Merchandise Shortage

[bdearl41]

Banking with small banks is not realistic if one continually travels , relocates and spends time in many cities . Banking with a larger bank with a bigger network is a better option.

So I’ve been to 44 countries and 30 states. I’ve used my same local credit Union the whole time. Have never once needed anything more.

 

[Lilofan]

Yes. These trains are cycling at slow speed out of the massive cargo rail yards the railroads operate, as they get shunted through a series of spur lines in east LA until they hit one of the specific railroad mainlines that takes them eastbound over the mountains or across the desert for a thousand miles or more.

It also doesn't help that these are massive trains with multiple locomotives and more than 100 cars. They can't really get up to speed quickly until the long train has passed through all the various spurs and switches. So the nature of that part of the city is that at night there's always a very long train or two trundling along the tracks.

It's at night when the mayhem really gets going. The Organized Groups Of People, because they're organized (it's in their polite title!), jump on, bust or blast the locks open, and throw whatever they can get their hands on out the giant cargo doors. It's the job of the Organized People working along the tracks to slash the stuff open, make quick judgements on its street value, and throw the most valuable stuff into trucks. And off they go into the cool Los Angeles night...

The less valuable stuff is left to litter the tracks, and during the day the unorganized amateur pickers go through what's left and don't seem to mind one bit when the news crews show up to take their picture. They're gonna be on TV!

Even the unorganized amateur pickers have no fear of police in broad daylight. Not in LA.

Having no fear of the police is not a good thing. There was a time when strong arm LA police chief Daryl Gates teams cracked down on crime in controversial very aggressive methods through the 1980s.

 

[lazyboy97o]

As a small business owner…no.

But are you actively looking to replace your entire staff? Will you fire someone on the spot to hire someone who says they will work for less?

@Sir_Cliff isn’t talking about giving up profit or disavowing the notion of profit. He’s talking about incredibly small percentage reductions in margins that with many of these giant companies can be huge real numbers with significant impacts.

 

[Lilofan]

So I’ve been to 44 countries and 30 states. I’ve used my same local credit Union the whole time. Have never once needed anything more.

Good to know. I will instead have my relationships with the big banks which I have since I was a teenager having my first bank account.

 

[John park hopper]

Having no fear of the police is not a good thing. There was a time when strong arm LA police chief Daryl Gates teams cracked down on crime in controversial very aggressive methods through the 1980s.

They are just Ebay resellers ------Sarcasm

 

[TikibirdLand]

As a small business owner…no.

There are people that feel otherwise. May be few and far between. But, the DO exist. There's a certain BBQ joint here that makes a certain number of briskets per day. People start lining up at 7am every morning. When they run out, that's it for the day. BTW, they were voted #1 in the nation a few years ago. I personally like another place closer to me. But, I'm certainly no connoisseur.

 

[Lilofan]

There are people that feel otherwise. May be few and far between. But, the DO exist. There's a certain BBQ joint here that makes a certain number of briskets per day. People start lining up at 7am every morning. When they run out, that's it for the day. BTW, they were voted #1 in the nation a few years ago. I personally like another place closer to me. But, I'm certainly no connoisseur.

That's a good point. A bagel place I went to makes it bagels in the pre dawn hours and sells out by lunchtime. They close up shop around ,1-2pm even though some customers like me are asking if they would make more. The answer is no.

 

[ImperfectPixie]

That's a good point. A bagel place I went to makes it bagels in the pre dawn hours and sells out by lunchtime. They close up shop around ,1-2pm even though some customers like me are asking if they would make more. The answer is no.

Which - especially in the case of a bakery that starts prep in the very early pre-dawn hours - is likely a combination of balancing profit and work/life balance.

ETA: There's also the "scarcity" factor. If one wants a bagel from that shop, you'd better make sure you get there in time. I used to work down the street from a bread baker who operated in much the same way...and their flavored loaves were to-die-for delicious. Such operations virtually guarantee that there aren't any "slow days".

