I know someone who grew up during the great depression dirt poor and managed a furniture store in southern california his brother owned. I don’t know the exact time frame of his story, but it probably was between 1950-1980. I lean more towards assuming it is 1960-1970ish.
Many years ago he told me they had to hire all mexicans because young white Americans didn’t want to work anymore. All they wanted to do was just go to the beach and hang out.
Only later did I realize what was probably going on here: nobody wanted to do that kind of labor for that low of pay. So he had to find a group of people desperate enough to accept such low wages and/or poor working conditions.
I think he also said something to the effect of, but I can’t quite recall, about the mexicans still being lazy and him needing to be harsh with them for things to get done. He seemed a little bit proud of the fact that they knicknamed him “white devil”.
The fact that the specified “young” people not wanting to work probably reflects his unspoken expectation that young people should be willing to accept the poor pay and conditions just because they are young.
It is the same justification people try to use for fast food paying so little – the claim that teenagers don’t deserve a living wage because they don’t need it yet. Except what they don’t tell you is that the majority of workers in these places are not even teenagers.
I realize now that a lot of the lamenting employers do a out not being able to take advantage of people probably comes out of the fact that they either were taken advantage of in the past, or saw others doing so, and just assumed they would be entitled to do the same once they were on top. Then they gaslight and blame the workers when their expectations aren’t met instead of questioning of they were right to expect this of people.
That is also why businesses are always the ones pushing for massive wages of poor immigrants that they can exploit once they have lost the ability to exploit the existing population.
Pushing to allow masses of European poor in the late 19th century to fill up factories and coal mines.
Pushing to allow legislation for masses of mexican migrants in the 50s to fill the low wage gap that existed in a post war prosperous country.
Outsourcing manufacturing jobs to Asia in the 80s-90s because you can’t get around unions and laws here.
Outsourcing tech jobs in the 2000s. And when you can’t outsource it you push to import more tech workers from india who will do the same job for less.
Businesses are always looking for the next field of workers they can exploit when the current field has put up too many barriers to exploitation.
But in some ways you can understand where these expectations came from if you look at his past.
This particular person and his brother grew up in the great depression and coming out of the great dust bowl that ruined everyone in the great plains states. From an abusive household no less. Mom dying early. Alcoholic dad. He left the house to be on his own at a very early age. Like no older than 12. If I recall, maybe even as young as 10. I wonder if bis older brother left as well and took him with him.
As a kid he needed work so he took a job at an auto repair shop. And back then everyone needed work so bad you didn’t even ask what the wage was, you just took what you could get. So after a week of hard work he asks “so when so I get paid?” The owner gets angry and says “Pay? Boy, you’re learnin a skill here”. He throws down his tools and quits.
Later he was a ranch hand who literally only got paid in three meals of cooked beans a day. I am assuming perhaps he was given a place to sleep as well.
So maybe this set his expectations for how you are suppose to treat young and desperate people in the work place once it’s your turn to be the employer.
They worked their way up from being exploited as labor to being independent carpenters.
They dealt honestly and did not try to defraud customers on contracts or anything like that. He believed your word was everything and you did what you said you were going to. He said you didn’t need contracts back then because you just trusted people to do what they said they would. If you said a job was going to take X dollars then you charged only X dollars even if you lost money on the deal because you misjudged the cost.
So it’s not like he was just looking to screw over everyone and take from them. This is an admirable trait sorely lacking in today’s business world.
He entered world war 2. They made him a flight instructor because they found upon testing his IQ was 150 and therefore wanted to make him an officer.
Eventually they owned and operated a successful furniture business.
He taught himself to invest the money had made from business in stocks and both he and his brother became millionaires. I assume his brother had more as the company owner, but this person had assets worth 3-4 million in 2010
I also think his self made success also fosters the entitlement that “well, I pulled myself up by my own bootstraps from nothing to make something of myself, so you should be able to as well”.
There is certainly something to be said for the fact that what he had was not handed to him, but that doesn’t require or justify treating others poorly once you have something.