My dad used to tell me that when I would start bitching about something. He would then prompt me to come up with a solution. That pearl of wisdom was usually followed with a resounding, “Life ain’t fair – get used to it.”

When I was a kid, everything was about being fair. Playing nice and sharing and following the rules were the orders of the day.

Recently I haven’t been posting much. It has caused us to drop from Alltop (which was my last post.) Mostly because I have been too busy to type anything up. Each of these posts take about two hours – in case you were wondering. Time spent here, isn’t time being spent on making money (I do this for free remember?)

As an update, the last 6 months have been spent on the planning on opening a restaurant and lounge. Growing up in and owning other businesses in the food industry gives me a pretty good head for this. We finally found a location I like and construction has begun. Unless the city or the neighbors get in the way, we should be up and bumping in a few months.

However, things aren’t as sunny at one of my other businesses. I have lost two employees. One employee left to work for another unrelated company for more money. Good for her. The other has left to work for one of my vendors. This pretty much means I will no longer be doing business with that vendor.

But that is not a problem, at least not for me. See, I have to hire new people. These new people are willing to work for half as much as I was paying these last two employees. That’s great right? Hell yes it is! That means I can get more done for half as much. The funny thing is, I let the interviewees tell me how much they wanted to make and they volunteered to work for that much.

What is causing a stir is that the other employees are freaking out. See, they make much more to do the same thing. They haven’t been developing their skills. They basically know the same stuff now that they knew 5 years ago. They haven’t been keeping up. Now these new fish come in with all these skills and volunteer to be paid less. Obviously I will be taking a look at the current employees with a calculating eye. Can you blame me? By sitting on their collective asses and building their nests, they have become LESS valuable as employees. Seniority doesn’t mean anything outside of the unions’ boys and girls. And experience is only as good as the final product. I don’t care if you are Jesus the master carpenter himself, if you can’t handle power tools then I can’t hire you to build my house.

So, this reminds me of a book I read recently called “Nickled and Dimed – On NOT Getting by in America.” This book was entertaining but not in the way the author intended. I am not one to slam another Hustler (and I giver her credit by applying the title). However, she made a point that I thought was typical for people of her mindset. She said that the people she worked with at each of the minimum wage jobs she “tested” all told her to do the same thing – the bare minimum. If you try too hard, the other employees will hate you and punish you because the bosses will use you as an example of how hard they COULD be working. In the same breath, she talks about how it is impossible to advance from those low level positions.

If you don’t pay the costs, you can’t be the boss fool!

Why am I going to promote you for skating by on the bare minimum? Why would I care about you if you don’t care about my business or me? When you don’t do your job, we make less money. That is the money that I use to feed my kids. So you sitting on your hands, taking long breaks, hiding out in the bathroom, riding a broom for 3 hours to avoid stocking shelves means that you are taking food out of my kids mouths.

I will not have you stealing from my family.

When I was riding a chair working for someone else, a co-worker asked me to show them how to do some special things that I knew how to do that he didn’t. Even though he had 10 years of experience over me. I happily brought in some books I had and showed him a few things. Days, weeks and months went by and he never said another thing about it. I finally asked him how his education was coming along. He told me “Aw man, I haven’t had time to learn that stuff. With the kids and the wife and everything… just no time.” Having two business, a kid and a job myself, I was less than sympathetic. “That’s ok, you will have plenty of time when you are sitting on the unemployment line.”

Was that cold? Yeah, it was. The look on his face was priceless. Did it motivate him? Nope, he still has my books and now he works for me. See, I bought the company. You know why? Because I work my ass off. I keep learning. I keep moving. I keep hustling.

If you are not giving 100% all the time, excelling and educating yourself then when the next guy swings by willing to work for half as much and able to do twice as much. Don’t cry and say the world is unfair. You did it to yourself. Life ain’t fair – get used to it!

Only the Hustlers survive.