Forum Moderators: phranque
My sites had become a good amount of tedious work and it was about that time. "That's what employees are for"... is one of the messages I got from this past New Orleans conference hosted by WW.
If you are doing well with Adsense, don't stop. And, don't limit yourself. Good luck, everyone.
No one forces anyone to work at Wal-Mart. You could be a garbageman, a doctor, an air traffic controller, or a babysitter. You could be a website designer, a webmaster, or maybe a programmer. Wal-Mart does not kidnap people and force them to work. Therefore, I do not feel bad for people who complain about having a bad job at Wal-Mart.
In a perfect world where every area was exactly the same this might be a correct statement, but we don't live in a perfect world. In the area you live in this may very well be true, but it isn't like this everywhere. Many places in the U.S. are very economically depressed and choices on jobs, schools, and education are so limited that yes, if you want to eat or live under a roof you take whatever job you can get for whatever wage they offer.
The area I live in is agriculture based. A fruit shed hires seasonal laborers. They pay minimum wage, ~$7, and offer no benefits or guaranteed 40 hour weeks. People work when there is work to do, no work equals collecting unemployment, which is only for those lucky enough to have found work in the past.
I was looking for summer work and applied at a local fruit shed. They had an opening for 30 people on day shift and 25 on night shift. To apply for the job you had to show up at 7:00 AM and wait in line to get an application. 700 people filled out applications that day. Many stayed in line overnight with their children just to get in the front of the line. I showed up late but was still given the job, why, because I could speak english. Of course all the employees hated me because of this. That left 625 people that still needed work. I guess someone should have came out into the line and told them they should go be doctors and lawyers.
Poor communities equals poor schools and poor education means no skills. No skills means large groups of people willing to work for next to nothing. I can only imagine the line at waste management if they were looking to hire. There would probably be thousands lined up for 1 or 2 openings. The only way people get into a job like garbageman in my town is if someone dies. I am not joking either. Welcome to the real world.
FYI: Wal-Mart's average wage is $10/hour, nearly double the national minimum wage. Leaving the fact that minimum wage is a terrible idea gone really, really bad from an economics perspective, Wal-Mart certainly isn't doing the bare minimums as you seem to be implying.
In my area walmart pays minimum wage, ~$7, and I know for a fact that they treat the employees like crap. Why, because there are hundreds of people that are willing to take their place if they don't like it. Now they are going to build a walmart in another town near me. It will hire about 100 minimum wage employees and put about 20 local companies out of business. Of course this will pave the way for chain hardware stores and fast food places. Soon all the locals will be making minimum wage. Of course this trend is happening everywhere and we will all be working for minimum wage (if even that) one day, but thats another thread.
I think too many Americans have led sheltered lives and only see what is out their backdoor. We have a factory in my town that makes the trays that meat sits on. The factory gets to over 110 degrees in the summer and the employees have to were hair nets, gogles and long sleeve shirts. They walk around and pass out salt tablets to keep people from passing out. I wonder if you ever think about them when you open your t-bone and toss that little piece of foam in the garbage? May I suggest waiting for a really hot summer day and entering this factory and telling the employees that they should all go be doctors. Now that would be funny :)
I live in Miami and could list 1000 examples of what you just wrote.
After you decide what a living wage is for each individual based on his/her specific life circumstances, what'll happen? All those businesses you complain about now that Walmart is destroying (that pay no more than Walmart and often less, btw) would still go under trying to bear the weight of huge labor costs. Not to mention having to sell everything for much higher prices to cover the wages. That's PRECISELY what put a stake through the heart of U.S. manufacturing over the last 25 years or so.
What you espouse always sounds so good, so noble, so fair - until you really get in there and go a few levels deep. But then, most people don't or won't. Those are the people that your touchy-feely words convince. Not those of us who understand it in its entirety.
But like Jake, I also learned the hard way. Went deeper into debt (before wising up) than most could if they wanted to. Ding@! The light bulb went on.
We live in a market economy folks, and the market is the world. Been that way for more than a few years now. Everything has a value and honestly, if you're thinking locally on the Web, you're not thinking hard enough.
Bottom line, you need to pay out a lot less than you make if you're running a business. If that's not the case, you're better off - for both social and tax reasons - being a charitable organization.
Even a simple caveman eventually had to leave the cave, to make a go of it in the real world. Me, I'm never going back. :-)
If you're in this game for money alone, which most of us are, then that will affect your decision. But is it best to cut throats and burn bridges for a few dollars today, or is it best to be generous and helpful so that some day it may be reciprocated? Both are valid ways of making money, and I've seen both work.
For me the optimum is a fine line: don't give your business away, and don't create bad morale. While your employees don't necessarily need to be your best friends, keeping them from being upset and feeling used will eliminate a lot of conter-productive things unhappy employees tend to do.
