Tough times no excuse to rob
“Tired” writes: As a 21-year-old Caymanian with no further education, it is HARD. I graduated when I was 16 and started working that year. I’ve been at the same job ever since. There are jobs for young Caymanians but you tell them to go get a job at Burger King and get off their ass and the pride starts to kick in. We have a huge issue with broken families, mom here and dad there, and the parent the child gets stuck with is probably working their ass off, miserable and takes the anger out on the kid when they get home.
Still no excuse for the child to go and rob a place. I’ve had to eat rice for dinner days on end; that’s still no reason to rob. I’d pick up a hand line or go and drink some coconuts before I brazenly rob a person. Mentality is the only thing holding many Caymanians back. However, the island is set in a way that if I get a minimum wage job, there’s no way I can pay rent, get food and have money to save on the side to help build myself from the bottom.
Minimum wage will get you $1,300 a month if you’re lucky, and one bedroom apartments start at $1,000 a month. Do the math at how much you can save after buying food with milk being $6 a gallon. Life is truly hard for some people here, but that doesn’t give you permission to rob and cause more chaos in the world.
There are also expats from poorer countries who come here and talk advantage of the fact that we are such a carefree island. “Oh look, these fools left their car open.” However, there are people that come from poorer countries and appreciate the opportunity to work abroad and feed their families back home. Nothing is black and white. We need to improve our education system but more math and science isn’t going to help these kids.
Start at home with the parents. Stop encouraging “ass whoopings” and raising kids who grow up angry at the world. Stop saying “these white people come here and build up this and that” because we Caymanians sold the land to the “white people” ourselves.
Playing this whole guessing game of “was it a Jamaican or a Caymanian who robbed the place” isn’t helping anyone or anything. There’s a woman who was stabbed and beaten in the hospital,. I’m sure she could care less if it was an albino African with Italian descent. Start at the core of the issues: family, economical disparity, mentality.
This comment was posted in response to: Two robberies in heart of tourist district
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Category: Viewpoint
I think Caymanians should have to pay lower prices at the supermarket and lower rent also. They should have a card that says they are Cayman nationals and amenities should be cheaper for them. It’s not their fault they live on a tiny island that is too expensive with few unskilled jobs to go around. Expats should pay more because they are usually earning more and have chosen to live there. They are getting some benefits because its tax free, lovely sunshine, beautiful beaches and having a great life.
Some Caymanians are on their arses living in awful accommodation with no air con or anything comfortable. Their children are suffering. The CIG need to sort something out to help these people. I used to live in Cayman as a teacher and the poverty I saw was horrendous for such a rich place. It’s all very well having Camana Bay and posh restaurants, but these places price out actual local Caymanians. The government need to look after their own people instead of looking after the rich. Just my opinion.
Go sit in a corner and think about what you just said. How ridiculous.
Many parents beat/spank/“discipline” their children and then wonder why they grow up to be violent and rude.
Many parents don’t pay attention to their children and devote little time to them and then wonder why they engage in crazy destructive behavior that brings negative attention to them.
Many parents fail to give their children appropriate work and responsibilities and then wonder why they can’t do anything when they grow up.
#lame
I watch my Jamaican father wait for my sick Caymanian mother to die just to remarry another Jamaican and share the spoils with other Jamaicans.
He has a business with NO CAYMANIANS working there. There have always been a handful of Caynanians employed at this place of business. Why is that? Why do the parents of my Caymanian friends care for and love their children? Gives them land and a job, cares for their grandchildren, being a friend to their children. Things my mother used to do.
Seems like this was his plan all along. It is scary how many times this happens on this island. Something needs to be done. I WILL BE THE ONE TO DO IT.
Good on you young man, if more followed your path and attitude, the CI would be for caymanians first and foremost again. Continue to keep learning, read books and take classes where you lack the knowledge. Success leaves clues, you don’t have to reinvent the wheel. find a good mentor and adopt the mental attitude of a warrior in terms of your own progressiveness. You will go far and then pay it forward by helping others. don’t adopt the herd mentality that holds so many of our own people back with non supportive excuses and so on.
How’d you know it was a guy?
touché!
Kudos to the person who wrote this article. However the lie of minimum wage bullshit needs to be addressed.
