It's Hard to Find Good Help

 Welcome to the second week of 2025! What a fantastic year this has been so far! And by fantastic, I mean most people are still trying to figure out what the hell is going on. The world has become a crazy place. I think most of this crazy started during 2020 with the whole "COVID" thing. That's way in the past though, and this blog is supposed to be about 2025. 

Here in 2025 it's suddenly really hard to find good employees. Actually, it's getting hard to find any employees at all. No one wants to work anymore. And the few people that do want to work, seem to want to just show up and get a paycheck. They don't want to do anything! Is this a real thing? What the hell happened to our society that made all these people so lazy?

Here in the lovely US the state of New Jersey passed a law that went into effect January 1, 2025. This law now states; 

Teachers in New Jersey will no longer be required to pass a basic reading, writing and mathematics test to be eligible for public schools, according to a new law.

Act 1669, which was signed into law by Gov. Phil Murphy in June, went into effect on Wednesday at the start of the new year."

That's from a New York Post article.

That means that teachers in New Jersey public schools no longer have to be able to read, write, or do mathematics. What an educational boon for them! How do you teach kids if you can't read or write? What are you going to teach them? Maybe how to get a job in New Jersey without being able to fill out an application? 

How can you require someone to fill out a job application if they can't read or write? Do they just show up for an interview and grunt a few times and then get the job? Can you imagine being a teenager in high school and showing up to a class where the teacher can't read or write and just grunts? Everyone would probably want to be in that class because there's no homework. You won't learn anything, but there won't be any homework. How could there be?

I'm sure soon parents will be upset that students in New Jersey can't pass equivalency tests for reading, writing, or math and then want the "government" to do something about it. And what the "government" will probably do is outlaw equivalency tests. Then, you have both teachers and students who can't read, write, or do math, but they still graduate from public school. Or DO they graduate? If you can't read or write, how would you know what a diploma says? It might just be a piece of paper that declares you're from New Jersey and can't read, write, or do math.

A sadder thing is that I live in Nevada, and Clark County, Nevada has a much worse education system than New Jersey! The reasons for that are way more than I want to get into right now. Here in Clark County, we voted to legalize marijuana so that we could use the tax on it for education because more money means better education, right? Once that little thing passed, they decided that the marijuana tax money shouldn't go to education it should go to...well, no one seems to know where it goes now. A few people's bank accounts are now pretty large, though. Let's just leave it at that.

Forget New Jersey. How about the rest of the world? I've read that this new generation of college graduates sometimes show up at a job interview with their parents. Who is actually doing this? That has to be a joke article, that can't be real, right? ... Right...?

"Career Expert Explains Why 20% Of Gen-Z Applicants Bring Their Mom Or Dad To A Job Interview With Them."

Oh. My. GOD! Do they plan to bring Mommy with them to work too, if they're hired? Who the hell would allow an interview like this? Where are these people being hired? 

"Hey Fred, go and get some more paper for the printer."

"I'll have to ask Mommy if I can leave my desk to do that."

Now my font has changed, and I don't even know why. I HAD teachers who could read, write, and do math, but what I DIDN'T HAVE, was someone who knew about computers and Blogger in 2025! I did actually take computer class in high school, but way back then it was taught on an Apple II computer. We learned "BASIC" programming. That's pretty much useless on modern computers. 

Back on subject, everyone also seems to want to work from home and they aren't shy about saying that. Even if the job isn't a "Stay at home" type of job, this generation was taught to ask for things like "wellness days", and "personal time off" so they can feel better. Work isn't about feeling better, its about making money so you can pay rent, or buy a house, or maybe some food! Well, maybe not buy a house, right now. Most people can't seem to afford a house right now. 

I think a guy living next to me has emphysema, or some shit like that. I can hear him coughing and choking while I'm typing this. If I can hear you through my wall coughing, you're really in bad shape!

I found a list online of 15 Resume Red Flags. Some of them are pretty funny.

• 2. An unprofessional email address.

An "unprofessional email address"? What is "unprofessional"? Is pussylover@aol.com unprofessional? Who goes into an interview with a resume that has his (or her) email address listed as bigtitties@msn.com? (That's even more disturbing if it's a male's email address!) Are these the people going to interviews with their Mom and Dad? 

• 7. Exclusively irrelevant experience.

What kind of experience is "irrelevant"? Especially, "Exclusively irrelevant"? Is that like putting your ability to flawlessly Tango on your resume? Or maybe these people are listing their ability to get women who are "nines and tens" as experience? Some guys think they're really charming. Stupid, yes, but that's what they think!

• 15. Disrespect for a current employer.

Here's a great one! Who badmouths a former employer on their resume? You mean you can't put that you hate your last boss and if you ever seem in him a crosswalk in front of your car, you plan to run him over? Actually, that's kind of a threat, isn't it? A bit more than "disrespect". Are people really screwing up resumes this badly now? 

The big problem comes down to a place really needing to hire someone, and all they get are bad applicants now. If everyone who applies sucks, who do you hire? The guy who came in with his mommy and daddy? The one who says the fast-food place where he used to work should be burned to the ground? Or maybe the guy with the bigtitties@msn.com email address? (He might actually be a good employee, if you can get him to keep his hands to himself!)

I don't even know how to conclude this week's blog, so I guess I'll just end it abruptly. And if you work in Human Resources, God help you.