Sunday, April 14, 2013

The Amazing Employee (tm) or, If This Is How You Ran Your Business...

I have a business dilemma.  I have this great service that I am promising to be able to provide to customers.  It is incredible, and everyone wants it.  The problem is, I just don't have the resources to do the job at the price they are willing to pay.  Key to my business model has been the concept of the Amazing Employee(tm) - someone who will be able to do twice the work, for the same pay, under conditions that are twice as bad.

See, I know what you're thinking.  He's crazy.  But I have a secret.  What I offer is something so amazing that prospective employees will be lining up around the block just for the chance to "be a part of something profound".  Don't worry.  I have recruiters all over the country and we get a lot of juice.  People get really excited about our service and want to be a part of the team.

Now, the hard part has been in finding people who can really do the job, and won't just quit right away.  So far, in tests, we haven't been able to find very many people who can do either, much less both.   No matter how much training we give to current employees, nothing really seems to be helping.  We're looking into attracting only the best and brightest from top colleges, but even they seem to really struggle, or leave after a couple of years.

We've also got the problem of the union.  They keep demanding that the working conditions are terrible, and that the job isn't fair.  They're constantly threatening to strike, hampering our ability to turn the screws any tighter.  They point to other areas of the company where the job is half as hard and employees get the same pay.  They think that it isn't fair to demand twice the performance for a job that is hardly possible.

I'm not sure what to do at this point.  I'm really beginning to question my business model.




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