The minimum wage will always be THE MINIMUM SOMEONE IS PAID! That will be the case if it’s 8.00 or 20.00 an hour.
Minimum wage in New York is 15.00 an hour and people are still crying poverty!
If minimum wage is the fix, then why not make it 100.00 an hour and be done with the damn problem once and for all !?
Raising it will only mean the cost of your surroundings will go up, or your job will go away.
Name me ONE country where someone is living comfortably with or without a family ON MINIMUM WAGE!
You are NOT SUPPOSED to live on minimum wage. MINIMUM WAGE is the MINIMUM the government forces companies to pay out. You are NOT SUPPOSED to remain the least possible paid employee allowable by law!!! You are especially NOT SUPPOSED to start a family on MINIMUM WAGE!!!!
However minimum wage is a great political football for worthless politicIans to use to buy votes which is why is constantly peddled during election time. Because that’s all the lowest possible rate to pay a human really amounts to.
Stop being politicians’ fools.
What you say is true but expats coming here willing to work for nothing is holding the wages of everyone down
So Caymanians start hiring Caymanians in Fosters, Kirks, restaurants and fast food places. Pay a livable wage.
In a free market economy, you can’t dictate to business owners what they should/shouldn’t pay their staff. What the government can do (if they’re not already doing it) is start charging higher business licensing fees for those companies who have a higher proportion of expat workers than locals.
You missed the point.
No you missed the point. It is Caymanians letting in expats for low skilled jobs. If expats were not allowed in for low paid jobs Caymanian employers would have to pay higher / livable wages which they can afford knowing the good profits they made in 2019.
No. You miss the point. First off – if any, ANY caymanian was able to, willing to and responsible enough to show up on time and get the minimum amount of acceptable work done, employers would hire the caymanian EVERY time. The problem is again and again and again caymanians can’t do the work or won’t do the work. Again and again and again.
I get your point, but it isn’t always the case. to a certain extent, it boils down to basic economics. I can hire a local guy and pay him $10 per hour thereby binding myself to certain employment laws or I can hire someone from X country who’s more than happy to do twice the work for $6 per hour because they pay peanuts in X country.
Cayman will not allow British expats on the island for work unless you are a professional person. You have to prove you are qualified for the position you apply for. However, any other Caribbean island resident seem to be able to walk in there and do any job, whether menial or not, and get a permit. Same applies for entry into the U.K. from the Caribbean BOT’s you can enter, not work and claim free housing, medical, schooling etc., just because you are a BOT. Why doesn’t it apply for U.K. residents to enter Cayman and receive the same??
okay lets say your theory holds water mr 12/02/2020 at 1:50 pm. Employers pay you a higher wage. YOUR RICH NOW RIGHT?…WRONG! within a very short time the cost of everything will go u. Employers will not lose money for your wage increase. They will simply raise the cost of everything. If anything, expats working minimum wage jobs, willingly. Keep the costs of everything down. Look at the cause and effect. We had no minimum wage 7 years ago. And no massive inflation. Implement minimum wage and wow. We have out of control prices on everything. Doesn’t take a hammer scientist, to figure out why. You raise minimum wage, eventually everthing goes up. Including rent. It’s a domino effect.
Says who? I know of ‘local’ companies who advertise low pay for jobs that they don’t want Caymanians to get. When they hire the preferred expat of choice they increase the pay of said expat. They have to report what a job is advertised for to immigration, however they don’t have to report increases in said pay.
What absolute nonsense 9:34. You are not suppose to live on a minimum wage? Then what are you suppose to do? Rob stores or break into houses to supplement one’s minimum wage?
So tell me this, why does the CIG pay a minimum wage of $10 for Caymanian work crews but allows a minimum wage of $6 for everybody else.
Using your logic you must be a supporter of slavery.
Find your humanity Bobo.
There is also something called a living wage. Look that up. Minimum wage does nothing good for the people earning it.
Read what they said again.
Minimum wage is not designed for people to be complacent on.
