State of the Economy

[airman66285]

A week ago we fired our secretary for performance issues. Later that same day, we posted a job classified in our local paper. In six days time, we have received 267 resumes for the secretary position. 7 of those applicants have their MBA....
I know that the economy is not doing very well but I am shocked that we have received that many applications. When we hired the lady we just fired two years ago, we had a total of 14 applicants for the position. Unbelievable and sad!

[m4a1usr]

It does tell us that. Too bad the folks we elected cant seem to get the fact that unless they spend money on job creation those who are unemployed will be stuck on federal or state money for a very long time. I know some will argue that its not the feds job to create jobs. But its been 3 long years since this down turn in the economy and the private sector is hamstringed. Only recently have the banks been more open to business loans and those seeking to expand on their own product line. Slow economic recovery doesnt mean too much to them.

I hope if the bottom falls out from under us again we just let Wall Street and the Banks fail. Yes it will mean a huge depression but sometimes you have to make the journey to know its loss. And we as a society just dont for the most part. I see people on TV at job fairs playing with the latest hand held "whatever" while in line. Obviously they can pay their monthly bill to stay connected. What does it say about their ability to conserve money? Almost everytime I'm at the local Walmart I see a lady yaking her head off with the phone to her ear, yet pays with a State Food Stamps Card. Yeah. That makes sense. I'm paying taxes to support those not willing or able to cut their expenditures. I guess they need their lifestyle at taxpayer cost.

Like I said. We need a good, long, hard depression to get America back to reality. Maybe thats harsh words on my part but the attitude seems to have obviously shifted what being poor means. And that there is such a thing as no one, not even the government coming to their aid. Yeah, like that will ever happen. Sorry about the worthless rant.

John

[Steven Vaccaro]

We had an opening last year, I was tired of people that couldn't add, subtract or multiply.
We gave a 10 question quiz with the job ap. Here is a sample of 5 of the questions.

Question 1) A person wants to buy an item that cost 59.86 and its on sale for 40% off. What is the cost of the item, after the discount? ________.

Question 2) A person wants to buy an item that cost 89.90 and its on sale for 45% off. What is the cost of the item, after the discount?________.

Question 3) If you sell a person two items, the first cost $180.20 and the second $55.00.
What is the total cost of the two items? _________. If both of these items are on sale for 20% off, please tell me the total _________.

Question 4) If you sell a person two items, the first item is $115.10 and on sale for 30% off and the second item is $55.00 and on sale for 50% off, what is the individual cost of each item?
$115.10 = _________. $55.00 =________. What would the total cost be for those two items? _______.

Question 5) If the sales tax is 6.25%. What is the sales tax on a item that cost $102.50 ________



most people couldn't answer half correctly.

[airman66285]

Utterly pathetic! The lady we let go couldn't even type up a Letter of Transmittal without screwing up addresses and multiple typos. As a nation, on SO many levels, we are in a real hurt locker...

[Flying Scotsman]

A week ago we fired our secretary for performance issues. Later that same day, we posted a job classified in our local paper. In six days time, we have received 267 resumes for the secretary position. 7 of those applicants have their MBA....
I know that the economy is not doing very well but I am shocked that we have received that many applications. When we hired the lady we just fired two years ago, we had a total of 14 applicants for the position. Unbelievable and sad!

Interesting and sad...I would love to know what Universities those individuals acquiered their MBA degrees from....lots of applicants and no basic skills...our school system sucks in North America unless it is a private school with proper credentials.

Douggie

[Steven Vaccaro]

Utterly pathetic! The lady we let go couldn't even type up a Letter of Transmittal without screwing up addresses and multiple typos. As a nation, on SO many levels, we are in a real hurt locker...

I agree.

[Steven Vaccaro]

The clerk we hired also struggled on the quiz, but demonstrated other strong qualities, one of them showed us she could be schooled on the job.
Funny thing about that, she spent 4 years at a PAID Catholic girls High School. This isnt trying to point out that Catholic schools are a poor choice. Just pointing out that the fact that schools are not teaching our kids, public or private.

[airman66285]

Regarding the MBA credentials, I have found that the more letters one has after their name, the more useless they truly are in an employment setting (generally speaking).

[Flying Scotsman]

The plot thickens, I went to public (private) schools in the UK and the best teachers I ever had were male in these subjects...physics, history, geography and english.

Douggie

[ray schrauwen]

WOW, your not kidding?
Can I apply at your place!?

We had an opening last year, I was tired of people that couldn't add, subtract or multiply.
We gave a 10 question quiz with the job ap. Here is a sample of 5 of the questions.

Question 1) A person wants to buy an item that cost 59.86 and its on sale for 40% off. What is the cost of the item, after the discount? ________.

Question 2) A person wants to buy an item that cost 89.90 and its on sale for 45% off. What is the cost of the item, after the discount?________.

