Sign, sign, everywhere a sign... as the refrain from the 1970’s song by the Five Man Electric Band went. Where back in the day the signs related to how people looked, today they relate to how few people are working. When it gets to the point that, when on a family vacation, my kiddos were asking why there were Help Wanted signs in other parts of the country as well as at home, the gravity of the situation is that evident.

There has been no shortage of talk about the shortage of workers, and I don’t mean just after the lockdowns last year – in my little corner of the world in northeast Wisconsin, going back to 2019 and earlier there was low unemployment and many employers then were struggling to hire people. With all that has gone on since, it has been even worse.

With all of the talk, it seems like it is just that – talk. Sure, there are some “standard” approaches to hiring people, such as higher wages, sign-on bonuses and increased benefits. However I haven’t seen much along the line of new, creative thinking to find the right people to augment short-staffed businesses. I have heard of what could be considered desperation, where an employer was hiring people whom they have fired in the past, but that seems like the least optimal situation.

Allow me to put an idea out there that is outside of the standard practices I have seen – lower the minimum age to work.

Where I am sure I am not the first person ever to think of it, and it was not an idea I came up with alone. I have my oldest kiddo to thank for helping me come up with this. Over the summer she was talking about how when she gets old enough she can’t wait to work for her favorite Mexican inspired fast-casual franchise restaurant named after a type of pepper. As an avid consumer of their tasty products, she can picture herself working there in various capacities while earning money and getting employee discounts on said tasty products. But alas, she has to wait, as that business and others have to abide by rules and regulations on minimum age requirements.

That’s when it struck me – could a change in minimum ages to work help alleviate the strain on businesses by making a larger potential pool of available people to work?

Doing My Homework

As I set out to see if my idea was completely off-the-wall or had some merit, the first place I looked was the State of Wisconsin’s Web page on employment of minors. My assumption that every state has information like this, and it may have local overrides – I am not a lawyer, but I’ll get to that in a moment.

At first glance, there are categories where someone under 16 can work and they include everything from agriculture (e.g. bean pickers) to public exhibition (e.g. being Shrek in a play). Searching specifically for “food” and “restaurants” I found only the former, where it is prohibited from being a food slicer as this is considered hazardous. Does this mean my kiddo’s burrito wrapping dreams may have to wait? It’s not completely clear. Recently it was suggested to her by a donut shop owner she met as part of a school program that she could work at the age of 14. Perhaps not making the donuts but selling them?

I further sought to validate my idea, and get the “take” on this from others. To that end I shared this idea with Josh Dukelow, the host of a local radio show Fresh Take on WHBY in Appleton, WI. Not only was he intrigued by it, he included it in a segment of his show where he interviewed a labor attorney about the labor shortage. You can hear the whole segment at the 38 minute mark, and specific mention of my inquiry about lowering the minimum age to work at the 48 minute mark. Of course I would never say an attorney endorsed my idea; she didn’t completely dismiss it but cautioned about the long-term impact of lowering the age.

Labor Still a Hot Topic

As the summer went on and school started, I didn’t think much more about this until last week. That was when I saw the Wisconsin State Senate passed a bill to extend the working hours for 14 and 15 year olds between Memorial Day and Labor Day. This bill is likely to help tourism in the state and take advantage of kids idle time in the summer months. Of course this needs to be passed by the other legislative house and signed by the governor, but I feel this is further validation to the need and a creative idea to solve it.

What do you think – is this a good idea to lower the minimum age to work, or should we just let kiddos be kiddos as they have the rest of their lives to work? I welcome your thoughts in the comments to this post.

Deconstructing Lowering the Minimum Age To Work

Labor laws were put into place and continuously revised to protect workers from poor working conditions. Over time, they also need to take into consideration the realities of the world, including the growth and demand of business and the need for labor to fulfill it. As a kid I delivered the local town newspaper and later worked after school all through high school. Not only was I fulfilling a need of my employer, but I was earning money and gaining a work ethic that has helped make me the man I am. In my desire to explore the change to laws for those under 18, I also wish for them to have the same experience and gains as I to help them through their lives.

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This is from The Hot Iron, a journal on business and technology by Mike Maddaloni.

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With Fall finally kicking in with cooler temperatures and leaves piling up in the yard, this week’s journal of the interesting things I have learned is compiled with the constant hum of leaf blowers in the background.

Once you remember what a passport is for ... – My friends at Swift Passport Services shared what the next generation of US passports will look like. Security and a little more style are a couple of the elements of the new passport design. Even if you renew your passport today, you may still get the old format as the printers for the new passports are still being rolled out.

Literally a game of numbers – Cormac Sampson is an Offensive Lineman for the University of Wisconsin football team. As his family is friends with ours, I have known him long before he could bench press me, but I digress. The Junior has been Mr. Versatility for the Badgers and has played several positions on the O-line. As a result, he has to change his uniform number for each position, as number ranges are assigned to positions, several times. In this interview of Cormac, he talks about the multitude of jerseys he has worn over the years and how his Mom cheers on her little boy.

