Outstanding article about just what a pain in the ass it is having employees.
I'll say it again.
Humans are the number one cause of all problems in this world. And you do NOT want a business model that requires a lot of them. They break down, they whine, they complain, they sue, and they just plain suck.
Employ no one, unless you absolutely have to, and even then, you likely have the wrong business model.
10 comments:
but in your podcasts and videos you the most important thing in the world is other humans ... but I see what you mean. That's why the independent contractor/pay-per-performance model such as Uber , fivr5, taskrabbit, etc is becoming so popular.
seguing from this, there was a story on drudge about some company in japan or china that went all robot for manufacturing and guess what ?
productivity went up, defects went down and you know whatever benefit costs they pay went thru the floor.
my darkest fear for huminaity is the elite take the coming debt implosion to allow 10 of millions of costly people to die in the reset and the elites have robots all set to do a lot of work for no pay or benefits.
Aaron,
Did you listen to the Tom Leykis show yesterday? Hilarious- Tom DESTROYED a guy who is your typical American- wanted to open a sports bar. The guy opened a bar with a woman he slept with and guess what happened? The guy got fucked over.
Tom proceeded to destroy him- very long and funny call.
Your're right captain. Automation will make the market more efficient by getting rid of worthless jobs by automating them. However you'll have to remember that if you automate labor then the primary source of income for most people will be stocks that pay dividends. Another thing to remember that the banks have to lend money to people to buy stocks to generate income in the first place, since most jobs will be gone do to automation. Also people will need education on how to invest in the market due to the fact that most people don't know how to invest. Say captain, don't you give courses on how to invest in the market? You should be advocating and capitalizing more on automating labor. Big money it for you captain.$$$
I am an automation and control system engineer. I am an SI (system integrator) in addition to working for an OEM. My motto is "never hire a human to do a job that can better be done by machine". I expect demand for my services only to grow over the coming decades. I just have to practice sound techniques of life extension so that I can take full advantage of my opportunities and the future.
Pain in the ass beDAMNED. My piles and rectal itch aren't costing me a dime. But a new employee is a LIABILITY. Cost and potential liabilities outweigh the benefits.
The employee if any good may grow to have a positive value.
It always surprises younger people when i tell them that they have negative value. I assure them that they have been an employer myself and know whereof I speak, but find it hard to accept.
If you have the will and wit to run a company, employees are how you make money. I never forgot what my boss said when I worked for his roofing company: every time you hammer a nail, I make a nickel.
A good friend of mine - we'll call him Jose - needed money. He scrounged up non-working lawn mowers, got them running, and mowed lawns. There's a limit to how many lawns one man can mow, but Jose was good at it and got more work than he could handle alone, so he hired a helper. And then another helper. And then another. Now he sits in his air-conditioned office working the phones while his forty employees tool around town in green F-150s with "Jose's Lawn Service" painted on the doors. You think he makes more money that way than he would mowing lawns by himself?
I do the same thing; I bid on software jobs and farm out most of the work to younger, hungrier workers, often overseas. I make more money that way than if I bid on fewer jobs and did all the work myself. Employees are slowly making me - well, if not rich, certainly better off.
You're a pretty good economist but to say "don't hire anyone" is possibly the lamest business advice I've ever heard. Sorry, Cappy, but it is. To harness a few percent of the efforts of many for profit is the road to wealth.
From experience employees on average suck but Southern Man is spot on correct.
Also if no one is employing anyone else, the bulk of people who aren't suitable for self employment won't have much income.
And sure you can say "screw them." but if they don't have money you don't have customers and you'd don't have money either.
Or well big daddy Givernment (this was a typing error BTW but I'm keeping it) will step in they'll either get your money anyway or you'll get the real socialism, not the half rate social democracy we have now but straight out state ownership of the means of production.
I am not up to date, due to being retired. But, someone talked about buying stocks with borrowed money. At one time there were Federal laws restricting how much stock you could buy with borrowed money. Check it out before you do, just in case the laws are still there.
Anonymous age 73
Yes of course you make money by getting others to work for you. It's a fundamental concept. But you should look at it more abstractly. You are getting more, or specific, work done that you couldn't do yourself. How the work is done doesn't matter... it could be human employees, robots or wind mills. This has been going on ever since man discovered fire. The only thing that matters is COST-BENEFIT.
Human employees and robots are the same thing from a business perspective; tools to get work done. Some tools are more affordable, some tools are not, depending on your situation and circumstances.
So you might say "Hey, for every nail you hammer, I make a nickel". How is that any different from saying "Hey, for every nail that robot hammers, I make 25 cents".
In roofing, you are well aware of standardized home designs ie COOKIE CUTTERS. It makes your job easier too, because you can estimate jobs better as you know what to expect. By seeking out this efficiency in your business, ie standardization, you are laying the groundwork for automation. Well, standard, consistent, modular homes is exactly what robot roofers would want. Congratulations, you are already involved in automation!
Robots and computer automation are being made cheaper day-by-day, and in Western countries, human labor is made more expensive day-by-day (higher standards of living, and gov't influence and regulation, etc). The forces at play are unstoppable.
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