 | 
|
Minimum
Wage -- You get what you pay for......
|
|
| In
This Issue: |
Issue
341 - - January 30, 2007
|
|
|
| •
|
Welcome!
And what's new...
| |
|
| •
|
3.
No – That's not the IRS
| |
|
|
| •
|
1.
Minimum Wage – You get what you pay for!
| |
|
|
|
|
| •
|
2.
Where's the leak in your life?
| |
|
| •
|
5.
Humor -- Uninterrupted Misery
| |
|
|
This
current discussion about minimum wage appears to
me to be a meaningless argument. I don’t know of
any serious business that can survive and thrive
while trying to pay the minimum wage ($5.15).
The market will not allow them to even consider
it.
The question seems to me like asking
how much you can sin and still get into heaven.
Obviously, with that line of reasoning, the
emphasis is in the wrong place. The focus should
be how much joy can I experience by not sinning.
You don’t get punished for sinning; you get
punished by sinning.
The issue is the
same with the minimum wage. If you fight for
your right to pay only minimum wage, you will
experience the curse of finding only people with
that value. If I go to get my appendix taken
out, I don’t want to bargain for the cheapest
doctor. I want the best. If I want construction
work done, I don’t look for price as the only
determinant of who I choose.
Just this
week, I got a bid from a local printer on a
major printing job. I questioned the bid
breakdown, as a small book spine was more than a
full page. The president of the company emailed
me and said he agreed there was something wrong
with that quote. Now here’s where it gets
interesting. Because of my past history with his
company he said, “Why don’t you just tell us
what you think the price ought to be and we’ll
go with that.” If my approach was always to try
to get it cheaper, would he have presented it in
that way? But because I expect to pay a fair
price for quality work I did sit down and do my
own calculations and told him what I thought the
price should be. He readily agreed and began the
job that afternoon.
I don’t want to make
the other person lose when I do business with
them. I want them to prosper and be successful
as well. If you want the best people, the best
service and the best products, then buy the
best. If you underpay and purchase sub-standard
people or products, chances are strong that you
will have wasted your entire
investment.
I have frequent interaction
with a company that has hundreds of employees.
They are known for paying sub-standard wages as
they think people should just consider it a
privilege to work there. It’s easy to see that
they could increase productivity dramatically if
they cut their employee number in half and
focused on finding the best and brightest
people. They choose to continue with rampant
inefficiency and low productivity, but they’re
saving money on salaries??
Zig Ziglar’s
motto has always been: "You can get
anything in life you want, if you help enough
other people get what they want." I went
to see him for the first time about 30 years ago
and have found that adage to be extremely
accurate.
And now – do you really want
to eat that $.49 hamburger for lunch – prepared
by some dude who hates his job, resents what
he’s being paid and sees you as the
enemy?
|
|
|
|
|
Years
ago a lifeboat in the London harbor sprung a
leak, and while being repaired the workers found
that a hammer had been left in the bottom of the
hull by the builders thirteen years before. The
constant motion of the boat had allowed that
hammer to wear completely through the planking
and to then cause a tiny hole in the plating
itself.
History is full of examples of
buildings falling, cars disintegrating,
marriages exploding, and careers collapsing as
an end result of small blunders. The majority of
airplane crashes, medical malpractice cases, and
business failures are caused by small
compromises or deceptions.
The dead
letter department of the post office in
Washington received seven million pieces of
undelivered mail in one recent year. Eighty
thousand of those bore no address whatever. Many
were from established businesses. Are the
workers responsible for those deserving of
promotion?
Now is a great time to clean
out your hull. Is there a small negative habit
that is undermining your success? Is there a
small indiscretion that is eroding a valued
relationship? Make your life a Stradivarius;
created with exquisite workmanship, unquestioned
integrity, and life-giving
habits.
______________________________________________________
For
want of a nail, the shoe was lost:
For want
of the shoe, the horse was lost;
For want of
the horse, the rider was lost;
For want of
the rider, the battle was lost;
For want of
the battle, the kingdom was lost,
And all for
the want of a nail.
|
|
|
|
|