Question 3) If you sell a person two items, the first cost $180.20 and the second $55.00.
What is the total cost of the two items? _________. If both of these items are on sale for 20% off, please tell me the total _________.

Question 4) If you sell a person two items, the first item is $115.10 and on sale for 30% off and the second item is $55.00 and on sale for 50% off, what is the individual cost of each item?
$115.10 = _________. $55.00 =________. What would the total cost be for those two items? _______.

Question 5) If the sales tax is 6.25%. What is the sales tax on a item that cost $102.50 ________



most people couldn't answer half correctly.

[hebner]

Were the applicants allowed to use a calculator to take the quiz?

[Steven Vaccaro]

Were the applicants allowed to use a calculator to take the quiz?

Yes and no time limit to finish

[hebner]

Wow what planet are they from! You couldn't have made it any easier.

[LarrysDrifter]

I saw a push mower next to the sidewalk by the street. Then, I saw a mid 40's looking woman hauling butt down her driveway in a motorized chair. She hops off the chair and begins push mowing her lawn. She had no limp to her. She pushed that mower around like it was nothing. When I first saw her in her chair, I thought to myself,"just another disabled person". I'm going off a good assumption here, but I highly doubt she is disabled. My second thought was " look, another lazy idiot I help provide a welfare check to". Welfare and food stamp cards should be non-existent. If your too lazy to work, then the government should ship you one of each a week: loaf of bread, package of cheese and a container of peanut butter. If you want more, get off your lazy a$$ and get a job. Any job, don't matter what, just get one. I also love it when people walk up and ask for change. I tell them, " I already provided you with change, look in your mailbox". I'm done ranting. Right or wrong, that's how I feel. Laziness has got to go.

[ray schrauwen]

Were the applicants allowed to use a calculator to take the quiz?

A calculator for that!?? Mama Cita, what the heck, can't people do that by hand or at least guesstimate in their heads?

[Steven Vaccaro]

I saw a push mower next to the sidewalk by the street. Then, I saw a mid 40's looking woman hauling butt down her driveway in a motorized chair. She hops off the chair and begins push mowing her lawn. She had no limp to her. She pushed that mower around like it was nothing. When I first saw her in her chair, I thought to myself,"just another disabled person". I'm going off a good assumption here, but I highly doubt she is disabled. My second thought was " look, another lazy idiot I help provide a welfare check to". Welfare and food stamp cards should be non-existent. If your too lazy to work, then the government should ship you one of each a week: loaf of bread, package of cheese and a container of peanut butter. If you want more, get off your lazy a$$ and get a job. Any job, don't matter what, just get one. I also love it when people walk up and ask for change. I tell them, " I already provided you with change, look in your mailbox". I'm done ranting. Right or wrong, that's how I feel. Laziness has got to go.

Please don't get me started. I'm tired of seeing all these useless people living off the system. I have stories, I can write a book!

[sundog]

We had an opening last year, I was tired of people that couldn't add, subtract or multiply.
We gave a 10 question quiz with the job ap. Here is a sample of 5 of the questions.

Question 1) A person wants to buy an item that cost 59.86 and its on sale for 40% off. What is the cost of the item, after the discount? ________.

Question 2) A person wants to buy an item that cost 89.90 and its on sale for 45% off. What is the cost of the item, after the discount?________.

Question 3) If you sell a person two items, the first cost $180.20 and the second $55.00.
What is the total cost of the two items? _________. If both of these items are on sale for 20% off, please tell me the total _________.

Question 4) If you sell a person two items, the first item is $115.10 and on sale for 30% off and the second item is $55.00 and on sale for 50% off, what is the individual cost of each item?
$115.10 = _________. $55.00 =________. What would the total cost be for those two items? _______.

Question 5) If the sales tax is 6.25%. What is the sales tax on a item that cost $102.50 ________

1. $35.92
2. $49.45
3. $235.20, $188.16
4. $$108.07
5. $6.41
Since nobody volunteered the answers, I thought I'd pitch in. FTR, I don't have a high school diploma. I quit school in the 10th grade to get a job, and got a GED to join the Marines. If I hadn't loved electronics (mostly math) I probably wouldn't be so good with numbers. What really gets me is folks that use words out of context, such as: they're, their, there and to, two, too. A spell checker won't help that.

[fatboyelectric]

During his run for office Lord Obama made promisses of "Change". Well, I'd say we got it. His administration has incurred more debt than every other president in our history COMBINED! If you find that hard to beleave then do the math. If after that you still dont agree, then you probably would not pass Steve's employment test either. LOL. Our forefathers would puke if they saw how badly we have run a muck. The government has become the worlds largest Social Service and left working America the bill for it. The government cannot give to one without taking it from somebody else.

