I have been entrepreneur Ev since the day I arrived.  Always looking for work, making my own jobs and simply being fascinated with the concept of money.

At six years of age, I collected bottles and couldn't believe that people would give me bags of empties when they could get money for them.  I thought they were crazy!  Then, I started delivering the town newspaper for 10 cents per paper.  I tried to deliver to the entire town, but being 7 years old, there was a limit as to how many I was allowed to deliver.  Every day after work, I ran home, counted my dimes and organized them and thought of ways to come up with more.  Then I started walking dogs for 75 cents per walk.  Boy was I rich! It was now a matter of how many hours per day I could be walking before I got exhausted.

My parents bought a restuarant when I was 13 years old.  Although I was only given a few hours a week to work (and working in a family restuarant you seem to get paid much less than every one else).  Everyday after school I would stop in to see if perhaps someone didn't show up for work or maybe it was busy and I could work extra hours.  When I got home, I called in again to see if they need me.

Throughout my entire life, my work ethic was impecable!  I was always on time, did my job to the best of my ability, always asked for more work and did more work even if I didn't get paid for it.  I strived for both perfection and excellence and wanted to be the best in whatever I was doing at the time: waitressing, delivering pizza, walking dogs, etc.

Please correct me if I'm wrong, but those type of people simply don't seem to exist.  I'm told that I was a one percenter.  Staff show up to work at their leisure, they leave when it's convenient for them, they don't ask for days off: they call in with days that they are not available for work, complain about transit costs, complain about their husbands/kids about how they don't let them come to work (child sick, husband stole the car, etc), one particular part of the job they don't like so they will no longer be available to do that part, and the list goes on and on...

Clearly, either I'm terrible at human resources or great staff is simply not available.  I battle with the following most common challenges:

*staff decided to sleep in and show up at their convenience:  do I fire them, fine them or just let it go?  If I fine them then they will tell me that they can't afford to work if I deduct anything off their paychecks.
*staff breaks equipment at work: do they pay for that or do I constantly pay for these items?
*they have shown up to work with their kids when it's been explained that children are not allowed to be brought to work.

Perhaps there are great books to read on this particular topic or an entire University course to take.  Either way, something must change and any input from members would be greatly appreciated.