You’re not sure why any of your employees continue working for you.

You might be an entrepreneur if…you’re not sure why any of your employees continue working for you.

One of the things I’ve been blessed with over the years, or cursed with depending on how you look at it, is a chain of highly loyal employees. A lot of them have stuck around a lot longer through a lot more than I thought they would, and sometimes that’s been a good thing, and sometimes that’s been a bad thing because I had to let them go and I hate doing that.

Not all of my employees have been as loyal as others. I’ve had employees who worked for me for three weeks and then took jobs elsewhere. I had one guy sign an employee contract and then not show up for his first day of work. Said he had “a bad feeling about it.” I could have told him that’s how I feel every day when I wake up, but he was already decided so what good would it do? But I kid, I’ve always loved coming in to work, except for about 10 days out of the last 7-8 years.

Here are some of the things I’ve put my employees through:

– Paychecks being a month late for six months straight. That is, I gave out paychecks twice every month, but they were the paychecks that should have been given out the previous month and I couldn’t get caught up.

– No paychecks for months.

– Employees leaving and me taking months, even years, to pay them off. Had to go through the whole Utah Labor Commission ordeal and everything.

– Paychecks? What paychecks?

So there it is. In every other way I’ve been told I’m the best boss around. I’m jovial, generous to a fault, pleasant to be around, and practice good hygiene, but apparently none of that matters to employees if they’re not being paid. Ingrates.