose job entirely. Training may be of more value than the cost of turnover. Sometimes a worthless employee ‘slips by’, even stealing, and is paid rather than fired! Depends on the astuteness of employer. I have had more than one employee that made dumb mistakes, but who learned and was also honest, kind, industrious and reliable, the things you can’t teach. The employees learned, and over the years made fewer and fewer mistakes and I was glad to have retained them.
John Dykers
ps. “snarky” does not transmit well in posts. Nor sarcasm.
Satire is a very tricky/skilled writing form. Many still miss the meaning of “Gulliver’s Travels”.
You had an important point to make. Thank you for laying it out again. John