Ruminating on the purchase of chickens

I wasn't planning on buying chickens when I walked into the Family, Farm and Home store in Charlotte at 10:45 this morning.

I hopped out of the truck and was walking toward the front door when I saw a mother with two boys walking out of the store toward their vehicle. The older boy was carrying the unmistakable box that baby chicks and ducklings are packaged in for the ride home. 

Being nosy, I asked "What kind of birds did you get?"

The mother answered, "We bought the $1 chicks."

That piqued my interest. Earlier this year I paid over $65 for ten chicks.

I wandered back to where the chicks were incarcerated and found the sign advertising the $1 chicks. Unfortunately, they were all exotic, niche breeds that I had little interest in.

But then what did I spy with my  little eyes? A beaten down sign advertising $0.75 chicks. Barred Rock and Gold Lace Wyandottes. Both breeds have their own charms and neither breed is a mistake.

In spite of my super-human self-control, I left the store with an immodest number of chicks.

***

Before I made my trip to Family Farm and Home, I had negotiated a deal to purchase three, fully grown ISA Brown, laying hens. My intention was to "gift" them to Southern Belle and Handsome Hombre. Three ISA Browns (perhaps the best-of-the-best for home chickens) can be expected to produce at least two eggs a day if the farmer does her part.

While I really didn't need them, after all I had just purchased enough chicks to fill the student seating section of MSU's Spartan stadium, a deal is a deal.

It was a treat to meet the 11 year-old boy who was running the 200 hen egg laying operation. It was also a treat to meet his fifty-year-old dad who was the senior partner in the operation.

I know that con-men exist and I don't have any special abilities to discern them. But both individuals were a joy to work with. Oh, and those three hens turned into five hens...just because. Maybe they liked me.

As I was driving home with Southern Belle's windfall, it occurred to me that a likely outcome of Trump's tariff policies is a Renaissance in US manufacturing that equals the expansion before and during World War II. While there were bottlenecks and shortages at every turn, one that touched every industry was the shortage of management talent. A good, high-level executive has an amazingly diverse portfolio of skills that he or she can seamlessly activate as events demand. People like that are a rare commodity.

That fifty-year-old dad? He gave me that vibe. And even though his day-job is in the public sector, it seemed as if he had the potential to thrive in the time-urgent, results-oriented environment of manufacturing.

Bonus Link 

A 60W equivalent, LED bulb for every 100 square-feet emits about 8 lumens/square-feet or an average of 80 LUX which is WAY more than the minimum of 10 LUX.

The Emperor's New Clothes

This article was published in Essence, a lifestyle magazine whose target audience is primarily young, African-American women. I cherry-picked out some meaty bits of the article.

"According to Deloitte, only 6% of Gen Z professionals express any desire to reach executive leadership.

Gen Z’s hesitation comes down to three things: burnout, endless red tape, and losing touch with the work they actually love.

For a lot of young professionals, the math isn’t mathing. Take for example, a marketing coordinator making $55,000. They might see a promotion to marketing manager paying $70,000, but if that role requires 60-hour weeks instead of 40, the hourly compensation actually decreases. Gen Z has watched millennial managers navigate impossible expectations, constant reorganizations, and the mental health toll that comes with middle management responsibilities. Whether or not it’s actually worth it depends on the individual, but if you look at the facts strictly on paper, it’s looking like a hard no for most.

For millennials (waving a yellow flag as an elderly millennial myself), the case against management is equally compelling. Many entered the workforce during the Great Recession and now question whether traditional career advancement is worth the personal cost. To say that we are stressed, overworked and underpaid is an understatement. Those who pursued management roles during the pandemic found themselves managing remote teams through unprecedented challenges while dealing with their own stress and isolation. 

The article has the obligatory jabs at the Trump Administration. That seems ironic because the red-tape and nonvalue-added tasks were heaped on private enterprise by Obama and Biden's Administrations.

It is telling that even the True Believers can see how regulations are strangling managers and, ultimately, private enterprise. Now they need to connect the dots that private enterprise is the engine of economic growth and if they collapse because nobody with a brain wants a role in middle-management, then there will be no more tax-donkeys to bleed.