Thank God for "2-Week Notices" er, I Mean 8-hour Notices

[alan802]

Got a letter slipped on my desk this morning from our brand new screen tech (3 weeks on the job) and of course I didn't have to open it to know what it was.  I told one of the guys yesterday afternoon that I had a feeling that he was looking for another job and would probably be leaving soon.  Now the guy I said that to yesterday doesn't believe that I called it and thinks he told me yesterday, but I swear I wasn't told anything, I've always had a strange knack for knowing when employees are moving on, I guess it's not really a gift, but whatever it is, I got it.  It wasn't that hard to figure out though.  He had sold his house and he had to go "sign papers" at the title company 4 separate times...yeah, ok.  I opened the letter and sure enough, his resignation would take affect at the end of the work day today, yeeeeaaaaaaahhhhhh, that's terrific.  Especially since we are slammed and have about 5K imprints to do by Friday afternoon.

Now I have to go through the hiring process all over again, F me.  This you are about to read is my sarcasm towards the things that I was told during the interview process:  I've hired the young guy who wanted to learn and promised he was a hard worker and would show up every day.  Then another young guy who said he actually enjoyed working out in the heat and his work ethic was the best he'd ever seen.  I've hired the girl who would be super detail oriented and was very eager to learn a new skill and put food on her table and provide for her beautiful 7 year old son.  And then there was the 45 year old guy who was trying to be the man of the house and be someone that his son would look up to.  After that, I hired a guy that worked one full day then came in the next and said he would lose his benefits from food stamps and free education.  Then the latest was the 20 year experienced veteran that knew how to do everything and do it better than anyone who would do things our way and not his way, who was screwed around at the last print shop he worked at and was lied to so he wanted to find a nice clean shop where he would be treated fairly...and none of them have worked out worth a damn.  Every one of the last 4 employees have all quit without any real notice but one actually did work out his 2-week notice, very nice of him to do so.  I think this time I'm going to hire someone that I want, and nobody else is going to be involved and I'm not going to ask anyone else's advice on the matter.  It's always me that has to deal with them and I've allowed others to get in on the process and tell me who they liked and didn't like, but this next time it will be all me.

Thanks for letting me vent a little bit, wish me luck.

[Nick Bane]

so know how you feel, finding good help anymore is such a pain.

last week, the kid i spent his first two days on the job telling him how he got his job because the last two guys were totally unreliable, doesnt show on the third day because he had to play baseball.

and yeah not even worth talking about the two previous guys mentioned previously.

pick this one out yourself would be my call as well.  good luck.

[Screened Gear]

Alan,

I feel for you. I tried to hire someone and I gave up. I had 2 people not show for the scheduled interview didn't call or even reply to my email I sent to see if they forgot. I had one guy call me 3 hours after the interview time and say he couldn't find the place and see if next week would work out for him to start. I then had a guy show up on time even know some stuff and then after the interview I called him and left a message. I get a email the next day that he doesn't have transportation and can't take the job. He lived 8 miles from my shop. I just gave up on finding a screen printer. I am going to train the girl that cleans my screens. She is always on time and does a good job. I just have to wait for her to come back from having her child.

[whitewater]

It is crap dude...people don't want to work.

Maybe when interviewing don't even talk about work..maybe see their hobbies and ask questions that are irrelevant to what they are doing.. To possibly get a bead on them..

Its the same old same old, they tell you what you want to hear,,throw them off balance or something.

Ask questions that they don't have automatic answers for or the mundane answers they can give every employer..

I love the ad that says ' hard worker, responsible, self motivated, blah, blah, blah....'

Throw them off and see what you get.

[Prosperi-Tees]

Interview in the hottest time and place in the shop. At the end of the dryer or something.

