Gen Why, Gen me, Gen Xcuses, whatever...
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My young friend from the 2/3's…
Rita is the daughter of good Porsche friends… She’s 23, a collage student, and manages a shift at a yogurt place…
Rita like’s ‘retro/cool stuff’, and last year her folks helped her find and buy a ’64 Volvo 122S ‘Amazon’… which she is paying off
My friend’s asked if I had any experience teaching people how to drive a stick shift, I said I had, and I’d be happy to try to teach their kid…
With them say’n “You’ll be objective, she’s not yours”..... :D
The first thing I did was have her drive me (slowly) in the ‘automatic car’ she was used to… (By now most of us geezers are careful not to be a victim in the passenger seat of a new driver on the street or on the track) Well Rita was a very adequate, heads-up young driver…. So, off we went in her 52 year old Volvo….
She listened, didn’t get too frustrated, and had a good feel on the controls ……… She did (and is doing) fine… And is very proud of her old car….
For a little balance of the other 1/3’d…
Rita surprisingly asked for a little stick shift refresher… after doing so well with our 3 or 4 lessons I was wondering what was up?
She went on to asked if I was sure she was driving and shifting the car correctly… When I asked why she's asking she said she was driving some of her young friends and they said “That’s not the way I do it” …….. To that I told her (trying to keep it together) “THEY ARE DOING IT WRONG, YOU AND I ARE DOING RIGHT, STOP LISTENING TO THEM!!!!!” ... :mad:
… and so it goes
She’s still driving her old car to work and to two different business school campuses…
- Young Rita and her Volvo
My son Logan is a senior at Humboldt State and recently I sent him the paper work to have his car smogged. His busy morning schedule of classes followed by work he is unable to get it smogged in timely fashion so upon my suggestion I told him to have one of his four roommates take it and his response was "nobody knows how to drive a stick" :eek:
I am a concrete contractor which is very hard, physical work especially in the desert. I have not had a young Caucasian working for me for over 5 years. I've interviewed many with no luck when the job description is summarized to them.
Expecting too much : It's no different than duck hunters at one time in Minnesota looking at a sky full of ducks migrating in the fall. They're not there in same numbers now.
A shop has the right to screen applicants to keep to a standard it prefers as written here; http://beckseuropean.com/employees-a...ity/#more-1060 Many of the examples are thoughtful, inspired and well meaning. If you wrote it to make sure that 98% of the applicants do a 180 and steer clear of the place, in hopes of landing the 1-2% cream of the crop...nothing wrong with that. There's also a saying that "when you go to extremes in anything" you are bound to suffer at some point.
I wrote and posted that for prospective and existing customers 8 years ago. (BTW: Our customers absolutely LOVE IT.) In those 8 years it has been an effective filter for hiring but not without drawbacks. I noticed early on that the vast majority of job candidates, even well into the process had never read through our website! Why would anyone consider working for a company without doing research on them? I'll request that they read through our "Employees" page and ask if they still believe they're a good fit. Only a handful (literally) have declined at that point. All of the others believed that they had what it takes. Ha! It seems to me that many of the young people today are so delusional and have grown up with participation trophies that they don't even know who they really are. (Most don't make it through the vetting process.)
Occasionally my screening process fails me and I'll hire a dud but for the most part it has brought us stand out employees. And when they decide to move on their future employers should be very grateful that they were subjected to my boot camp and trained properly.
I no longer talk about skills. People can lie about their skills. And it will come out in their work very quickly. I talk to them as people. Try to get to know them as best as possible during an interview. I want to see whether I think I'll like them as people. When you're in the trenches and things are rough, its a lot easier to accomplish a task with someone you like and respect.
I actually had someone question me about the way I interview. He said "you didn't ask me any technical questions" and seemed puzzled. (It wasn't quite true, I actually ask about technology and programming philosophies). I explained my process and he said "I think working for you will be fun."
It's worked much better for screening out people than anything else I've found. (Although, I can't stand body piercings. It's almost an instant "no hire".)
I am glad I am not hiring anymore. (at least for now, my wife wants to open a business and I keep saying noooo.. ) I can not believe what people wear to interviews these days, what happened to the " wear a tie" thinking. I feel it is a show of respect to at least wear something nice. People came in with all kinds of clothing choices. Best though was when a kid came in to drop of a resume, with his mom and she did all the talking... Still makes me laugh. That poor kid.
Mark..
Extensive back-and-forth email exchange before we even get to the interview stage. If I get the impression the candidate has perseverance or character issues I'll sometimes tell them they are probably not a good fit. More than likely the position is for a technician. Tenacity, endurance, creativity, character, and perseverance are all qualities I look for.
If a guy won't even take a second run at me why would I expect him to dig in when confronted with an exceptionally difficult problem on a car?
Here's a fantastic training video:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WW2qaBJWdaA