Not Hiring

I'm on holiday up in the Far North of New Zealand. That's correct: "Far North", capitalised. It is so far north that there is very dodgy signal - definitely not helped by the planned power outage that they are experiencing at the moment. Damifino when this will get posted.

At any rate, got to talking with one of the locals and a tourist - the local owns the tourist-attraction we were at (Gumdiggers Park). We were yakking while his 9kva generator was going in the background. Topics ranged from politics (Jacinda), politics (USA and Trump), Australia, immigrants, minimum wage rise, kids these days, etc etc. The sorta stuff that us old fogies will yack about when we get to talking.

(Here's a hint: a $15 minimum wage will only push the cost of things up. It's currently that here in NZ and they're making noises about putting it up to $20 or something. Fuck, wish I could get a 25% pay-increase!)

Local man started talking about the local young people. He has no staff, so the minimum wage thing won't affect him: there's just him and his wife run things. We asked why no staff. His reply: "They're bloody useless."

Seems that there's an "epidemic" of sponging off the system up here. Blokes with bad backs, girls with six kids being welfare queens, that sort of shit. (Said welfare queens get paid more in the hand than I do, fuuuuuuuck!)

He had one girl, who started out "not too bad". (Not great, just not too bad.) After a month though, one day she turned up and seemed just a little "off"...

He made a few inquiries and it turned out that she's on P (that's meth to you Americans). He had a few words with her, told her that she couldn't turn up like that... (I'd have drop-kicked the bitch on the way out the door - that he didn't shows just how hard it is to find even halfway-decent workers up here.)

A couple more weeks, suddenly she can't come in - she fell over a child's toy and injured herself. (No children.) Doctor, ACC (Accident Compensation Corp), he's still having to cover some of that though. In the end she buggers off, he's out three grand and ACC is out ten or twelve. Most of that she used to get herself a newer car.

About three months down the line, he gets a call from her new employer. They're wondering about his experience with her and his response is along the lines of "You didn't employ her did you...?"

And that's why he's no longer hiring...

Almost 9pm, sun's gone down, alarm is set for 3am. Time for sleep, see what the stars are like when I wake. Night!