Only On The Walters Post

I’m not here to tell folks what to think — just sharing what life has shown me. Take from it what makes sense, leave the rest, but maybe let it sit with you a while.”

You know, I’ve been around long enough to remember a time when a man could start a business, work hard, hire a few good people, and not have to worry about someone stepping in to tell him how to run his own shop. Back then, if you wanted a job, you showed up, proved yourself, and earned your keep. Simple as that. If the boss treated you right, you stuck around. If he didn’t, you found work somewhere else. It wasn’t perfect, but it worked.

Now here’s where I stand — and I know some won’t agree, but that’s fine. If I built a company from the ground up, took the risks, paid the wages, and kept the doors open, I believe I should have the right to say how it’s run. That includes saying right from the start: no unions here. If someone wants the job, they should understand that upfront. If it suits them, great. If not, no hard feelings, they move on.

You see, that’s the way things used to be. A man worked hard, kept his word, and if he did right by the boss, the boss usually did right by him. You didn’t need outside help to ask for a raise. Most times, it came because you earned it, not because someone bargained for it.

Today, though, the rules have changed, and the employers no longer have that same freedom. They’re told how much to pay, who they can hire, and when they have to bargain. It’s all tied up in laws, red tape, and outside pressure. That kind of interference takes the heart out of small business. And the sad part is, it’s not even helping like it was meant to. If anything, we’ve made it harder to hire, harder to fire, and harder to get ahead.

In my opinion, it never should have come to this. Businesses did not need this much fixing, because most of them were not broken. Truth told, we have made it so the fellow who puts everything on the line to start something no longer gets to steer the ship, and that is not right. Another thing is, I believe that over time, people’s thinking has been swayed. They have been led to believe that all these new rules and controls are good and necessary, when in reality, many of them are not. Somewhere along the way, we stopped thinking for ourselves and started accepting things that just do not make sense.

So what do we need to do? Well, if it were up to me, and I know it is not, I would say it is time we start thinking for ourselves again. Time to stop letting outside voices tell us what is fair, and start trusting in honest, face-to-face dealings between people who are willing to work and those willing to give them a chance. Hard work should still count for something, and a business owner should still have the right to run things his own way without jumping through hoops. We did it that way for a long time, and in my view, it worked just fine. Maybe it is time we gave it another look.

“That’s how I see it, plain and simple” or “Just my opinion, take it or leave it”? GW