 

[kingdead]

Mystery of the Union Pacific is solved--they fired a lot of their security force during the worst of COVID. Seems like they were gambling that the city would have to send in the cops.

 

[Lilofan]

Which - especially in the case of a bakery that starts prep in the very early pre-dawn hours - is likely a combination of balancing profit and work/life balance.

ETA: There's also the "scarcity" factor. If one wants a bagel from that shop, you'd better make sure you get there in time. I used to work down the street from a bread baker who operated in much the same way...and their flavored loaves were to-die-for delicious. Such operations virtually guarantee that there aren't any "slow days".

If WDW could duplicate Panera Bread's cinnamon crunch bagel that would be awesome. The bagel needs nothing to accompany it. I learned to get to the local Panera early enough because they sell out by lunchtime and will not make anymore.

 

[Tony the Tigger]

But are you actively looking to replace your entire staff? Will you fire someone on the spot to hire someone who says they will work for less?

@Sir_Cliff isn’t talking about giving up profit or disavowing the notion of profit. He’s talking about incredibly small percentage reductions in margins that with many of these giant companies can be huge real numbers with significant impacts.

1. I am not.
2. I would not.

I was responding to @Lilofan who was responding to @GimpYancIent - perhaps out of context, if you are referencing @Sir_Cliff ?

My point to Sir Cliff would be it is important to be careful of what kinds of rules we make, because if you treat a small business like a Walmart, you're liable to kill it without any good reason.

This also applies to those who say, "Well, if you can't pay a living wage, then you shouldn't be in business." Nonsense. Do we not have permission to grow a business from the ground up? Have you (not "you," @lazyboy97o ) ever gone into hundreds of thousands of dollars in debt, risking your home, to cover the bills because you think the business will grow to a self-sustaining size over time? I have. Big businesses don't have to. But big businesses go under, too. Not everyone is rich just because they are an owner or a certain level of management. We choose to take these risks, but people with no experience in doing so should be careful of judgments like the one with which I opened this paragraph.

With all that said, back to the original question(s) up top: it is very likely I will have to let a couple of people go over the next few years. They are not high functioning enough to make the $15 an hour the State of Florida will require me to pay them. I am encouraging them to take some at-home online courses (in Excel, for example) and to improve certain things. I've offered to pay for some such training (though much of it is available for free.) I'm presenting it in a very positive way. I'm not going to drag them along, it's up to them to take the initiative. But when it comes down to it, once we get to about the $13 threshold, and I know I can hire someone on the spot who will do better, I'm going to have to do that. Walmart might be able to afford low-skilled workers in certain positions. An efficient small operation needs all firecrackers, at least in my business.

 

[Tony the Tigger]

As a small business owner…no.

There are people that feel otherwise. May be few and far between. But, the DO exist. There's a certain BBQ joint here that makes a certain number of briskets per day. People start lining up at 7am every morning. When they run out, that's it for the day. BTW, they were voted #1 in the nation a few years ago. I personally like another place closer to me. But, I'm certainly no connoisseur.

I understand. Obviously, I was not speaking for all business owners, only myself. "As a small business owner..."

It is not uncommon for bakeries or certain eatieries to operate in the way you mention. I worked at an Italian bakery in NJ when I was maybe 14 (totally illegal.) They are there at 4AM actually baking the stuff to sell at 7 or 8AM, so closing up "early" in the afternoon is quite a full day. There are restaurants (a bigger one is "First Watch") that only do breakfast and lunch. Could they make more money doing dinner? I suppose, but they would also increase costs dramatically - hiring a second shift, ordering a greater variety of supplies/food, etc. It's not their concept.

Are there days I quit listing more stuff online when I know could sell more? Sure. Why? Because the current staff can only ship out so many packages per day without sacrificing standards in the stores, or making quantity errors and having stock-outs online. If I had the infrastructure to ship 200 packages a day, I would. Another reason would be if we already beat our goal for the day by a significant amount.

