Too old or too young?

Didn"t want to hijack Lyle"s post, but something someone posted about older people outworking those half their age reminded me of a similar, but opposite experience...

When times were better and I had employees... I had a lazy kid (college age) working for me few years back as a co-op in the office, drawing. As part of their co-op training I would always have them spend some time in the field doing some labor when drawing jobs were slow.
Had a small load of landscaping rock I was salvaging off a construction job we were doing. Not quite enough to load a 16" trailer 2 rocks deep. It was a sunny Friday, showed him how to do it and left him with the trailer, parked right next to the rocks. Several hours later, he"s stepped on a nail (because he didn"t clean his work area as instructed) and has to take the weekend off, he was also complaining about it being too hot and hard to work fast. Not even a quarter of the trailer loaded.
So, that weekend I went over there with my boys (ages 9 and 11) and showed them how to properly lift the rocks, etc. The three of us were loaded and out of there in about an hour.
Monday rolls around, we"re in the Monday morning meeting. Now, we"re a smaller company so all 10 of us are in the meeting, including our rather visually gifted young female interior designers. He says he"s feeling better, says he"s ready to go, wanted to know if there would be a bobcat or something there... Told him we got it done Saturday morning. Then in front of everyone including the girls, I had the pleasure of telling him it was my two young sons that did it in a bout an hour.
Thankfully, my dad is one of those hardworking older guys who tried to teach me right (I think he may still be able to out work me...). Hopefully my kids get it too.

It's all in how you spin it. Old story about mason's assistants. Five out of six carried 8 bricks per trip. One only carried 4. Forman asked him if it didn't make him look lazy. "Heck no!" he replied. I'm willing to make two trips where the other other guys are only willing to make one. (No, it wasn't me).

Areo

Reminds me of a line from an old 1979 Si Kahn song "Aragon Mill" I do at jams now n then.......

..."Oh Im too old to work/change but Im too young to die, tell me where shall I go my woman and I" ...

Aragon Mill

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cSs7oJYuG2c

John T

I have two grown sons. The 20 year old can outwork me any day of the week, and usually does. The 25 year old I can outwork with my feet tied together. Same house, same teaching, different responses. Luckily, the 25 year old lives far away, out of reach of my steel toed boots.

Dad was 66 years old in 1950. My brothers were in high school and buddies with the football players. They'd come out to the farm on the weekends, seems like it was a "kid friendly" place. Dad would line those guys up to take turns on the opposite end of his crosscut. Each one would saw 'til he was out of breath, and switch off. They couldn't stop him. He liked to joke around with them. Called them Heroes. I wish I was just half the man he was. He was still working at age 75 when a heart attack disabled him. A good hard day's work would kill me, and I'm only 63. And if you're doing the math - yes - my dad was 65 when I was born.

And sometimes, its good to recognize your limitations in the manual labor area when you are young.

Used to play chess on Saturday mornings with a guy who retired as a Commander from the Navy. Grizzled looking guy, looked like a pirate. One day, I enquired as to how he ended up making a career of the Navy.

He said he signed up for a 3 year hitch during the Korean war to avoid the draft- didn't much care for it, was happy to get out and seek his fortune. His dad got him a job with a construction outfit. First day, they put him on a jackhammer. Boss told him to take it easy until he was hardened in to the job, would probably take a few days. Drink plenty of water, etc. etc.

Bill said he started fine, but as the morning wore on, the water trips got more frequent, and longer. By noon, he was completely worn out, and in his words, "It had become obvious that I would never be the construction king of Schenectady." Told the boss that he was not going to be able to give a days work for a days pay, so why don't I just draw it now. Boss offered to put him on something less strenuous, but Bill's mind was made up.

He ate his lunch in the car, on the way to the Navy recruiter's office. Went to OCS, and said once he had decided on that career, and with the officer's bars, thoroughly enjoyed his Navy career.

He was put in charge of the ship store on one cruise. Said the most maddening part of the job was making the till balance at the end of the day. Always seemed to be off by a few cents. So he bought $20 worth of change from the till, put it in a cigar box under the counter. If till was short, he added to it from the cigar box; if it was "long", he'd take some out and put it in the box. Balancing the till took only seconds. At the end of the assignment, there was still money in the box, so he "sold" it back to the till, and left a happy man.

When I was putting up hay in the late '70's, local football coach was also a farmer. He required so many hours a week in the weight room, but you could substitute it hour for hour with pay slips from bucking hay bales. We had a really cute high school girl taking care of the kids during the day, and she kind of liked to hang around the jocks, and vice versa. So when I left for work, I'd tell her how many guys I needed that night, and she'd get the biggest and the best. They'd have their gloves on, trailer hooked up and ready to go, when I got home. And everybody really humped, because nobody wanted to do weight room for free when they could be making money.

Mike, that "really cute high school girl" was the bait. What you were doing was setting the hook. A foolproof system!!

My shop is catty cornered from the high school so every day lots of young people walk by. Some, I doubt they get home before dark in the winter. Others, you can just tell they have better things to do.

Dad liked to say, "you have to set a post to see if he is moving!".

Well, my next door neighbor owns a feed store. It is basically just him to run it.

He is 82 but looks maybe 60. I know he gets at least a semi load of bagged feed per week. He sells (and delivers) a LOT of bagged feed to the Amish.

Just a guess, but he probably handles at least 100 sacks per day. Before Walmart he said he would easily sell over 100 bags of dog and cat feed per day. His price still beats the Walmart price, but the "city" people don't want to drive the 5 miles to his store in the country.

Most of his feed sales now are cattle and horse feed. DOUG

A few years back we had bought a couple grain bin at an auction ,and we were trying to figure how to dismantle and move them. A friend suggested we hire a Mennonite crew to do it .
Heard plenty about them being hard workers ,but had never seen them working .Very efficent people , and to watch them you would swear they would be in each others way but not the case.
well point of story is on their first day there were 6 of them , and the crew bosswas 19 , the youngest one was 16 , lazy and no thinking ability to even look busy,his best work was leaning on the shovel handle ( you know ,like a state worker) The crew boss tried and tried to
make him look less embarressing to the crew but after 3hrs just ignored him . the crew boss told us we would not be charged for his time and either he or the rest of the crew would not be back the next day. yep he didnt come back, and he was the company owner's nephew. never did hear of him again.