I personally can not imagine the quality of the salesman you hired to sweep
the floors or pick up the trash until he was ready to sell cars.

You missed the point. I would hire guys who were only able to do menial jobs
when they came aboard and give them opportunities to become more skilled and
capable.

As far as the quality of my salespeople went, we were top dealer in five states
with one major franchise several years in a row and consistently in the top
three nationally with another. Most of the guys have gone on to become GM's and
dealers in their own right. Hiring the right guys makes a huge difference.



I am glad that most employers do not follow you recommendations, since there
are millions of people who either because of lack of motivation, medical
problems, mental health problems, mentally challenged with extremely low
IQ's would never get a job.

Nor is any business required to offer employment to the undermotivated, the
physically incapable, the emotionally unstable, or the mentally inept.

Also most of our produce would not be
harvested, ditches would not get dug, etc, because the people we hired for
those jobs would all eventually be promoted out of the job. Our economy
would suffer, millions more people would be on welfare, and unemployed.


Not at all. Promoting the capable energizes the economy and creates even more
opportunity for everybody. If you have a ditch digger who should be working as
a leadman, it's inefficient to keep him stuck in the ditch digger job. Promote
him. Build a second crew around him, and you'll need even more ditch diggers
(which will reduce unemployment). Your company will also be able to do more
work, increasing profits.

This would be a lose lose situation for the non skilled worker and the
country.

There is nothing that says a company must allow an unskilled worker to remain
unskilled. It makes sense to provide a path for workers to grow. A company
cannot prosper when most of the employees are being held back.

A guy or gal who has no desire to rise above the lowest possible level would
not be the sort of person I would hire. That's not heartless, IMO. Deliberately
staffing up with undermotivated people who have no desire to get up to a higher
rung, in order to keep wages depressed, is heartless, as well as short-sighted.



I have seen supermarkets chains who deliberately hire mentally challenged
people (retards) to bag groceries. These people are dependable, enjoy what
they are doing and are able to do the job with a little extra training.

And every one of those people is a little human success story. Some of them
could never rise above bagging groceries under any circumstance.

That charity comes at a real cost to the business, however. With all the grunt
level jobs filled by folks who *cannot* advance to a position where they create
more value for the company, there are fewer opportunities for bright and eager
youngsters who might prove, through experience, to be darn good grocers and an
asset to the firm.

While your recommendations might be very advantageous for an individual
company, if it was used a model for all people employed in the US, you would
see millions more people living on the streets and millions of jobs not
being done.

See my comment about promoting the ditch digger to leadman.

I can not
imagine the quality of the mechanic who was willing to park and wash cars
till he was able to learn how to be a mechanic.

He wasn't a mechanic when he was washing cars. but you want to find a "dream"
employee? Look for the guy or gal who walks in and says, "I'll take any job
you've got, just to get in the door. I'm confident I'll demonstrate enough
value to your firm that I will be promoted very quickly, no matter where I
start." The challenge with managing that type of person is that you do need to
be able to move them up as they legitimately earn it- or else they will be
working for the guy down the street.

There are millions of people in the US who want a simple minded job, they
want to work their 8 hrs, go home drink a beer, eat dinner and screw their
wife. The fact that you do not understand this means you have lived a very
sheltered life.

The fact that you would make such a presumptive statement indicates you don't
know a damn thing about my life- but don't worry, I won't bore you with all the
gory, boring details. We're discussing the efficiency of hiring capable people
for a decent wage vs. hiring the incapable for the legal minimum, not my
biography. :-)