I've got a business that I've built from nothing. It's still not solid, though, and I'm still struggling. Rightly or wrongly, my business is my whole life, and a lot of people depend on it to support their families.

 

Now, I just cut a deal to get some more hardware in. I cut a deal like this every couple of months, so it's nothing new, but it's critical to my survival. In a few days, I'm going to have a skid arrive in Richmond with a few hundred motherboards, CPUs, hard drives, RAM, power supplies, and some other goodies. I need that skid torn down, packed into a rental van, brought to the data center, and then I need every single item unpacked, the boxes flattened and taken to recycling, the other packaging thrown away, I need the items neatly stored in the secure area where I keep stock hardware, and I need everything itemized in the computer system I use to track that type of thing. It's about a man-week of work but really, I need two guys to do it in two or three days. If I don't get that done, I might as well close shop as I can't deliver new sales. I don't even really care what I have to pay to get it done (within reason). The shipment is worth so much that whether I pay the workers $10 or $20 per hour to get it where it's going just doesn't matter, so I pay $20/hour.

 

Now, I'd love to hire some young Canadians to do this. I can communicate with them in my native language and I can count on them to understand what I'm saying. They're used to getting paid electronically which is better for me as my bookkeeper can just do a direct deposit without my having to fuss.  If I can't get a Canadian, though, I'll take whoever I can get to do this job.  If my past experience is any indication, when the shipment arrives, no Canadian is going to want to do the work.

 

I'll advertise where Canadians can see it. I'll hope Canadians will email me. I know they probably won't. Instead, I'll get some polite emails in broken English from guys named Jose and Carlos who are ready to work 12 hour days with a smile and will shyly ask if I could possibly pay cash. You know what else? They'll work harder than any Canadian I've ever seen.

 

All this talk we hear about culture is a bunch of abstract crap. Out there in the real world, guys like me are struggling to make sure their businesses survive.