We are going to find out who read the diary before commenting and who just rushed to comment.
I do pay below minimum wage. But to find out who I pay below minimum wage and why they work their ass off for the company anyway you will need to read to the end of the diary. First, I want to assure you I value my employees immensely. And that is an understatement.
I pay the people who work with me a minimum of $26.50 an hour to start. I offer first class housing, cradle to grave benefits, profit sharing, bonuses, 4 weeks vacation to start, a year of maternal and paternal leave, and unlimited personal and sick days. Now ask yourself why a rancher would offer all that to simple ranch hands?
Well right off the top this is incredibly hard work and very dangerous. Second, I am an exceedingly demanding asshole to work for and with and my daughters and granddaughters are even worse. Third, I expect my ranch hands (by the way we don’t actually use the E word — they aren’t employees they are partners because the company is over 60% employee owned and going up) to be self managers, innovative, and creative. They have a voice in management decisions from their first day on the job and so they have to be great decision makers.
Also, we have a zero tolerance for bullying, racism, sexism, ableism, xenophobia, trans or homophobia. But politically correct and genteel we are not. Vulgarity, crude language, obscene jokes and farm yard humor are part of the corporate culture. Which makes this a really tricky place to work.
I could go on but the point is this — we operate in a complex, chaotic, and very competitive business environment. And we pay for the best talent. And we pay to retain that talent. We nurture, develop, and invest in that talent. But we expect them to keep getting better and better, right up to the day they retire. Everybody fucks up from time to time but we expect our partners to learn from their mistakes. We also expect them to tell us when we are being idiots and assholes.
In a nutshell, this is not McDonald’s. No two days are the same, ever! We have no set processes, no training manuals, and frankly many days we have no idea what we are doing. I am notorious for managing by the seat of my pants. You will be outside 90% of the time in weather that can kill you. You will seldom make it home without getting covered in some combination of mosquito and black fly bites, mud, horse shit, mud, cow shit, mud, pig shit, mud, sheep shit, horse fly bites, flea bites, mud, mite bites, goat shit, blood, amniotic fluid, mud, dog shit, mud, llama shit…
So I pay more than minimum wage. So sue me.
Well there is one exception. One person who gets less than minimum wage. That would be me.
That is the life of a rancher.