I haven’t been this frustrated in a long time. I have a small company. We are looking for people to work in our mini warehouse. It’s really a minimum wage job, but we pay$12 per hour plus benefits. We sell small parts for power tools, most of them less than 1/2 lb. The boxes are small, maybe 5″ x 5″. This is really a simple job. When you think of warehouse, you think of forklifts and conveyor belts; that’s not us. We have 20 shelf units that hold our parts. There are only 2 people in our warehouse and we all get along great. We advertise the job telling everyone about the job. We get applicants via email. We email them back a simple questionnaire, asking just a few questions and can you believe that nobody bothered to even reply to the questionnaire? Hey, you emailed me asking for an interview. I reply with 5 easy questions and you don’t even bother to reply. When we do get people to reply and set up interviews, at least 50% of the people never show up for the interview.  We call them and say, “Where were you? You had an interview today at 1PM and it’s now 2.” Their response typically is, “Oh, I didn’t know I had an interview” or “Sorry, I forgot.”

This is so frustrating! Do you or do you not want a job?
I can’t even imagine running a fast food restaurant. The number of people you need for all of the shifts has to be staggering. I have contractors that come into my place of business that feel the same way that I do. They have more work than they have employees to do the work. Many of the employees that they have had simply stopped showing up.

I believe that we have made it too easy for people to obtain assistance from our state and federal agencies so working is well, just not necessary.  In Virginia, you can receive unemployment benefits for up to half a year.  I know that unemployment benefits are necessary, but if someone answers an ad for employment  only to satisfy the requirements to receive unemployment, and I seem interested in your resume, at least reply to my questions. Maybe I should say in my help wanted ad. “If you apply to us for employment and we respond positively and you do not reply or show up for the interview, we will forward your name to the unemployment agency so that they can remove you from the roles of the unemployed!”

Many of my friends have decided to become consultants because this allows them to not have to depend on anyone else and avoid employees altogether. It’s pretty sad actually. I’m really concerned about the future of our nation as the work ethic has seemed to fall to an all time low, at least for what I am seeing in my world. Don’t get me wrong. I have a good number of great employees and they are as shocked as I am when people just don’t show up for an interview. It makes their jobs harder when we can’t find people to fill vacancies, because they are carrying a heavier load due to lack of staff.

My latest attempt at finding employees is to advertise through the local community college. Hopefully, if you are attending college, you want to learn more, you want to improve yourself and are more apt to respond to an opportunity to work and earn some money. I’ll let you know how it goes.