Appfirmations – My fellow co-working space co-worker Mike writes for The Sweet Setup and this week he wrote about the mobile app Affirmations, a simple but elegant app which can remind you how great you are, as well as when and how to breathe. The random affirmations that pop-up on my screen have been welcome since I added the app this week.

Classic Fright – I came across this list of classic Halloween movies and am sharing namely because the newer ones that are appearing more on the big screen at home just don’t give goosebumps like the good ol’ ones.

Like they need more traffic anyway – In my latest book takeaway on The Tao of Bill Murray the real intense readers of this little blog noticed that I didn’t include links to buy the book on Amazon. Going forward, I won’t be adding these. Why? I got an update from the Amazon Associates affiliate program, where these links come from, that I need to add even more disclaimers that these links would earn me money if someone clicked and bought the book.

This messaging is related to US Federal Trade Commission (or FTC) requirements for disclosure of any earning relationship with any product or service mentioned in a blog, or elsewhere. When it came out years ago I analyzed the FTC requirements and had many questions and honestly think it’s too much and plays consumers as being completely oblivious. Couple that with the fact I have only earned US$4.00 (yes, four dollars) over the years, it’s not worth it. I will eventually pull down other links, but in the future you won’t see them.

Perhaps the FTC should focus on persistent tracking? – This article about how Web sites track you is nothing new, but frames it that non-profits’ Web sites are tracking you, possibly in conflict with the work they do. Referenced in the story is a tracking too that The Markup offers so you can search for potential sites that track you. Of course Google comes up for many sites as their Analytics tool tracks hits. It makes one think what is really important about Web sites and to who.

Walking around the law – I heard the term “walking quorum” for the first time this week, thanks to my friend Josh Dukelow and his local radio talk show Fresh Take. In general, a walking quorum is not a good thing and can be a violation of governmental open meeting laws. This definition of a walking quorum from my state is a good place to start understanding it.

Tick-Tok – Just when you thought there was enough harm being done as a result of the social media platform TikTok, now we have an idea where its name may have come from – TikTok may be causing young girls to develop ticks and more.

Collect Friend Contacts Info Without a Bag – I couldn’t help but laugh when I read this story about a woman who lost contact with all of her friends after someone hacked her Facebook page. Just as a business doesn’t have a true relationship with customers over Facebook, the same goes with people. The article does say to get the email addresses of your “friends” to keep in contact outside of the platform. For some reason it left out to delete your account once you have that list.

Credit where credit is due – Where I’m not sure who originally said this quote pictured above, it is one that I will not forget as it reminds you who to think of first. It reads, “anger is the punishment you give yourself for someone else’s mistake – have a bless day.” Not bad for something on the chalkboard in a restaurant bathroom.

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This is from The Hot Iron, a journal on business and technology by Mike Maddaloni.

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Actor / improviser Bill Murray walks into a liquor store in Charleston, South Carolina. He grabs a bottle of liquor, opens it and takes a swig. He then grabs a cigarette lighter, ignites it and breathes into it, creating a fireball. He puts the lighter down, turns to the clerk and says, “nobody will believe you” and walks out of the store.

This story was told to me by a good friend who lives in Charleston. He has heard many stories about the star of stage and screen and has met him around the city Murray calls home. As unique as this story is in itself, it pales against some of the stories in the book The Tao of Bill Murray by Gavin Edwards.

The Tao of Bill Murray is a collection of stories like these, coupled with interviews of actors and common people who have interacted with Murray, including quotes from interviews with Murray himself. The long story short about Murray is he has done similar antics like what he did in the liquor store, everything from not taking pro golf tournaments seriously to crashing parties to not formally committing to being in a movie until he shows up on the first day of filming. Where by themselves these stories may seem peculiar for anyone else to do, especially to complete strangers, coming from the star of movies like Caddyshack and Stripes seems to make them acceptable not to mention welcome.

As I read the book, I laughed at Murray’s approach to the entertainment industry and wondered how I would react if Bill Murray jumped me and knocked me down in public. I also had a few takeaways from this light-hearted yet thought-provoking book.

Improv at its purest – Bill Murray studied improv at The Second City in Chicago and was on its main stage before his days on Saturday Night Live. His brother Brian Doyle-Murray also was at Second City and this has clearly had a profound impact on his life – trust me on this, as myself is someone who went thru the Intro to Improv program at the Second City Training Center and was part of a troupe that perform professionally, improv is something that remains with you. As I read through the variety of situations Murray was in or created, I saw many of these as true improv moments, where he was building and heightening and “yes, and”-ing his surroundings.

