Hire American .. Buy American
I shouted that rhetoric no end twenty years ago though no one was listening at the time. Certainly not anyone in the the political party I was then affiliated with. After all , we all needed our grass cut for $15 bucks right? … who was I to say anything ?
Now I’m a small business owner in SW Florida and have recently been fielding the question from clients constantly….
“Why don’t you hire Americans “?
Well I’d be most displeased to answer that question… right here and now.
First off… an American needs to answer the job add in a timely manner. When I place an add in Craigslist at 4:00 pm that says “Do not reply by email, call this number” Latino girls with and without English language skills respond by phone within the hour, and all with the desire of 40 plus hours a week.
“Americans” tend to disregard the instructions and respond by “email”. And on average, between 1:00 and 2:30 a.m. My guess being that after hours of social media they realise they should spend a minute or two looking for a job so that the parents they still live with will get off their back. I did, however, just give an over the phone interview with a rare American daytime responder and she got the job... until an hour later when she called to explain that it entailed three hours a week more than she could handle . And if you need to know… those with no experience at anything start at $3.00 an hour over minimum wage at my little company.
So… who does work under my employ?
Well, “real Americans” in my opinion, thats who. Two girls came from Cuba. My Government dangled the carrot on the stick and offered them the dry foot deal. So they each saved and scraped and spent their life savings to pay for rides on dangerous little boats to bring them and their children through the night to frantically wade ashore past the low tide mark. That was the offered deal and they accepted it in order to begin a new life. That is the kind of courage and determnation my country sorely needs and we should be ashamed that it needs to be imported.
There is also a Peruvian. Her and her husband both sacrificed a somewhat decent professional living to come and work as a cleaner and restaurant worker. This in order their daughter could do better here and attend a college. There is also a Colombian who became a legal resident through marriage after rubber tire tubing it across the Rio Grande since she couldn’t swim. She has a neice living in Chicago. After arriving here three years ago that neice has completed a course of studies and started a growing business. With help from no one she has allready accomplished more than many natives will in their entire lives.
All of them brought with them to this country something the United States truly needs. They brought couragious stories, and incentive, and will to work and prosper. And they can read a watch,
I wonder sometimes what will happen should the promised return of “Millions of Jobs” from overseas occur… and only hundreds of thousands show up for work .
I still hope they build a wall…. we need to keep some of them in.
