A New Year grump!

I offer a good wage that is about treble the national minimum. The job involves some work when we are busy and not a lot of work when we are quiet.

I have a business that is growing, despite the recession, and I am struggling to employ some more people to replace those approaching retirement, but the labour pool from which I am drawing seems totally inadequate.

These would-be employees come with the following baggage - everything on this list is genuine.

• Cannot think for themselves and lack common sense.
• No concept of personal responsibility
• Addicted to their mobile phones.
• Have drug and smoking addictions
• Have multiple children from different mothers, all of whom are estranged,
• Have ill parents.
• Have adult "children" for whom they must take time off.
• Have criminal records
• Are accident damaged, with replacement hips and knees, nipped nerves in shoulders and backs, have elbows with faulty ligaments, flat feet.
• Regard starting times as a loose target time for them to try to get to work
• Work nights for other people and so are too tired to come to work for me.
• Treat working on Friday afternoons as optional.
• Have stomach sickness every Monday morning
• Have rotting teeth and need multiple dental appointments in works time.
• Are ill mannered
• Are ill disciplined
• Do not know how to use a broom or empty a rubbish bin
• Never clean a company vehicle unless specifically instructed to do so.
• Treat the inside of the company vans as some form of refuse disposal site.
• Have no concept of working safely despite repeated instruction - how many times do you need to be told to put the supplied ramps securely in place before driving a machine off the back of a trailer?
• Claim work related physical injuries weeks after they are supposed to have hurt themselves having never previously mentioned any accident or injury to their employer.
• Cannot absorb information from training courses as they "already know it all"
• Believe the road transport laws apply only to others.
• Cannot drive without hitting stationary objects & getting fined for speeding
• Cannot take a corner without damaging tyre sidewalls and wheel rims.
• Cannot be bothered to check that their vehicles are roadworthy or that all the trailer connections are made.
• Regard MOT certification, car insurance and road tax as optional on their own vehicles.
• Get so many penalty points that they are banned from driving.
• Regard company stocks of fuel, oil and antifreeze as being there for them to use in their own vehicles.
• Leave company vehicles and machinery running on fumes despite having working fuel cards and having passed a dozen fuel stations on the way home.
• Drive at 45mph and stop for multiple breaks when going to site
• Drive home at 80mph without a single break
• Drive machinery into houses causing expensive damage
• Bend trailer chassis: How????
• Dangerously over inflate or under inflate tyres despite clear tyre pressure markings adjacent to the tyres.
• Cannot navigate their way out of a paper bag despite the provision of road maps, satnavs and route finder step by step instructions when going to site.
• Never miss a junction going home.
• In such a hurry to get home that they leave valuable equipment behind on site
• Routinely lose company telephones but never mislay their own mobile
• Leave loose equipment on flatbed trailers
• Put petrol in diesel engines (and vice versa) despite clear markings by every fuel cap.
• Never check coolants, oils or washer fluids
• Cannot change a set of wiper blades correctly
• Cannot take the right equipment with them despite the provision of a written checklist for each job.
• Cannot work out the area of a piece of rectangular ground when given a measuring wheel.
• Find working outside to be too cold and wet or too hot.
• Waste and damage materials and equipment.
• Always want cash advances.
• Never buy milk, tea, coffee or sugar for their own use at tea break.
• Cannot collect and retain receipts for company petty cash issued to them.
• Are blind when it comes to looking for clearly visible spares in the well organised company stores.
• Select the most expensive steak on the menu when the company is paying.
• Expect to drink all evening on the company tab when working away
• Throw their wet waterproof gear in to the van and just leave it there overnight and then moan that it is still wet the following day.
• Do not take enough gloves from the ample supplies at base and then moan that they have to use wet or dirty gloves.
• Are generally workshy.

The politically correct amongst us would blame the employer, me, for a failure to adequately train and supervise these people and, ultimately I suppose, that is right. However, as a scouse friend so aptly puts it; "you cannot educate Spam".

It is statistically highly unlikely that I should have seen only the "bad" ones if the labour pool is not full of similar people.

We are told there are 2.5 million people unemployed, but I wonder just how many of those are actually employable?