But that really wasn't the question. The question was whether someone would stop selling at a certain point for the year, not for a given day, because they had "done enough." Unless that was for a very specific "balance" reason, that would be a rare exception. When you're in business, you know there are ups and downs. You don't count your chickens, you don't sit on your laurels. When you're doing well, you make a dent in the bills and save up a bit for the times when what you ring up in a day (in gross sales, not profits) doesn't even cover that day's payroll. Count on those days happening. They always do.

That's a good point. A bagel place I went to makes it bagels in the pre dawn hours and sells out by lunchtime. They close up shop around ,1-2pm even though some customers like me are asking if they would make more. The answer is no.

Which - especially in the case of a bakery that starts prep in the very early pre-dawn hours - is likely a combination of balancing profit and work/life balance.

ETA: There's also the "scarcity" factor. If one wants a bagel from that shop, you'd better make sure you get there in time. I used to work down the street from a bread baker who operated in much the same way...and their flavored loaves were to-die-for delicious. Such operations virtually guarantee that there aren't any "slow days".

100%.

 

[ImperfectPixie]

1. I am not.
2. I would not.

I was responding to @Lilofan who was responding to @GimpYancIent - perhaps out of context, if you are referencing @Sir_Cliff ?

My point to Sir Cliff would be it is important to be careful of what kinds of rules we make, because if you treat a small business like a Walmart, you're liable to kill it without any good reason.

This also applies to those who say, "Well, if you can't pay a living wage, then you shouldn't be in business." Nonsense. Do we not have permission to grow a business from the ground up? Have you (not "you," @lazyboy97o ) ever gone into hundreds of thousands of dollars in debt, risking your home, to cover the bills because you think the business will grow to a self-sustaining size over time? I have. Big businesses don't have to. But big businesses go under, too. Not everyone is rich just because they are an owner or a certain level of management. We choose to take these risks, but people with no experience in doing so should be careful of judgments like the one with which I opened this paragraph.

With all that said, back to the original question(s) up top: it is very likely I will have to let a couple of people go over the next few years. They are not high functioning enough to make the $15 an hour the State of Florida will require me to pay them. I am encouraging them to take some at-home online courses (in Excel, for example) and to improve certain things. I've offered to pay for some such training (though much of it is available for free.) I'm presenting it in a very positive way. I'm not going to drag them along, it's up to them to take the initiative. But when it comes down to it, once we get to about the $13 threshold, and I know I can hire someone on the spot who will do better, I'm going to have to do that. Walmart might be able to afford low-skilled workers in certain positions. An efficient small operation needs all firecrackers, at least in my business.

I would say any small business needs all firecrackers...they help the business grow and become more profitable. (Says the girl once hated by a coworker because I was one of those "I need to learn it all and be best at it" types and earned WAY more than she did at a very small company.)

 

[kingdead]

1. I am not.
2. I would not.

I was responding to @Lilofan who was responding to @GimpYancIent - perhaps out of context, if you are referencing @Sir_Cliff ?

My point to Sir Cliff would be it is important to be careful of what kinds of rules we make, because if you treat a small business like a Walmart, you're liable to kill it without any good reason.

This also applies to those who say, "Well, if you can't pay a living wage, then you shouldn't be in business." Nonsense. Do we not have permission to grow a business from the ground up? Have you (not "you," @lazyboy97o ) ever gone into hundreds of thousands of dollars in debt, risking your home, to cover the bills because you think the business will grow to a self-sustaining size over time? I have. Big businesses don't have to. But big businesses go under, too. Not everyone is rich just because they are an owner or a certain level of management. We choose to take these risks, but people with no experience in doing so should be careful of judgments like the one with which I opened this paragraph.

With all that said, back to the original question(s) up top: it is very likely I will have to let a couple of people go over the next few years. They are not high functioning enough to make the $15 an hour the State of Florida will require me to pay them. I am encouraging them to take some at-home online courses (in Excel, for example) and to improve certain things. I've offered to pay for some such training (though much of it is available for free.) I'm presenting it in a very positive way. I'm not going to drag them along, it's up to them to take the initiative. But when it comes down to it, once we get to about the $13 threshold, and I know I can hire someone on the spot who will do better, I'm going to have to do that. Walmart might be able to afford low-skilled workers in certain positions. An efficient small operation needs all firecrackers, at least in my business.