[Steven Vaccaro]

1. $35.922. $49.453. $235.20, $188.164. $$108.075. $6.41Since nobody volunteered the answers, I thought I'd pitch in. FTR, I don't have a high school diploma. I quit school in the 10th grade to get a job, and got a GED to join the Marines. If I hadn't loved electronics (mostly math) I probably wouldn't be so good with numbers. What really gets me is folks that use words out of context, such as: they're, their, there and to, two, too. A spell checker won't help that.

Its been a while since i read the answers and im to lazy to check now. But any Marine has to be right. I can't spell and I barely made it out of high school, but everyone should know how to figure out those word problems with a calc.

[Boaterguy]

1. $35.92
2. $49.45
3. $235.20, $188.16
4. $$108.07
5. $6.41

Was just about to do this myself, I'm in grade 9, I could do this in 10 minutes... Steve, what is the shipping cost of a kid to your shop? it can come out of my paycheck.
Ask me about laziness, I have a story for you. A kid in my french class was failing, of course he doesn't care because he's drugged on whatever the latest thing is. Teacher tells him if he passes his summative he gets the credit (which he does not deserve one bit). Monday, presentation day, I come to the teacher with a "I worked 6 hours to work my 20 minute summative, i'm sorry but windows 7 sucks " (that's another thread we have to start). She tells me it will reduce my mark, thanks windows . This kid didn't do it, teacher doesn't give a @%#@, good for her...
The next day I finally downloaded enough programs, (about 15, I only ran my presentation through 10 of them, the other 5 were microsoft based, and of course useless) I did my presentation, her comments are: "that was, you know, okay...". Meanwhile this other kid has not done his, again, and once more, the teacher doesn't care.
Friday, 5 days after the project is due. the kid gets up, and opens a blank document. No, he didn't open a file, he opened a blank document. gives a giggle, "teacher.. it's gone". He got the credit for trying, our schooling system is going downhill, I don't want to get banned, so i'll stick with that.

[ron1950]

i got em all right and i still dont have a job lol

[ray schrauwen]

Just a question about ethics and or investing...

What is worse in your opinion? To default on a credit card with $5000 balance or to invest $50,000 in a technology that knowingly destroys the envioronment to make a 10% profit annually?

In the first case, only the credit card company loses $5000 right? Plus the are insured for these losses I think..?

In the second case you & I and the envioronment lose.

Which is worse? Both have garnered $5000 without any real work being done or anything created.

[ron1950]

ben bernacki the head of the fed reserve was on tv the other day and actually said we dont know why the economy isnt rebounding....lol what a clown.......just look what has happened in the US......we now make nothing in this country....its all down in mexico and islands etc. all the jobs went with em.....the biggest employer in the US is the fed government.....the congress has allready forgotten that we cleaned out a bunch of sluggo's from congress last election....result? nothing they went right back to party politics and cant get anything done.......time to clean out the rest next election...congress seems to live in a congressional world of there own,,,,afterall they exempt themselfs from most laws......congress bailed out the banks and wall street and let the average joe get his house repo'ed.....middle class is disapearing as the rich get richer and the poor are getting poorer as the middle class sinks to there level.....liveing paycheck to paycheck is the norm now not the exception.......there,,,i feel better ....hope things get better all over.....i

[Steven Vaccaro]

Just a question about ethics and or investing...

What is worse in your opinion? To default on a credit card with $5000 balance or to invest $50,000 in a technology that knowingly destroys the envioronment to make a 10% profit annually?

In the first case, only the credit card company loses $5000 right? Plus the are insured for these losses I think..?

In the second case you & I and the envioronment lose.

Which is worse? Both have garnered $5000 without any real work being done or anything created.

they are both wrong.

[Steven Vaccaro]

Was just about to do this myself, I'm in grade 9, I could do this in 10 minutes... Steve, what is the shipping cost of a kid to your shop? it can come out of my paycheck.
Ask me about laziness, I have a story for you. A kid in my french class was failing, of course he doesn't care because he's drugged on whatever the latest thing is. Teacher tells him if he passes his summative he gets the credit (which he does not deserve one bit). Monday, presentation day, I come to the teacher with a "I worked 6 hours to work my 20 minute summative, i'm sorry but windows 7 sucks " (that's another thread we have to start). She tells me it will reduce my mark, thanks windows . This kid didn't do it, teacher doesn't give a @%#@, good for her...
The next day I finally downloaded enough programs, (about 15, I only ran my presentation through 10 of them, the other 5 were microsoft based, and of course useless) I did my presentation, her comments are: "that was, you know, okay...". Meanwhile this other kid has not done his, again, and once more, the teacher doesn't care.
Friday, 5 days after the project is due. the kid gets up, and opens a blank document. No, he didn't open a file, he opened a blank document. gives a giggle, "teacher.. it's gone". He got the credit for trying, our schooling system is going downhill, I don't want to get banned, so i'll stick with that.

