Ben Stein: the unemployed possess poor work habits, personalities
I know. You’re sitting there, wondering why I’m wasting precious bandwidth on trashing the dude from those commercials for free credit scores, which aren’t really free, and landed freescore.com in a heap of trouble when they were accused of misleading consumers.
Anywho. When he isn’t lending his mug for the purposes of misleading the public, Stein is an economist, atheist-basher, and had a semi-regular columnist gig at the godless New York Times.
Oh, he also hates poor people. Or rather, he thinks they’re poor, or unemployed, because they’re lazy philistines who can’t keep their shit together for the span of a job interview. (via)
2. The people who have been laid off and cannot find work are generally people with poor work habits and poor personalities. I say “generally” because there are exceptions. But in general, as I survey the ranks of those who are unemployed, I see people who have overbearing and unpleasant personalities and/or who do not know how to do a day’s work. They are people who create either little utility or negative utility on the job. Again, there are powerful exceptions and I know some, but when employers are looking to lay off, they lay off the least productive or the most negative. To assure that a worker is not one of them, he should learn how to work and how to get along—not always easy.
Gotta love that scientific precision. It’s “generally” true that the unemployed have poor work habits and poor personalities…except when it’s not. Look, the quantity of “not true” might be left undetermined, but just know that Ben has been canvassing Main Street, USA with his clipboard and ballpoint pen, taking copious notes on all the leeching vagabonds he encounters.
The good news is Ben has a solution! Camps!
(This brings to mind an idea I have long had: that high schools and colleges should have a course on “how to get along” and “how to do a day’s work.” This would include showing up in clean clothes, smelling well, having had a good breakfast, dressed in a businesslike way, calling the other employees “sir” or “ma’am” and not talking back. This would include a teaching of the fact that the employee is not there for amusement, but to help the employer make money and to get a job done. It would include the idea that once you are at work, you are not at play. It is an idea whose time has come.)
See, it wasn’t Wall Street engaging in shady derivatives trading and over-leveraging that led to the recession and a pandemic of unemployment. The joblessness is the fault of lazy poor people who refuse to say, “yes, sir,” and “yes, ma’am,” and generally suck at all things etiquette.
All we need to do is stick them in worker reeducation camps, let them marinate a while, and when they get out, there will be seven million shiny, new jobs waiting for them courtesy of the Employment Fairy.
Seriously, has anyone in the mainstream called out Ben for this stupid column yet? I’m not asking rhetorically. Let me know if someone has condemned this idiocy.
Good piece, but you left out the part about Stein being a former Nixon speechwriter. That tells you everything you need to know about this asshat.
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Anna Phallactic
20 Jul 10 at 2:27 pm
I think I have to agree with Ben Stein on this one. There’s ALWAYS work for savvy people with strong work ethic. It may be cleaning houses or stocking a grocery store but you know what? Smart people understand that you may have to take steps to work toward the employment standard you once enjoyed to pay bills and take care of your family.
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allclad
20 Jul 10 at 2:31 pm
There isn’t always work. And sometimes if there is work, the unemployed can’t get to it. In many communities, there are zero job-hunting resources. People are unable to drive to job interviews because they’ve lost their car, and there are no bus routes. Example from the NYT:
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Allison Kilkenny
20 Jul 10 at 2:40 pm
you left out this part too: “Productive workers with real skills and real ability to get along are also sometimes unemployed, but they will be the last fired and the first hired.”
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Tony Gebely
20 Jul 10 at 4:18 pm
Clearly, Ben never met Al “Chainsaw” Dunlap.
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Allison Kilkenny
20 Jul 10 at 4:37 pm
<blockquote<you left out this part too: “Productive workers with real skills and real ability to get along are also sometimes unemployed, but they will be the last fired and the first hired.”
Citation needed.
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History Punk
20 Jul 10 at 5:17 pm
The guy who hasn’t worked since shooting Ferris Bueller’s Day Off is getting down on the working class for not finding work fast enough, really?
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Rob
20 Jul 10 at 8:39 pm
My fave is the “having had a good breakfast” this is along with the same crowd that claims SBP ( School Breakfast Program) and free lunch for the poor are one way tickets to socialism. Where is the lucky soon to be interviewed getting this fantastic breakfast, clean shave, hot shower and fine apparel to impress said employer when all unemployment “benefits” have been MIA? When, after getting arrested for bathing in the local park fountain, the bloody beating from the cops, the urine in the holding tank is the new cologne and their pants go missing during the night? Where Ben Stein? Ayn Rand’s Breakfast Fund?
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Heidi
20 Jul 10 at 9:55 pm
My father spent the last ten years working for\with his two brothers as a residential electrician in Washington state. He is the oldest of the three and is now 61. As soon as the housing market tanked they went from a 7 man crew to a 1.5 man crew. He has been unemployed ever since and is still currently looking for a job.
Does Mr. Ben Stein think he lost his job because his cloths were dirty at work, he smelled poorly from crawling around in some persons attic all day, and he didn’t call his two younger brothers sir?
Before joining his brothers company my father worked for 24 years at a large company and luckily built-up a livable pension. Anyone remember those? I’m sure Benny hates those silly things also.
The fact of the matter is Ben Stein is so out of touch with reality he doesn’t even know his head from his ass. I think Ben needs to take a class where he is stripped of all of his money and worldly possessions and is forced to survive on food-stamps and minimum wage pay. Maybe then he will have a idea of what time has come.
The real question is “Who would I fight first, Hitler or Ben Stein? Seeing how Hitler is dead, I think I would just kick Ben’s Ass.”
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Jeremy Winter
20 Jul 10 at 10:26 pm
@allclad
yes, for someone who was gainfully employed for years making about 60,000 dollars a year, with a mortgage payment of 2500/mo could work cleaning houses, or stocking shelves but, a) those piddly wages wouldn’t actually pay their bills, and/or b)most americans think that kind of work is beneath them and best left to immigrants.
my father is smart, savvy, has a good work ethic and is well educated. he was still unemployed for more than a year after being laid off. go sell your bs elsewhere, cuz i’m not buyin that load of crap.
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Kim Mebane
20 Jul 10 at 11:54 pm
“Camps”? Ones where they teach that “Work Makes (you) Free”? Is that what Ben Stein is calling for?
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Rocky Rococo
21 Jul 10 at 10:39 am
[...] Ben Stein, the dude from the shady freescore.com commercials, hates unemployed people.Source:http://allisonkilkenny.com/2010/07/ben-stein-the-unemployed-possess-poor-work-habits-personalities/ Permalink Wednesday July 21st [...]
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Paola en la red
21 Jul 10 at 6:54 pm
You’re right. He’s calling for rounding up the unemployed, hosing them down so they don’t “smell bad,” and keeping them in close quarters to reeducate them so they talk right. “Camp” was too harsh a word. Maybe Happy Fun Time Jubilee?
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Allison Kilkenny
21 Jul 10 at 6:54 pm
I’ve always seen Ben Stein as a very unlikeable person, and now it’s REALLY CONFIRMED!!! I can’t relate to this, but what ever happened to having a heart? He’s obviously a very narrow minded, judgmental man. BUT VERY GOOD LOOKING……
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Cassandra
9 Dec 10 at 9:27 pm