The Shelf From Hell: Why Employing People Sucks Part 1

 

We hired our young Mexican friend and have had to sadly fire him...three times as of today.  Today's posts feature the photos taken from when he first started what is now being dubbed, the shelf from hell.  You see he puts himself off to be a carpenter, but at this point it's clear that he's not a very good one if his time with us is any indication. 

We started this out with high hopes that involved him and his family moving up in the world pretty quickly, just so long as he could prove himself in the beginning.  We saw him becoming involved in many of our businesses, including a possible manager's role in the glass factory, making more money than he probably ever has.  

What he actually did was see our cameras and nice place and assume we were rich, worth taking advantage of.  We explained how we wanted projects done (usually fast and dirty, functional but not pretty) and he at almost every turn found ways to make things take longer.  This shelf is a perfect example, as he spent 4 days notching wood that didn't need to be notched for the simple shelf we were hoping for.  

All of this will be explained as we share more photos of the painfully show progress, as well as our adventures trying to deal with someone in the employee mindset that doesn't speak the same language. 

The first project, this ladder, was a hint at what was in store and a test in many ways. What was intended to be a sturdy ladder got turned into this, complete with notches that took a half a day to do.  He installed it and less than a day later, it fell under John's weight over a silly mistake, which could have seriously injured him considering the ladder might be heavier than him. This ladder is MORE than secure now, thanks to John, but it was a good hint at what we were dealing with.  

Our friend is not a bad guy per say, but he is young and stuck in a low income rut that I know all too well. He looks at me with my fancy camera on the computer but doesn't make the connection that that is not a toy but a tool for me to make money.  He also doesn't understand that money is not a reward, but a tool to be used wisely.  Every day he showed up with new apparel despite his low (by American standards but higher for here) wages.  We come from very different worlds in many ways and explaining that in a different language is very difficult as we have found.  

So stay tuned as we share more photos of the slow progress of the shelf that is currently being finished by John, as he needs it to grow microgreens.  I won't get too much into the details on what happened within this post, but I will note on the general opinions and view of American's that Mexicans, especially low income ones, seem to have.

There's a general opinion that we're not here to do anything but live.  Therefor, often times we are put on the back burner as far as getting things done is concerned.  Throughout this whole experience our friend acted as if it was a crappy job for a bunch of snobby gringos, but in reality it was a great job with good pay and future pay raises imminent.  He seemed more concerned on making jobs take longer than getting them done efficiently.  I'm not sure he considered the fact that we could pay our rent by growing microgreens on the shelves he was dragging his feet to build.  I'm not sure he realized that we work all day long, every day, despite our beautiful home based situation.

This has been an interesting experience for me and I'll do my best to share my perspective on this whole thing.  Its interesting seeing someone stuck in the slave/employee mindset from a different perspective, as they see themselves often as better, smarter and more enabled than those with money.  He spent hours telling us how he should be making 500 pesos a day, but couldn't explain to us why he wasn't already. 

I'll get into this all more, soon. Stay tuned!

Thanks for following and supporting, until next time!