New technology and media fascinate me. I am laughing at myself here because I was the guy back in the 80’s who looked under the fax table to see where it really came from.
And now, TIVO-ahead and now I am even blogging, mostly instead of building birdhouses or playing bridge. Anyway….
Recently, I went back home to central Kansas for a family reunion. My cousin Craig is a farmer and his main problem, he tells me—the “employment media expert”—is that no matter what he does, no matter where he advertises, he simply cannot find anyone who wants to move to smalltown Kansas to do farmwork. He pays well, $50,000 to $80,000/year, free health care and will even let the worker live in a house, for free no less. I wrote about it here.
Talk about the power of technology and the new media, and how it helps us all make connections. I am in Minnesota, Craig is in Nowhere, Kansas. As in, have you ever lived four full hours from an airport, Nowhere?
Thiago, a 24-year old Brazilian, reads my blog down in Miami, Florida. Thiago, who holds an MBA from IBMEC in Sao Paulo, recently lost his job and was looking. “I want something more basic,” he tells me, “I don’t like the Miami lifestyle.” Turns out Thiago’s grandfather is a corn farmer like Craig. Brazil-ethanol, corn-ethanol, remember? Thiago invites me to join his LinkedIn group, nice kid. This has the sounds of a truly international story and yes, he has his HB1.
And then I am emailed a very nice letter from a guy in Iowa who is ready to move his young family to Kansas, he has loads of experience, understands the farm life and wants to work for Craig, also. He has a hard luck story, which I always fall and feel for. This business can be so personal, it is almost overwhelming. It makes you want to take the jobseeker by the hand and lead him directly to the next job.
Then another young man from Florida emails me, mostly about his hard luck life (his girlfriend left him, his brother was killed) and how this is the opportunity he has been waiting for…can he please, please prove himself to Craig, no one will work harder he says. He has to get out of there. I believe him but he also needs an advance on gas money to get up there.
So there’s three personal stories out of more than a dozen I received. They all want to work, most of them with no farm experience, just hardworkers who are convinced this is THE opportunity for them.
For a while, I can’t get Craig on the phone. He does live in Kansas, after all, and you will recall that the main character in Wizard of Oz was not Dorothy of Kansas, but a Kansas tornado. Yep, you guessed it, his farm was hit by a tornado and then a night later, by a 45-minute, golfball-sized hailstorm. Nearly 1,000 acres of knee-high corn now look like my front yard, freshly mowed, talking about it he sounds just awful. Actually, shell-shocked is a better term.
So, finally, there are actually four hard luck stories. Is this a news story or what?
5 users commented in " Follow Up on the Farm Job. "
This has really been a brutal weather year for the nation’s midsection. My daughter’s choir teacher has the family farm back in Iowa and needs to go back next week because a tornado took out the barn, took the roof off the house, took the family dog – and took 800 head of cattle that they have found no trace of! Floods in other areas.
It can really be rough. Add hard economic times to the mix and I’m afraid you’ll be involved with more stories like this before it passes.
I can’t wait to hear how this comes out—
I have even thought about applying for this job myself—
Craig is a true American hero—not simply for working hard (although I challenge you to find someone who works harder), but for investing in his corner of the USA
oh by the way—even with all the bad news this story carries w/it—I still think the key to this story is the Great American resolve, and how all of us are stock holders.
GL–your blog has been kind of an American stockholders meeting.
Just look at the scope of this story…
Conrad and Mike…thanks for stopping by and making a comment. My hometown as you both know, was just missed by a tornado two days ago, by THIS much. Chapman, our county rival, wasn’t. Tough times, indeed.
GL…..We were huddled in our basement with the kids from across the street (they have no basement)when the storm you mentioned traveled all over this area. First it was in Ellis County (out by Kanopolis Lake); hopped N.E. to the southern part of Salina; skipped over to Gypsum and Carlton; and, turned north to Solomon then east over Abilene; dropped down into Chapman and traveled on the ground east on I-70 past Junction City (nine miles); and, turned north again and headed through N.E. Manhattan after hitting the K-State campus causing millions of dollars worth of damage. The only good thing about it was that with all these storms skipping around over the middle section of the state, there were only two deaths! We can thank the tornado warning system for this. I can remember in the not too distant past when many people would have died because they would not have known a storm was coming and houses were not built with basements and safe rooms. These storms are moving so swiftly that people would barely have time to get across the street or from upstairs to the basement….we can really give thanks to the TV and radio weathermen for being on their toes to give warning when it is necessary. I am glad that people finally have sense enough to make use of these safe places because when we were younger, we would have slept right on through most of them.
Enough soap boxing about weather….Hope you have a happy father’s day (Joe’s getting a weather radio if they ever get some more at our local Alco Store).
We used to have a small farm over by Bennington and feel really sorry for Craig’s losses. The crops, buildings and equipment can be replaced and it sounds like he won’t have any trouble getting help hired so I guess that some of his clouds will have a silver lining.
Corky
Ellis Kansas is the best if you want to see a tornado go there every year there is either a tornado there or very close but we never have got hit by one yet luckly! GO ELLIS FOOTBALL!!!
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