Maybe its me but it seems impossible to find good help these days. I work as a framing carpenter building custom homes, decks and docks with the occasional motel or multiunit condominium from time to time. It's rough work, requires physical and mental strength but it has it's benefits as well. I do it mostly because it's fun and it keeps me in shape, that and my office changes every couple weeks. But finding good help, that's another story.
I'm getting older every day and my bones are starting to grind on each other so one day I decided to take this 26yr old kid to work with me as he had been bugging me for weeks looking for work. The first day on the job was the worst. For starters the task at hand was not an easy one as the lumber yard had dropped the lumber on the 1st floor which was down a 15ft rather steep hill so we had to lug the 2x12x20ft'ers up the hill then pull them up to the 2nd story which was approximately 14ft above grade on top of the hill.
After 15 minutes I knew I had made a bad decision as all I heard was an inordinate amount of grunting followed by the OMG I can't lift it OMG I can't believe you guys do this every day. OMG OMG OMG... All day long OMG. I chuckled at first which later became all out laughter as the youngster fell flat on his face and got up mumbling he was going to go get a drink of water that he couldn't get fired for getting a drink. As the day progressed my partner and I kept laughing and giggling at the ridiculously silly efforts of the young man and I remember at one point telling him straight up to put the board down and to grab his balls and squeeze them as hard as he could to verify if he was a man or not then pick up the board and act like one. Funny he found a sudden new strength that lasted for maybe 10 minutes.
Good lord I thought to myself it would probably be faster if I crawled down off of my 3 1/2 in perch some 50ft up in the air and got the rafter myself, lean it on the wall, climb back up and shuffled it up on my own. What in the hell? I mean really, what are we teaching kids these days because it certainly isn't how to work. Several months back my business partner brings his son-in-law with him to work and he is of the same lot. 28yr old and he'll just stand there clicking away on facebook watching you struggle with something rather than offer to lend a hand. God forbid he actually take some initiative and help without somebody telling him to do so.
Maybe it is me. Maybe it's just a sign of the times we live in. Maybe kids these days simply think you can just order everything you need from the internet and somebody like Santa Clause will just miraculously show up and put it together for you for free.
In the end I think we are all doomed. As a country we hardly produce anything other than drunks, drug addicts, and kids that can't add subtract multiply or divide, much less form a complete sentence, not to mention work with fractions. I give up. I think I'll just retire early and go build a hut in the rain forrest back on the big island of Hawaii and call it good and let the world go to hell in a hand basket. I mean after all there is surf to be surfed there.