Only Bill Murray could do this – You don’t have to look far today to see some celebrity in the spotlight for doing something outside of the realm of common. Reading thru these stories and interviews, I realized many of these I heard of for the first time from this book. None of these I recall seeing in a supermarket tabloid or on some “news” Web site. Is Bill Murray still well-known enough but just under the radar of the gossip slingers to profit from?

Is there more to this? – In the back of my mind throughout reading this book I wondered to myself if there was more to this. Improv aside, is there something Bill Murray needs or wants that leads to these actions? I’m not saying he has an ulterior motive or something sinister is behind doing what he does, but is there simply more to it? The book didn’t quite address this.

The Tao of Bill Murray is a good read that is mixed with fun and celebrity. I was given this book by a good friend and avid reader of The Hot Iron, and I started reading it in Charleston when I was on vacation this summer. Now that I have finished it, I am sending it back to Charleston to a friend there who is likely on the lookout for this famous resident of The Holy City.

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This is from The Hot Iron, a journal on business and technology by Mike Maddaloni.

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A lot of my time over the past few weeks has had me longing for the days when a computer operating system was just an operating system, software was just software, a Web browser was just a Web browser and whenever you would update a database you would always account for the potential for embedded spaces by trimming or hashing them...

Go Silko – Congrats to my good friend Adam who, as the third-generation owner of Silko Honda in Massachusetts has added Volkswagen to the family with the opening of Silko Volkswagen of Brockton. I’ve learned a lot about business and the auto industry from him, and he is now preparing for the next generation to take the auto group to the next level.

Web Transparency – When I had my Web business, and even today, the first thing people will ask about a Web site is how much one costs. Where there’s some subjectivity to it, there’s many direct correlations to design, features, functionality and their costs. My good friend Emily Brackett of Visible Logic has launched a Website Estimator tool. By selecting (and deselecting) a variety of features as well as goals for a site, you can get a good ballpark estimate of to what a first-class Web site can cost. I think this is great tool, namely because she (and others in the business) have their price-point for their services, and it’s a good way to understand if you, as the one looking for a site, is ready to move up to that level.

Take Homeschooling to New Heights – EAA, the experimental aircraft association, has launched in beta AeroEducate, an online resource for teaching kids all aspects of flight. From my own research it looks like a great and fun service to add to homeschooling or augment classroom education.

Blatant Request to Support My Kiddos Girl Scouts Troop – In addition to the annual cookie sale, my kiddo also has to sell candy and nuts as well as paper magazine subscriptions this fall. The sale is only open for a few more days, if you are so inclined. The big sale for cookies, along with its own blog post, will be posted in the beginning of the new year.

Don’t Force Me Bro – You know when you go to log into a Web site or app and they want to send you a code by email or text message? That’s called two-factor authentication, or 2FA. With increasing crime online, it’s important to have it on an account. In most all cases this is an opt-in, optional service. Big Tech behemoth Google has offered 2FA for years, and is now going to start turning 2FA on for its customers, forcing them to use it. As I have always said, keep your contact information current on all of your accounts, as who knows where Google will want to send a text message. And you can’t exactly pick up the phone to call Google either if there’s a problem.

But If It’s Dead, Why Bother? – An interesting piece in Forbes magazine online states that Cybersecurity is Dead, Now What?. When you go into it assuming your information is already out there, it changes your point-of-view on how to approach it. In my opinion, this is for the better… and perhaps don’t put it out there in the first place?

Perhaps Put It on Your Own Web Site Instead? – I share this article about yet another business in my area closing not because they are closing per se, but rather because all they had was a Facebook site. For some reason small businesses are less concerned with having their own Web site and leave it to Facebook to promote their business for them (likely at cost). With increasing numbers of people leaving that platform and the fact that you truly don’t have a direct connection to your customers (e.g. their email address), this is a contributing factor to the demise of many businesses. If you disagree, feel free to comment below.

And Can People See What You Put On The Site? – The fine people at Siteimprove, a company that offers tools, services and education around improving your Web site, have released the latest version of their Web Accessibility browser plug in. Where the concept of Web Accessibility is still nebulous for many people, if you have a Web site, make sure you at least add a title to your images to start. Trying this plugin is a good way to see if you need help with this from an expert.

What the Font – Have you ever seen a font or text style and wonder what it was called, especially so you could use it? This article talks of ways to discover the name of a font and some of the names are amusing in themselves.

Clever History Lessons – New to me is the Liberty Kids series of historical fiction cartoons on the American Revolution. These have clearly been around for a while as the late news anchor Walter Cronkite is the voice of Benjamin Franklin, and the CBS newsman left this mortal coil over a decade ago. Like any such tales, they are not completely accurate to recorded history. I like them as they give a general idea of what happened at the formation of the US, and I then fill in the blanks for my kiddos after they watch them.