If you're paying $13 an hour and even "starter" or "no-skill" jobs like the Target checkout/Amazon warehouse are paying $15, you're going to get a $13 an hour worker--a person who doesn't have the skills to make it in other white collar work and is too old to work the warehouse. Sorry, it is what it is.

 

[Tony the Tigger]

I would say any small business needs all firecrackers...they help the business grow and become more profitable. (Says the girl once hated by a coworker because I was one of those "I need to learn it all and be best at it" types and earned WAY more than she did at a very small company.)

I was leaving some allowance for, say, cleaning staff (although for many small businesses, the owners/staff are the cleaning staff) and maybe dishwashers, etc.

 

[TikibirdLand]

This also applies to those who say, "Well, if you can't pay a living wage, then you shouldn't be in business." Nonsense. Do we not have permission to grow a business from the ground up?

I absolutely think we need "starter jobs" for those that are getting newly employed. The pay for that likely won't be a "living wage". The problem happens when the majority of the jobs start fitting in this category. It's especially troublesome when your business is built from starter jobs with no advancement.

We're shipping too many of the comfortable middle class jobs overseas due to the greed of corporations answering to "stockholder value". So much so, we're seeing the supply chain hit hard now with product shortages. If those products were made here, that wouldn't be an issue. There's a reason why you see Intel and Samsung building chip fabs in the US again; they can't depend on their 3rd party suppliers for those materials. And, you'll be seeing solid middle-class jobs there too.

 

[ImperfectPixie]

I was leaving some allowance for, say, cleaning staff (although for many small businesses, the owners/staff are the cleaning staff) and maybe dishwashers, etc.

Yup. At the company I worked for where that girl hated me, those were 13-14yo kids who did some rough hand-sanding of wood, floor sweeping, and stuff like that for a few bucks an hour (big money for young kids back in the 80s). Kids who were hungry to learn were offered long-term work and trained from the ground up. I worked for them until my late 20s. (some bad tax advice forced my boss to give the business to his son, who was a drunken POS)

 

[Tony the Tigger]

If you're paying $13 an hour and even "starter" or "no-skill" jobs like the Target checkout/Amazon warehouse are paying $15, you're going to get a $13 an hour worker--a person who doesn't have the skills to make it in other white collar work and is too old to work the warehouse. Sorry, it is what it is.

Gee, thanks for that expert opinion because I don't know my own business.

There are other things that come into play other than dollars per hour, believe it or not. Do I need to go into all that? Working at a record store with a lot of freedom (and music) vs. being micromanaged at a big box?

Let your rent or mortgage go up by 50% over a few years when you are just getting by and tell me how well you handle that. That's what's happening with payroll. (Rent is taking a decent jump as well.) But I must be a stingy old rich guy because I started a business 22 years ago with a $10 investment and made it eventually work, despite years in massive debt.

Actually, for those who were paying minimum wage last year (not me) that's a 100% increase in payroll.

If we are making up for the poor decisions of lawmakers over the last 20 years on the backs of small (and other) businesses, the government should subsidize it in the beginning since it's their fault.

Side note: the assumption that every employee has rent to pay is silly. I guess if we're going to suddenly decide a "living wage" is the way to go, then we can pay college kids living at home $5 an hour?

It all sounds fabulously simple until you dig in and realize what reality is. We haven't even started raising prices to offset payroll yet, that's already happening because of shortages and inflation.

But let's give everyone proportionately huge raises and then expect Main Street to still be able to compete with Amazon. Guess what? Those employees will all end up working at Amazon when the locals go under.

