Without squashing the cilantro

By Editor | August 10, 2023

A VIEW FROM THE BRIDGE

Marc Robertson

We really need to address this issue of the South Texas workforce and its shortcomings.
Last week, we published a feature story about the healthy retail and foodservice economy boosting one of the communities in our coverage area, and I’m sure you know that the same applies in each of the towns we serve. People are spending, and businesses are hiring.
The trouble is that there are ‘Help Wanted’ signs on the doors of all our shops and hundreds upon hundreds of perfectly able-bodied young people in our towns who aren’t working.
Now, either the economy is so good that some adults just don’t need to work because someone else in the family is already earning enough, or people are not suited to the jobs that are available.
I visit a lot of businesses in this area all the time, and last week I made a point of asking at a few shops why they still have signs on the door when there are so many potential workers out there.
The answers were frankly alarming.
“People are just lazy” was one that I heard with awkward frequency. Another in the same vein was “People don’t want to work here.”
These were answers I was given at successful businesses that – to all appearances – were entirely good places at which to earn a respectable wage.
It may seem strange, but if we think about it, people not wanting to work or being lazy must mean that the economy is good enough to allow them the option. Yes, even laziness is an option. It shouldn’t, however, earn anyone any rewards.
One does wonder whether unemployment benefits and other social safety nets now outweigh the wages of a straightforward job in retail, hospitality or foodservice, and one also wonders where some people may be earning the money that they’re spending on so much food, clothing, housewares and luxuries.
Sitting at home watching television and playing video games isn’t free, is it? Neither are driving to restaurants in San Antonio or Laredo, partying in night clubs, going to theme parks and beaches, or buying the cellphones with which people snap photos of all the marvelous things they can do with their time.
A cashier at one store told me the new employees that have come and gone so quickly at her place of work “Were useless or ended up stealing or not showing up for work.”
Another worker told me the new employees he had seen “Were just really stupid.”
“Not to be mean or anything, but you put cans on a shelf.”
“Yeah, they couldn’t do that. Like I said, they were too stupid.”
Okay, now that’s plain rude. Nevertheless, it must come from somewhere, no matter how awful it may sound. Someone, or more than just one, showed up for work unable or unwilling to carry out the simplest of tasks.
This brings me to a point I’ve made before and that I think is worth repeating. Considering the amount of money plowed into the social systems that provide help for the unemployed and the little return it appears to be earning, I believe there’s much to be said for local vocational schools that will train anyone to work in the most elementary of jobs and to develop the skills to reach higher positions.
Clearly, there are masses of people who need to learn how to count change, greet customers, handle requests, answer telephones politely, bag groceries without squashing the cilantro, stack merchandise, sell things, clean things, operate machines, and ultimately create a working budget for their household.
It used to be taught in schools. We’d sometimes mock it, but we shouldn’t have. It made good straightforward common sense.
I think there is room in our community for a basic training school that will certify its graduates, ready and willing to work, to be valuable components of the leviathan upon whose every properly functioning part the whole country relies every day.
I’d rather spend my tax money on properly training the next burger cook, cashier, delivery driver, waitress, custodian, builder or mechanic than see them lollop around with armfuls of frozen pizza, bitching about how the system is mistreating them.