Believe me, this will make you a stronger person. Let him skate, someday in the near future he will have no ice. 9, 10th and 11th grade are the most important years in a teens life. I tell my kids this all the time.

[Boaterguy]

well, yes they are, but i'm in 9 so it's not important, next year 10 won't be important, and so on
the cracks in the ice are already forming.

[drwayne]

Here in Australia the public school system now has tabulated results of students available online so parents can compare schools !
Is their cheating ?.. sure.. done by the teachers so their positions are safe from better teachers !

Im a public school student from the '70's.. and Ive done alright.
My therapist tells me Im special.........

Was just about to do this myself, I'm in grade 9, I could do this in 10 minutes... Steve, what is the shipping cost of a kid to your shop? it can come out of my paycheck.
Ask me about laziness, I have a story for you. A kid in my french class was failing, of course he doesn't care because he's drugged on whatever the latest thing is. Teacher tells him if he passes his summative he gets the credit (which he does not deserve one bit). Monday, presentation day, I come to the teacher with a "I worked 6 hours to work my 20 minute summative, i'm sorry but windows 7 sucks " (that's another thread we have to start). She tells me it will reduce my mark, thanks windows . This kid didn't do it, teacher doesn't give a @%#@, good for her...
The next day I finally downloaded enough programs, (about 15, I only ran my presentation through 10 of them, the other 5 were microsoft based, and of course useless) I did my presentation, her comments are: "that was, you know, okay...". Meanwhile this other kid has not done his, again, and once more, the teacher doesn't care.
Friday, 5 days after the project is due. the kid gets up, and opens a blank document. No, he didn't open a file, he opened a blank document. gives a giggle, "teacher.. it's gone". He got the credit for trying, our schooling system is going downhill, I don't want to get banned, so i'll stick with that.

[drwayne]

Talking schools.. kids and lifestyle stereotypes.. and no offense to boaterguy.. are you fat ?
You've been here 2 months.. 600 posts ( 12 per day ) and only in yr 9 junior high.
Shouldnt you be outside in the summer air playing ball or catching frogs ?

Im here because Im at work and work involves online stuff.
My house doesnt even have a TV !.. I love outdoors !
W

[Phaleronic]

We're properly 'f**ked'. The writing has been on the wall since the 70s; when corporations were allowed to dismember their pension plans, and their gigantic tax loopholes were solidified by the fed. Hunter T saw it a million miles out:

History is hard to know, because of all the hired bull*!***!***!***!**, but even without being sure of “history” it seems entirely reasonable to think that every now and then the energy of a whole generation comes to a head in a long fine flash, for reasons that nobody really understands at the time—and which never explain, in retrospect, what actually happened.

My central memory of that time seems to hang on one or five or maybe forty nights—or very early mornings—when I left the Fillmore half-crazy and, instead of going home, aimed the big 650 Lightning across the Bay Bridge at a hundred miles an hour wearing L. L. Bean shorts and a Butte sheepherder's jacket . . . booming through the Treasure Island tunnel at the lights of Oakland and Berkeley and Richmond, not quite sure which turn-off to take when I got to the other end (always stalling at the toll-gate, too twisted to find neutral while I fumbled for change) . . . but being absolutely certain that no matter which way I went I would come to a place where people were just as high and wild as I was: No doubt at all about that. . . .

There was madness in any direction, at any hour. If not across the Bay, then up the Golden Gate or down 101 to Los Altos or La Honda. . . . You could strike sparks anywhere. There was a fantastic universal sense that whatever we were doing was right, that we were winning. . . .

And that, I think, was the handle—that sense of inevitable victory over the forces of Old and Evil. Not in any mean or military sense; we didn’t need that. Our energy would simply prevail. There was no point in fighting—on our side or theirs. We had all the momentum; we were riding the crest of a high and beautiful wave. . . .

So now, less than five years later, you can go up on a steep hill in Las Vegas and look West, and with the right kind of eyes you can almost see the high-water mark—that place where the wave finally broke and rolled back."

[Boaterguy]

Talking schools.. kids and lifestyle stereotypes.. and no offense to boaterguy.. are you fat ?
You've been here 2 months.. 600 posts ( 12 per day ) and only in yr 9 junior high.
Shouldnt you be outside in the summer air playing ball or catching frogs ?

Im here because Im at work and work involves online stuff.
My house doesnt even have a TV !.. I love outdoors !
W

5'5" and 110 pounds. not fat, just no muscle. I've never really had a friend so I have nothing to do, and no, I'm not going to go out in public with my parents, that wont help much.
High school has changed so much since you guys have gone. you can't make a single mistake, dropping your pencil will bring you down a social level, it's stupid. I've been to four of five therapists and I tell them all the same thing, every time. They change the subject so I gave up. I spend my summer with my cousins and we are inside for maybe an hour a day, I may post 10 times all summer.