 

[Tony the Tigger]

Yup. At the company I worked for where that girl hated me, those were 13-14yo kids who did some rough hand-sanding of wood, floor sweeping, and stuff like that for a few bucks an hour (big money for young kids back in the 80s). Kids who were hungry to learn were offered long-term work and trained from the ground up. I worked for them until my late 20s. (some bad tax advice forced my boss to give the business to his son, who was a drunken POS)

I had 2 paper routes as soon as I turned 10 in 1981. One was a more normal route, The Daily Journal, riding my bicycle through the neighborhood, maybe 35-40 subscribed customers. The other was The Citizen, one of those freebie papers that went to every house. 500+ papers I had to individually wrap the night before, walk with a giant bag and leave one at every house, and inevitably get yelled at by someone who didn't want it. I got paid 2 cents per paper for that one. And I learned stuff.

I worked for my mother's second husband. He had a part time carpet cleaning and building maintenance job in addition to his full time factory job. I would vacuum, clean carpets, empty trash, clean toilets. $5 here, $5 there.

Then came the aforementioned bakery. If I worked from 7AM to 11AM, the guy handed me $10 cash when I left. If I worked from 7AM to 10AM, it was $5. If I stayed until noon, it was still $10. And I learned stuff.

Then I worked for a blind old lady doing whatever she needed: stuff in her office (her late husband left some kind of business behind) reading her mail to her, having my grammar corrected, entering basic accounting into her ledger, wrapping her Christmas presents, watering her plants, checking up on whether her other employees really had done what they were supposed to have done. Pretty sure that was $5 an hour. And I learned stuff.

Through all this time, there were plenty of lawns mowed, driveways shoveled - $5 per house. Babysitting - $5 per hour. Oh - chores at home - $1 per week.

And that was all before I was of legal age to work.

But I never had to hear my mother say, "No," when I needed to put in money for some school trip or pictures, or when I wanted some baseball cards or a new Star Wars action figure.

As soon as I was old enough to get a "real job," I was part time at a retail store and part time at a bank simultaneously.

I've worked on salary in retail management for $19K to $28K, putting in 60 to 80 hours per week. When that wasn't enough and I had no skills or training to earn better, I worked overnight shifts at the port - first unloading, then promoted to loading, RPS trucks.

That's. What. You. Do. If you don't rate a higher paying job, you don't demand it, anyway. You work harder, you learn something, you make yourself more valuable, and you earn raises. You use your experience to get a better salary elsewhere. You cancel cable, you drive a crummy car, you eat ramen, you enjoy the little things. You go back to school if that's your thing. Nobody ever thought they made enough money. That was just life.

The minimum wage should have gone up a long time ago, incrementally.

 

[kingdead]

Gee, thanks for that expert opinion because I don't know my own business.

There are other things that come into play other than dollars per hour, believe it or not. Do I need to go into all that? Working at a record store with a lot of freedom (and music) vs. being micromanaged at a big box?

Let your rent or mortgage go up by 50% over a few years when you are just getting by and tell me how well you handle that. That's what's happening with payroll. (Rent is taking a decent jump as well.) But I must be a stingy old rich guy because I started a business 22 years ago with a $10 investment and made it eventually work, despite years in massive debt.

Actually, for those who were paying minimum wage last year (not me) that's a 100% increase in payroll.

If we are making up for the poor decisions of lawmakers over the last 20 years on the backs of small (and other) businesses, the government should subsidize it in the beginning since it's their fault.

Side note: the assumption that every employee has rent to pay is silly. I guess if we're going to suddenly decide a "living wage" is the way to go, then we can pay college kids living at home $5 an hour?

It all sounds fabulously simple until you dig in and realize what reality is. We haven't even started raising prices to offset payroll yet, that's already happening because of shortages and inflation.

But let's give everyone proportionately huge raises and then expect Main Street to still be able to compete with Amazon. Guess what? Those employees will all end up working at Amazon when the locals go under.

Wait, you're the one person left on Earth running a legit, unique retail small business (a record store)? I thought you were running an office and wanted someone to do your books, answer your phone, write your emails, schedule your lunch, and wash your car for 13 American dollars. And that person would need a college degree.

I'm coming at this from work's side, I know too many people who get paid $10 for complicated work because they don't know any better. With inflation, it's basically nothing and it does make only big employers reasonable prospects for anyone who wants to make rent and pay bills.