[blue moon]

give him a slip saying that you will send him his last paycheck in two weeks after you get a chance to process everything (it takes a while and that's what the two week notice is for) and after you find the new employee (since you are going to be busy with that and will not have the time to process his paycheck)!

pierre

[Gabe]

as i told you before hire mexicans
they`re on time, don`t bitch, get the job done,
no more one day notices
Gabe

[Homer]

I'm starting to believe college degrees mean JACK SH!T. . .college will take anyone who pays up. . .I went through this a week ago. I read through 35-40 applications. I called one guy that seemed promising, never called me back. Another guy took on 3 jobs during our hiring process and didn't want to leave any of them, and the third person took a job doing web design at a local car parts shop. Every other application brought tears to my eyes, we never laughed so damn hard. One guy had to cross out his name and rewrite it. Absolutely ZERO excuse for that garbage. I don't care if you have a GED, high school grad or whatever -just use your damn head and think.

I ended up hiring the hot chick, in her 3rd year of state college for marketing and fashion design, has experience screen printing, shes a model from NYC, worked at abercrombie and fitch. .  . seemed bright, smart . well. .Today, she tried to put a bolt into cement block with a drill bit in the screw gun. . .today was her third day on the job. I hate the hiring process. . we know each other well, soon to be even closer.

[stitches4815]

One problem that I see is some of the younger people say they want to work but really don't.  They would rather play video games until the wee hours of the morning and sleep until noon.  When they do get a job they work long enough to stash some money aside so they can go back to their routine. 

I know I am old but when I turned 16 I got a part time job.  After about a year the money wasn't there so I looked for a job that paid more.  When I got the job I gave my two weeks notice to the old job.  I worked those last two weeks like it was my first two weeks.  This is something I have always done.  It's what I was taught.  Plus I understood the importance of a good reference.  People today make me want to puke.

Enough of my rant.

[Im-Magic]

Had one young guy spend 4 hours a day in the toilet and then denied that he was on his phone. He then went through all his relatives dying (one twice) and could not understand why I fired him.

[Prosperi-Tees]

I'm starting to believe college degrees mean JACK SH!T. . .college will take anyone who pays up. . .I went through this a week ago. I read through 35-40 applications. I called one guy that seemed promising, never called me back. Another guy took on 3 jobs during our hiring process and didn't want to leave any of them, and the third person took a job doing web design at a local car parts shop. Every other application brought tears to my eyes, we never laughed so damn hard. One guy had to cross out his name and rewrite it. Absolutely ZERO excuse for that garbage. I don't care if you have a GED, high school grad or whatever -just use your damn head and think.

I ended up hiring the hot chick, in her 3rd year of state college for marketing and fashion design, has experience screen printing, shes a model from NYC, worked at abercrombie and fitch. .  . seemed bright, smart . well. .Today, she tried to put a bolt into cement block with a drill bit in the screw gun. . .today was her third day on the job. I hate the hiring process. . we know each other well, soon to be even closer.

College degrees are crap in the working world. I have worked with alot of college grads that were dumb as door knockers. Sure they can learn something and take a test on it but they really can't use their brain to think. I'm a 7th grade dropout and could learn a job faster and do it better than most and maybe have missed a week of work in the 21 years I was in the workforce. You just can't teach that kind of stuff, it has to be a part of their very being.

[Gilligan]

I've had decent experiences with my two employees.  Not the most motivated workers BUT they were/are young.

On the computer side my guy was contract and still gave a "2 week notice" when he got his real engineering job (I know it was coming).  I told him he didn't have to being contract but if he wanted to keep making money he could come in ad work.  he did.  He worked like he was out the door but still got a bit accomplished.

My screen printing guy is my daughter's boyfriend... so he kind of has to work like we want him too or he will fall out of favore with the "in-laws" and he doesn't want that.  And my daughter would be pissed.  now when they go south, who knows but honestly he seems like a good kid.  Just young and with no work ethic.  My wife made me remember that I was exactly like that at his age when I was at a job that I didn't really "want" to do.  I would loaf of and work pretty damn slowly if unsupervised.  Right now I have to leave him printing alone because pringing because the printing gear is at a different location than we are.  That will change soon.

