The other thing that gets me is their attitude and sheer laziness. Ok, when I was started working for my folks I started out in the field on a shovel. No question I got pulled up the ladder a bit faster than others but I put the hard yards in. These totally unedicated drop kick emo kids want to start in the office on $80k a year with a vehicle.
The amount of gear that gets broken because these guys would rather sit their ass on a machine than get behind a walk behind mower is crazy. ie. imagine this. In you local park you have a line of bollards in the grass. From the bollards to the kerb is approx 500mm. Then you have either a footpath or a road. Rather than walk behind a self propelled mower for literally 10 minutes they will jump on a triplex (cost is approx $45k)that looks like this.
http://www.toro.com/golf/mower/trim/rm3100/3100s.html
They will then put one of the reels on the grass. The middle one goes on the kerb and the next one goes on the bitumen road mowing rocks. For those that know anything about these mowers they work like a scissor and any sand will blunt them and then it tears the grass rather than cut it. Job looks like crap / mowers break down / world of hurt. Then they drive into trees or the bollard and bend the pin that keeps the cutting unit square to the machine. We make the pins up ourselves and they are not overly dear but it still means that they cant finish the job properly and the mechanic has to spend 30 minutes replacing the thing or heating it up and straightening it.
I think the big thing is that 18 months go we are so desperate for staff that they were dictating how things were going to play out to us. Now the wheel is turning and I think some of these rock apes are going to be in for the shock of their lives.
In relation to Doug and your unfair dismissal laws we have always taken the opinion that whatever it costs to get rid of them is going to be cheaper than giving them all the warnings and offering counselling and trying to help them. We are not a university or local council. We have had a couple of people have a crack and one guy got $6k but apart from that the biggest ever was only a couple of k. The only reason old mate (who fired for theft) got $6k was because he said he was made redundant and therefore his payout had to be comensurate with the amount of time that he had spent with us, which was something like 5 years.
Brendon