By boss and I had this conversation the other day. I'm the lead welder, and we were about to hire a new guy and he was wondering why the interviews all sucked and they couldn't pass a weld test. It's because he wants to pay $12. I told him for $15 we can get a trigger puller. If he wants a real welder (let alone fabricator) he'll have to pay what he pays me. He didn't listen. So now I'm training a guy who hasn't welded in 20 years, never welded aluminum and is late every day. He's covered in burns, can't read prints, makes everything wrong in at least one way. Drops shit off the forklift, etc. I have to set his machine, change his liners, change his wire. It's gonna take someone getting hurt before he gets another good guy, which is why I try to stay as far as possible from him. That's my rant.

I'm a painter and this seems to parallel what the owner at our company tries to pull. Pays new hires between 9-12 an hour and wonders why none of them show up on time, lack basic reasoning skills and ability to focus on what they're doing, on their phones constantly, they're constantly fucking up our equipment, half of them steal from the shop to feed their heroin or meth habits so whatever tools they didn't break are in a fucking pawn shop now...

And then when we do get competent help they always wind up quitting within a year or two because he still doesn't want to pay them. I'd have been gone 2 years ago myself but I'm just not that ambitious(depression's a bitch) and don't really know what else I want to do(if I'm switching jobs I want to do something different, and that creates added difficulty because it means no experience)