Yesterday I took a trip out to Munger, MI, to visit my Great Uncle. The man is amazing – in the late 1950s he scraped up enough cash to purchase a pick-up truck and tools and proceeded to canvas the local community fixing or building anything for a buck. An AMAZING WORK ETHIC coupled with his dream of self-employment and $MONEY$ was his only motivation.
I worked for him in the summer of 2006. I arrived at his shop, a 35 minute drive from my house, Monday through Friday at 7 AM. We would go to a job site and work all day pouring concrete or installing metal roofs. We would break only for lunch, and it was a rarity for me to make it home before 7 PM. The work was hard, challenging, and rewarding at the same time.
He had two other employees while I was there. Both were High School dropouts who, at age 26 and 30 approximately, finally figured out that drinking and partying cost more than just the case of beer. Both had multiple kids they couldn’t afford and lived at home with Mom and Dad. Yet with all that responsibility and the motivation to move out of their parent’s house how often do you think they showed up on time? The answer is rarely. I heard every excuse under the sun: the baby kept me up all the night, my alarm clock didn’t go off. In short, they had NO REAL WORK ETHIC, no sense of accountability.
There was such a stark contrast between my Baby Boomer Uncle and Gen X, or Y, or who cares, punk employees of his. Given all the benefits these workers had including advancements in technology and the rules and regulations that guaranteed over time and benefits they were a third the worker my Uncle was at half the age.
Today work is few and far between for my Uncle. The community that he helped fix/build throughout the years is dying because Michigan industry is either Farming or Auto manufacturing and neither are doing very well. What has my Uncle done? Did he line up outside Michigan’s Unemployment Office expecting his share? NO! Of course not, he works harder. He looks for and accepts ANY FORM OF WORK. His WORK ETHIC reflects an America where people didn’t ask for handouts. In the era he is from Americans went out and made something of their lives because the consequences were so dire – poverty, hunger, shame – if one choose to be incompetent.
On my ride home from my Uncle’s house that evening I stopped at a Wendy’s fast food restaurant.
Here’s my experience:
Pull up to the ordering screen and wait over 3 minutes with NO ONE ELSE IN LINE:
I expected to hear: “Hi, Welcome to Wendy’s, What can I make you today?”
But instead I heard a lazy and thoughtless: “What do you want?” (HONESTLY THIS IS WHAT I HEARD!!)
Appalled, I ordered a chicken sandwich. Instead of asking, “Would I like a fry with that”, the lazy twenty-something told me the dollar amount of my bill with a crisp, discernible attitude behind it that screamed: get out of my line! I don’t CARE! No attempt at an up sell. No attempt at customer service.
This Wendy’s employee was not concerned with my satisfaction. In his mind the job was a chore he did to afford a 12 pack of Milwaukee’s Best and get his parent’s off his back. His attitude reflected his lack of work ethic.
Normally I would shrug it off as just another loser but the next day I see the hundreds, if not thousands, of potential Wendy’s employees protesting at the G20. (G20 is a leadership summit for the 20 most influential industrial nations on the Planet. It rarely accomplishes anything, just FYI) The punk protesters, with their spray paint and face masks, are screaming things like: “Abolish Money!” and “Class Warfare!” They are protesting against Capitalism because in their skewed version of the world it is Capitalism, which in 100 years has brought more prosperity and better living conditions to nearly all human beings relative to last 1,000, that is the root cause of their Wendy’s employment. No Capitalism – No Wendy’s.
The G20 protesters are a prime example of my point: they lack the WORK ETHIC to go out and utilize their God-given talents/skills to earn the money and respect that comes with a solid days work. They expect MY UNCLE to work 12 hour days to pay the Messiah Obama taxes so they can afford bandannas, poster board and the day off from Wendy’s to protest.
America IS THE GREATEST COUNTRY ON EARTH. Do you know why? Because if you have a dream and WORK ETHIC you can accomplish anything here! The ability to go from rags to riches IS AMERICA, it’s the dream that brought our ancestors here through Ellis Island, and it’s the same dream that brings Mexican immigrants here today. But the feasibility and availability of the American dream is being eroded EVERY SINGLE DAY. Our President, Congress, and the Wendy’s employees of America are working diligently to remove the incentive to make the American dream a reality by TAXING away all the rewards. It is a guarantee that my generation will pay more in taxes throughout our lifetime than the previous generation.
My question then is:
What benefits will the younger generation of Americans that still possess a GREAT WORK ETHIC receive from the government as the result of higher taxes?
The answer:
Jack Diddly Squat.
The worst part: The Wendy’s employees will be stuck at Wendy’s FOREVER because they can’t make enough to save up for their dreams. They will be dependent on the Government, living in substandard conditions because, lets face it, the rich in America just simply do not make enough to bring everyone up into the middle class. In turn the growing DEPENDENCY CLASS, or Wendy’s employees, will complain that my Uncle, who worked his whole life without asking for one single handout, should pay MORE so they are responsible for LESS
So I beg you: Forget welfare. Forget Bailouts. Forget Stimulus. Forget Government. Think of your biggest dream, strap on your work boots and make it happen. You will prove to yourself and the world that you have GREAT WORK ETHIC and you can be PROUD as you ACCOMPLISH THE AMERICAN DREAM.
** No offense to the honest, hard working Wendy’s employees. It is not you I am referring to, however the employee at the Wendy’s in Essexville, MI, is giving YOU ALL a bad name!
