We like to imagine entrepreneurs and business owners as capable people. After all, they’re smart enough to start and run their own businesses.
Our celebration of small business owners creates an idealized version of these folks in our heads, but more often than not, reality strikes us in the face, and we wonder how they even function, much less own and operate an entire business.
No One Wants To Work
Nowhere is the incompetency of modern business owners more apparent than in their common refrain: “No one wants to work anymore.”
These employers will shout into the void about how they can’t find good help, how people don’t want to work, and how the modern anti-work culture is destroying their livelihood while refusing to examine the most common reason people refuse their jobs: themselves.
Pay is a Massive Problem
Compensation is often the answer. Many bosses offer paltry wages and then wonder why no one wants to work for them.
Sometimes, we can forgive this disconnect. Running a business takes a ton of money, and labor is an added cost. Raising wages may tip the scales, making the business unprofitable, especially given the massive price surges in everything from supplies to utilities to rent.
However, that’s not the only problem, and many managers refuse to admit that their toxic attitudes about work contribute to their lack of labor.
Full-Time or Bust
One man highlighted additional reasons “no one wants to work” by sharing how he got fired from his part-time job.
The Original Poster (OP) has an excellent full-time job that pays well and offers benefits. However, he also enjoys working part-time to make some extra cash.
He recently left his part-time job due to his boss’s unreasonable demand that he switch to a full-time schedule due to the boss’s inability to hire more help.
OP reminded his boss that he already has a full-time job, but the boss wouldn’t accept that answer, telling OP he could either work full-time or not at all.
No Work is Better Than Part-Time Work?
A baffled OP thought his boss was joking at first. If a company struggles to find workers, wouldn’t they keep whoever they have? Why is no worker better than a part-time worker when staffing is the issue in the first place?
Apparently, the boss was completely serious.
“I laughed thinking he was kidding but he wasn’t. I asked him if he was serious, and he said he needed dedicated full time help,” shared the OP.
This boss would rather have no help than some help, but that didn’t stop him from angrily shouting about how “no one wants to work.”
Effective Immediately
The boss destroyed his own company by telling OP to leave immediately if he wasn’t dedicated to the cause.
OP left.
The manager realized his folly all too late. OP said he had numerous missed calls and messages but decided not to even look at them and to enjoy his weekend instead.
Work on Who’s Terms?
The story highlights a massive disconnect between business owners and workers. Each wants work on their own terms.
In the past, businesses had all the power and used it to exploit their labor force. Workers experienced unsafe conditions and were forced to work long hours for little pay.
The Fair Labor Standards Act granted some much-needed worker protections, but companies still try to exploit workers for their own gain.
The refrain that nobody wants to work anymore is a response to exploitation. People do want to work. However, they want to work on their own terms. They want to work reasonable hours for decent pay and want time to enjoy their lives.
Business owners who refuse to offer decent working conditions pretend these demands are unreasonable and lament that no one wants to work.
However, if they offered more money and treated their employees with dignity and respect, top talent would line the streets trying to get a job offer.
It’s not that no one wants to work; it’s that no one wants to work for them.
Source: Reddit