Yesterday he had a kind of bad day prnting and almost didn't get the job done when it should have been done (plenty of time... 230 5 color shirts needed to be printed between 10am and 6pm).  He got it done by like 4:30 and said he had problem with blue ink getting everywhere.  I told him he needs to stop fighting it and clean it up good/find where it's coming from.  10-20 mins of cleaning up a mess properly vs slowing down production 3 fold is the way to go.  He stepped it up and got it done.  Today he sewed out 20 hats that were pretty hard to hoop and he had never done that before in under 3 hours.  Counted a box of shirts for a job, vacuumed the embroidery area and finished digitizing one of our trade marked designs while waiting on the hats (single head machine).  Then he still had time to do a sew out of that design and learned a LOT about how 31 trims will severely slow you down and I showed him how he should have done some walk (run) stitches to connect everything and could have trimmed the designs trims down to probably 6 and still had a great looking file.  31 trims in 4200 stitches. LOL

He's getting it and enjoys when a job is going well... I just have to help him to learn not to get frustrated and let it ruin his day... didn't help that he AC broke while printing those shirts and it got hot... but he's been in Alan's shop and should learn that that wasn't "hot".

Great thing about him is I can trust him with the keys to the door and the register... now, trusting him with my daughter is another thing... but they are 18, what are you gonna do?

[jsheridan]

Thanks for letting me vent a little bit, wish me luck.

When the next guy comes along.. put ZERO EXPECTATION ON THE OUTCOME on his success so when they don't work out. you didn't lose anything but a warm body.

Try this with other things in your life and you'll be amazed at the results.

If you need a body, find one and put them behind the dryer make that the starting point. every other job in the shop is above dryer catcher, make it so and you will never again have a problem finding bodies as the catcher moves up into the now open spot, and gets a small pay raise.

[mooseman]

Alan,
The thing that struck me smack in the face in your interview details was all the people you talk about were trying to convince THEMSELVES they wanted a job.
Here is a tip for you to try with the next hire. First schedule a phone interview with the perspective spend 10 minuted talking with them on the phone then decide for yourself if you are interested in meeting the person face to face for a sit down interview.
If you don't get a good feeling from the phone interview move on to the next...motivated people will transend the phone , mr 45 and trying to be the man of the house will not come across on the phone and you would have never called him in for a sit down.

I've hired the girl who would be super detail oriented and was very eager to learn a new skill and put food on her table and provide for her beautiful 7 year old son.
Translation...I need someone to feel sorry for me and give me the things for my son that i haven't figured out how to get for him my self.
Did her son get beautiful just recently? What was she doing for him in the last 7 years and why is she not still doing it for her beautiful son?

And then there was the 45 year old guy who was trying to be the man of the house and be someone that his son would look up to.  
WTF red flag alert...he is 45 and now decides to GROW UP. WTF... his wife or most kikely his MOTHER told him to get off his ass, put down the video game and get a freaking job...

  Then the latest was the 20 year experienced veteran that knew how to do everything and do it better than anyone who would do things our way and not his way, who was screwed around at the last print shop he worked at and was lied to so he wanted to find a nice clean shop where he would be treated fairly...

Alan have you EVER met a 20 year old that KNEW EVERYTHING, no they just think they do. He is 20 a vet and has already had one job beyong the military. He joined up at 18 and now at 20 is not in the military any more...why was he in less than 2 years?

Not to be a smart ass but maybe someone else should be doing the interviewing..possibly Mrs Alan...you got to dig man and I would guess you are too focused on the need to get someone  and not getting someone you need.
mooseman

[whitewater]

I'm starting to believe college degrees mean JACK SH!T. . .college will take anyone who pays up. . .I went through this a week ago. I read through 35-40 applications. I called one guy that seemed promising, never called me back. Another guy took on 3 jobs during our hiring process and didn't want to leave any of them, and the third person took a job doing web design at a local car parts shop. Every other application brought tears to my eyes, we never laughed so damn hard. One guy had to cross out his name and rewrite it. Absolutely ZERO excuse for that garbage. I don't care if you have a GED, high school grad or whatever -just use your damn head and think.

I ended up hiring the hot chick, in her 3rd year of state college for marketing and fashion design, has experience screen printing, shes a model from NYC, worked at abercrombie and fitch. .  . seemed bright, smart . well. .Today, she tried to put a bolt into cement block with a drill bit in the screw gun. . .today was her third day on the job. I hate the hiring process. . we know each other well, soon to be even closer.

I havre more patience with hot chicks....

My last girl employee.....well.....I can't say! LOL