The Homeless Dude Project

Hey.......... what a coincidence, I also work for food!! I also work to pay for my mortgage, my car payment, formula, beer, golf........ you get the idea.

Throughout my adult life, my attitude has changed...... often and a lot in some cases. The 18 year old Julian; while awesome and in pretty good shape as I remember, was quite flawed. And I hope that the 27 year old Julian is at lease a slight improvement, all though according to my lovely wife, I have become more of a bitch. But that's a whole different blog.

Anyway, on to my point. One thing I've really tried to work on as the years passed is my compassion, and giving people the benefit of the doubt..... at least until they prove me wrong. Let's say some random homeless dude is sitting on the side of the road with a sign. We've all seen them. The 18 year old Julian would have immediately been disgusted and started bitching and carrying on about what a worthless piece of crap this guy is, and probably yelled "get a job you piece of crap" as I drove by.

Nowadays I think I feel a little sorry for the guy, but then I ask myself how he got there, and how much he's really doing to better his situation. And then I had a genius idea to find out............. The Homeless Dude Project.

Here's my plan: Find 10 random homeless people. And offer them a job, nothing too hard or strenuous; just basic manual labor. Say......10 bucks an hour. Give them the address, and offer them a ride, or at least a bus ticket so there's no "I couldn't get there" excuse.

Then, the Homeless Dude Project begins..........

My guess is, out of 10, 6-8 won't show up, or call you, or contact you ever again. But again, this is 27 year old Julian, and I want to give these people a chance. If they do show up, maybe they'll work hard and do good..... my guess is they'll realize that panhandling is easier than actual work and quit, or just not show up the next day, or have such a crappy work ethic that you have to fire them. But again, benefit of the doubt here.

So where do you come in?? Well like most of you, I work for someone else, and I don't have the power to hire/fire people. So I wanna get some of you small business owners in on this. Or those of you that work for someone else, see if your boss will back you up on this, I'm going to.

Let's see if these people truly down on their luck, or did they put themselves where they are.

They say "Will work for food". Let's call their bluff..................

JWC