Honor or Consolation – Though October is Breast Cancer Awareness Month, in my travels throughout Wisconsin I have seen very little signs of this. The other day at my kiddos soccer game I noticed the lines on the field were pink, to which I positively expressed my support for it. Another parent then stated that there’s a shortage of white field paint, and many fields are using other colors to compensate. Despite this buzzkill, I still took it as a sign to support those who have and are enduring this great challenge.

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This is from The Hot Iron, a journal on business and technology by Mike Maddaloni.

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Happy fourth quarter! I once had a manager who would, um, celebrate the start of a business quarter. That was odd to me as it didn’t really have an impact on the work we did. As this was one of the managers I had had over my career who never took me to lunch this behavior didn’t surprise me.

A Grave Laugh – Let’s end the week with a good laugh with this short film from my friend and filmmaker Floyd Webb who is in and worked on its production.

Now For Something Short to Read – I learned my friend Jen has been writing more in the last year or so and has been publishing her short fiction on her blog. On her site she shared a short fiction Web site where all published works are 50 words. This reminded me of the monthly 53-word writing contest I have entered for a while and have yet to win.

Dear Mike Maddaloni, How Was the Movie? – I saw the film adaptation of the Broadway musical Dear Evan Hansen this week. I haven’t seen the musical, and going into the movie theater I had no idea what the story was about. I enjoyed the movie, but it was very dark. It was also another high school movie that was nothing like my own high school experience eons ago. I recommend you see it, and let me know what you think.

Make Bank Web Sites Great Again – Redesigning a Web site is no small task – trust me on this one. However today there’s options for making something more turnkey, yet still effective. This week I learned that digital agency SilverTech launched KuberaDX to offer such a solution for banks and credit unions. I work with SilverTech and they are brilliant, so this offering will surely be in line with their excellence.

It’s the end of Box Tops as we know it... – With all of the back-to-school information flying around, one thing I haven’t heard about from either of my kiddos schools is Box Tops for Education. Typically back to school is when this program for raising money when certain consumer product purchases are made is one of the main announcements. But I am not surprised – over the last few years the program has morphed from where you collect little coupons printed on packages to where you scan your grocery receipt. Over the years the money the schools have collected has plummeted – I saw this in the app I used to have to do the scanning, and I believe this part of where the problem lies. Friends, families and complete strangers would collect the Box Tops, and it was fun to do – heck, a blog post I wrote years ago got me hundreds of Box Tops from complete strangers. This, and major brands like Kimberly-Clark and Ziploc dropping out of the program may have contributed to its decline as well. I’m not sure where the program will end up, but it may be a quiet demise.

Not Knoweth The Source Of Thine Potential Demise – I share this interview of Chris Best, the CEO of email publishing platform Substack by Brian Stelter on CNN not to engage in a debate about platforms blocking content or not, but rather because Stelter seems to be completely unaware of the success of Substack’s business model, where people can subscribe to people’s email messages. Clearly Stelter didn’t work as a paperboy as a child, let alone the fact that subscription models are nothing new to 2021.

There’s a Reason for Everything – If you or someone you know or love had a Web site that was giving a security error this past week, it could have been because of this error with a service that manages SSL certificates for Web sites. It was not because of caching errors, or some other blathering excuse that someone who has no clue what is going on told you. Or told to me for that matter.

Sayonara & Welcome – Smith & Wesson, the 150+ year old gun manufacturer that just happens to be about 7 miles from where I grew up is now moving over 800 miles away. This week they announced it was moving its headquarters from Springfield, Massachusetts – where it has always been located – to Maryville, Tennessee due to a changing “business climate” in the Bay State. Translation – it’s a changing political climate, as tightening of laws on guns in the Commonwealth would prevent them from being made there. Where I don’t own any of their product, when I had to go to the emergency room as a kiddo it was at Wesson Memorial Hospital. Engineering students at my college would get internships there where, among other engineering experience they would gain, they would get to test guns. Where the total potential jobs loss was not clear, it will certainly be a blow to that area.

Coffee & Learning – This week I decided to start my mornings with some short lessons from LinkedIn Learning. Among the topics I consumed along with my morning coffee were on Blockchain and Succeeding in a New Role by Managing Up. In this short course it had several videos from business leaders, and the one that most resonated with me was by Kathryn Minshew as she talked about when and how to work. My takeaways were to find the best time for you to work and put up the barriers necessary to make sure you can work.

Picked But Pretty – The above photo is of part of Hofacker’s Hillside Orchard a local apple picking farm that’s popular this time of year. Or rather a few weeks ago, as when we went this past week all of the apples were picked from the trees open to the public. Fortunately apples from their back orchard were for sale, as well as the zipline being open for the kiddos to enjoy.

Congrats Kim on the new gig, and I can't wait to hear where you land.

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This is from The Hot Iron, a journal on business and technology by Mike Maddaloni.

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