You don't hire a high school student and have them lick stamps for $25/hr. Sure, it would make them ecstatic, but they would probably be nearly as pleased with $10/hr when their friends are all making minimum wage. And you don't pay them $2 and a candy bar because then they'll start snatching money out of the envelopes they're stamping.
I grew in a London overspill with only low paid industrial work available, peopel in those situs develope a tunnel vision and think no believe that, thats all there is.
Ofcourse employers move in and exploit it, by that I dont mean offering low paid jobs but really offering work with no benefits and giving employees hell.
And you don't pay them $2 and a candy bar because then they'll start snatching money out of the envelopes they're stamping.
That's right. You should allow yourself to be extorted. "Pay up or we'll start stealing!" That's a terrific way to run a business. Sheesh!
Let's say you have a website which generates $yyy per day, quite independently of any third party articles. And let's say you have a writer who writes one article which, just on its own merits, generates $xx per month.
Why wouldn't you want to pay that writer ($xx) x 0.85 every month?
How is this going to break your business / let the competition eat you for dinner?
In a market economy, in which everyone gets the market rate, everyone IS getting what their contribution is worth.
The "giving them the opportunity" bit - which you think is only worth a small percentage - is actually the difficult bit, that very few people can do successfully. Therefore, that's the bit that's worth the largest amount of money.
It's the starting and running the business (the "giving the employees the opportunity") which has all the risk - as a business owner you have to invest capital, time, years of your life, and often have your family home on the line as well.
Most businesses go under within a few years of starting up - that's because running a successful business is tough. If it was easy - the employees could do it themselves, and wouldn't need you - the entrepreneur.
I admire your willingness to recognise and share the value of the contribution made by your employees - but I think you may be undervaluing your own contribution, and your own value to the organisation. You deserve a "fair market rate" as well - and that's more than a "minimal percentage".
As the entrepreneur, you're the person making the whole thing happen - and that deserves a decent reward when things are going well.
If the business goes down - you could go bankrupt, while the employees can walk away and get new jobs!
Excellent points! When I see/hear people bemoaning the plight of workers, I understand their viewpoint. I was dirt poor and working for low wages once. No silver spoon in my family. I was also in a union. It was a total racket. I got threatened on the job for working too fast - for doing a good job, in other words. And the company paid non-union employees as much or more and they had better benefits. So I got to pay monthly union dues for the "advantage" of being harassed on the job by slackers and getting a worse deal in pay/benefits.
That experience will quickly educate you about which end of things you want to be on. I started a business soon after, and I haven't looked back since. But, as you say, I took that risk. I borrowed and invested what little I had saved. When it failed (and it eventually did), no one bore the repercussions but me and my family. The employees walked away. It's taken me years to rebuild. Too many whiners ignore stories like mine, which are very common. I get sick of hearing how bad workers have it. Take a risk and walk out on that limb yourself. Then let's see what you think.
In a market economy, in which everyone gets the market rate, everyone IS getting what their contribution is worth.
No, I don't buy that.
Most workers don't get paid what their labour is worth, they get paid what their employers are prepared to pay them. If as an employer, I decide to pay my workers less, that doesn't mean that their work is suddenly worth less, it just means I'm paying them less. If I pay them so little that they walk out and go and work for someone else who pays them more (the market) this still has no bearing on what their labour is worth.
I'm no economist, but it seems self-evident that labour is worth the value it generates.
If I run a small (imaginary) shop on the high street and I make $500 profit per day and I take on a shop assistant and they increase the daily profit to $750 and it costs me about $20 per day to make sure they're doing the job as they should, their labour contribution adds up to $230 a day. Since the environment in which they work is a vital factor of how much value they can contribute, I can afford to subtract a token amount (say $25) and pay them $205 per day.
Or I could pay them $70 per day and they'd still stay. But that doesn't make their labour worth $70. It's still worth $205.
The "giving them the opportunity" bit - which you think is only worth a small percentage - is actually the difficult bit, that very few people can do successfully. Therefore, that's the bit that's worth the largest amount of money.
Yes, but in my imaginary shop, I'm already making $500 per day with or without my assistant's help. So I'm already being rewarded for the work that I've done. I'm also being rewarded $20 for checking up on my assistant. I'm also being rewarded with the $25 per day for providing an environment for the assistant to work in. That's $545 where I used to make $500.
I think you may be undervaluing your own contribution, and your own value to the organisation. You deserve a "fair market rate" as well - and that's more than a "minimal percentage".
See above.
As the entrepreneur, you're the person making the whole thing happen - and that deserves a decent reward when things are going well.
See above.
It's still worth $205.
The maximum amount that you can pay an employee without going out of business is not "how much their work is worth". It is "the maximum amount you can pay an employee without going out of business".
Value is subjective and will vary from person to person. I don't consider "the maximum amount you can pay an employee without going out of business" the proper amount to pay someone. You might, you're free to run your business that way, and a number of people do successfully.
But don't confuse the two amounts; they're unrelated.
