I have been trying to hire a couple of folks for the past few weeks. That has become quite the task, hasn't it? Seems like everywhere I go businesses are looking to hire people. Of course, that speaks well of the Hot Springs economy but the vast number of places that are in need of employees is extremely concerning.
The other day I went into one of my favorite local restaurants a little before lunchtime and there was only one employee in the entire establishment. This poor girl was trying to cook, seat, and serve people. It was an impossible task. When I saw how overwhelmed she was, I told her I would come back later. Unfortunately, for that business, I had to go somewhere else for lunch.
I decided I would just go to a fast-food drive-thru and grab lunch. I drove up and discovered a line wrapped around the building. I concluded I should go inside to speed up my search for sustenance. Upon entering the restaurant, I was greeted with another long line. I asked the person at the rear of the line how long he had been waiting. He said he had been in line for 10 minutes and it had not moved. "They said they were five employees short for this shift," he stated.
I finally gave up and returned to the office to grapple with our vending machine to get some food. That is another ordeal, which I will detail, in a later column. Not only did my dollars not go to a local small business but I also contributed a Snickers to my ever-expanding waistline. So it was a lose-lose situation all the way around.
The funny thing about this new era of hiring is when I do receive a resume I like and I call the person, more times, than not they do not answer the phone. Understandable in the age of robocalls but the frustrating thing is I will have to listen to a very long voicemail prompt message only to be told, "The mailbox is full, goodbye."
Then there is the person who you speak with and schedule a face-to-face interview and they just do not show up. They do not call, text, email or send a carrier pigeon to let you know they are not coming. They just do not show up. I think the kids call it "ghosting." I have been ghosted so often that this Halloween I am thinking of having a haunted house here at The Sentinel-Record office.
Then we come to my very favorite of the new workforce. You go through a fairly lengthy interview process and finally determine this is your candidate. You tell them they will need to have a drug test. You ask if there is any reason you should not drug test them. They of course say "No." You pay to have a drug screening done and guess what, they fail it. On the other hand, in some cases, they simply do not show up to the screening.
Hiring is a problem. It needs to get sorted out before all of the Snickers and aggravation lead me to an early retirement. With all of the "ghosting" going on I needed someone's help. So, I decided to call the Ghostbusters. Guess what? They are backed up for three months because they need to hire more busters. When the Ghostbusters are short-staffed, "Who you gonna call?"