I'm already making $500 per day with or without my assistant's help. So I'm already being rewarded for the work that I've done.
This utterly misses the point. YOU took the financial risk to start the company. Did the assistant pitch in at the beginning to front some of that start-up capital? What is it worth to have the opportunity to work for someone who did take that risk?
[edited by: engine at 5:57 pm (utc) on July 27, 2005]
I don't consider "the maximum amount you can pay an employee without going out of business" the proper amount to pay someone.
Neither do I. In the example above it might be possible to pay the assistant $300 per day without going out of business. However, this doesn't correspond to the value they contribute to the daily profit of hte business.
The value of the work the assistant does minus the expenses of supervising them and a token compensation for having provided a work environment for them can easily be worked out and given to them as payment without even slightly shaking the foundations of the business model. I'm not quite sure why there is so much resistance to this idea.
YOU took the financial risk to start the company.
And, in the example above, I am being amply rewarded for the risk that I took. What's your point?
I am being amply rewarded for the risk that I took. What's your point?
Who determines "amply rewarded?" You? Me? The government? I'm amply rewarded when I decide I am (as the business owner). It's no one else's business.
Another point that should be obvious: no one in the civilized world works by force. It's all voluntary. If an employer isn't offering what you feel you're worth, look elsewhere. If no employer offers you what you think you're worth, then guess what - you ain't worth that much. No matter how you frame the argument, that's the pink elephant in the corner. You can't get around it.
Earning minimum wage isn't about what you do when you go home tonight. It's about what you DID when you went home last month, a year ago, five years ago, and ten years ago.
Atleast around where I life, the answer is "worked other minimum wage jobs".
If no employer offers you what you think you're worth, then guess what - you ain't worth that much.
I'm not sure this follows. I don't agree that the value of one's labour is subjective. I certainly don't agree that a given employer's subjective opinion of what one's labour is worth is necessarily an authoritative assessment of the value of one's labour. I think the value of one's labour directly correlates to the value it generates directly and indirectly.
This last point seems so self-evident, the more I think about it, I'm not sure why it's being disputed. As I say, I'm no economist, so perhaps I'm missing something crucial.
I used to work for an employer who didn't offer me what I thought I was worth. Subsequent to being laid off when the company started falling apart I couldn't find an employer who would offer me even that much. So I set up my own business - and "guess what" - it turned out that I was worth more than I thought I was worth. Ought I have assumed "I ain't worth that much" and settled for less?
That's right. You should allow yourself to be extorted. "Pay up or we'll start stealing!" That's a terrific way to run a business. Sheesh!
It's not about being extorted, it's about understanding that employees won't care quite as much about you or your business if you're exploiting them.
Employees who are getting paid a fair rate, and who know they are, will work harder. They will try to impress you and they will be grateful.
Or you could give them minimum wage for a job that requires skills above and beyond that of a 12 year old, in which case they'll probably not care all that much whether your business fails or not.
I worked at an office once where there were a lot of younger kids doing various things in the office. The problem that arose was they all spent half the day talking to each other. The boss spoke to them several times, and they quieted down for a while each time, but within days it was back to the way it was.
Then the boss decided he'd had enough of it, and fired a couple of the worst offenders. This time they shut up and worked hard for about a week before it got back to how it was.
Then he decided to pay a bonus to the worker who got the most done each day. $10. They all shut up and worked all day long every day, getting two or three times as much done as they had ever done before.
In effect, this is about you finding ways to subliminally "exort" the most for the least out of your workers, while keeping them happy. If you've never had low morale at a job or had employees with low morale, you really don't understand how destructive that behavior can be.
So I set up my own business - and "guess what" - it turned out that I was worth more than I thought I was worth. Ought I have assumed "I ain't worth that much" and settled for less?
The myth that you get paid what you are worth has led to millions of disillusioned employees. You don't get paid what you are WORTH, you get paid what you EARN. There's a big difference between the two.
It's not about being extorted, it's about understanding that employees won't care quite as much about you or your business if you're exploiting them.
Broken record time (sorry!). No one can be exploited in a VOLUNTARY system such as every free nation has. Employment is based on a verbal or written contract in which BOTH parties agree to the terms. Employer agrees to pay X and employee agrees to receive X. This is the component your side is ignoring. Now, if employers were lying, promising X and then not providing it, I'd agree 100%. THAT is exploitation. Otherwise, it's an agreement between two consenting parties.
Thats just a paper expense - not a *real* income sharing!
If the owner shouldn't get any of the benefit from the value a new employee adds, why should anybody hire new employees?
Otherwise you're just taking advantage of someone else's time and work, aren't you?
Let me know if I'm missing something, because I haven't yet been presented with a single convincing argument as to why I shouldn't reward someone with at least 85% of the additional value they create on top of the total profit of the company. Can someone who thinks this plan is objectionable / wrong-headed please indicate why this will herald the collapse of the business or why my competitors will have me for lunch as a consequence?