If the minimum wage is to high then most of those jobs go away. Its designed for kids still living at home and going to school so they have a few $$ for spending money. If you want to get paid a proper wage get a degree start your own business etc.. there is lost of money to be earned on this island. Post Secondary education on this island is cheaper that private elementary schools. If you don’t like what your getting paid make a change. Stop taking jobs that are there for our kids to learn a greater sense of responsibility and independence with. The only thing the government should be responsible for is a significantly better foundational education standard. Its up to everyone to do their own hard work. Do something that you can be proud of.
No the minimum wage jobs don’t go away. Who do you think is going to do all those jobs in Fosters and Kirks as well as restaurants, Burger King, Wendy’s, Popeye’s etc?
I can assure you the jobs will not go away.
As i stated most of them will go away not all of them.Several of the local grocery stores are already looking into self check out options like US grocery chains already have had for years. If you look at the US market for example. Fast food does self check out now technology is rapidly replacing people everywhere. When minimum wage outpaces profitability. if you want to keep your costs down a business needs to save money. Machines are quite reliable they don’t take sick days or require pension or medical. Amazon has setup retail stores where the staff only need to received the goods they are fully machine sorted for shelved from there. you are auto billed when you walk out the door. no self checkout at all. Given time we will adapt here as well. 3D printing will phase out manufacturing basic houses are being printing already.
Believe me it is easier to live on $15 an hour in NYC than $6 an hour in Cayman. Overall costs, particularly basics such as food, are astronomical here compared to NYC if one is on a minimum wage here.
What!? You are insane! Have you seen the income tax rate in NY and how much rent costs? Let’s see where you would live in NY with $15/h salary.
You obviously know nothing about rent control buildings in NYC. If you are making $15 an hour you are not in a high income tax bracket. Lots of write offs in NYC at that level of income.
9:34, Bet my life you are a friggin cheapskate.
If the minimum wage is just enough to meet the bare minimum of survival then what’s the sense of working? You get 5$ and pay 5$ worth of bills. Does it not just make sense to not work then? How are kids fresh out of high school supposed to be able to leave their parents house and start a life of their own? What about the kids who had to start working right out of high school because mom said she just can’t afford to take care of you anymore? Why is our minimum wage lower than countries with the same cost of living as us? Of course you don’t make it 100$ an hour, but what you do is see what it costs for one person to live here, and if the minimum wage is lower than that (it is) then there’s a problem.
12:40 MINIMUM WAGE means you should not be PAID LESS it has nothing to do with being PAID MORE!
12:40 Remember a MINIMUM WAGE has two sides one is what your Grand Mother will have to Pay for Service!
I commend you to the heavens! You are smart, obviously hard working and I hope you will soon get a breakthrough on getting a higher salary.. You are so right, after rent is taken out you have very little left. Even CI 25.00 more per week would be a help. Have a discussion with your boss and ask for a little more!, you remind me of the way I talked to my children and now my grandson. It’s what we were taught in the good old days. You must have a caring grandmother in your life!, blessings little lamb!,
Large up yourself..from a nor’ west pointa bo!
so weird, I just saw an article on the Cayman Compass talking about education and the requirements for vocational and technical training. After persons have passed City & Guilds they will need to work with someone for 2 years in order to really learn the trade. Ezzard Miller believes that should not be the case as the person who has passed City &Guilds should be able to go and get a job. I don’t know if Ezzard has ever hired someone who just left a trade school, but I am sure that there are many people out there who have hired inexperienced tradesmen and lived to tell the tale of woe.
This young person is 21 years old has a certain level of maturity that is wonderful to see. The heart of the matter is parenting. There are many expats living here who are barely surviving but they do so by leaning on each other. We laugh at the rotating beds scenario where someone sleeps on the bed while the others are at work. That is what community is all about. We have become so dependent on ourselves to survive that we have forgotten that no man is an Island. Perhaps we need to start doing what many of us did back in the day, share accommodations, cook from one pot, share child watching duties, if we have a car, car pool, so that we can all save on gas. Many ways to stretch that minimum wage and this young person seems to be on the right track
There’s an oft-repeated story about a senior local politician who went round the big local law firms armed with his shiny new law degree expecting to walk straight into a well-paid job. He apparently (and this came from someone who interviewed him) got a bit iffy when it was pointed out that, with no practical experience, he was still effectively a trainee. Over the years I’ve personally encountered a number of Caymanians who, armed with qualifications like MBAs, think they know it all before they’ve even started a job. That’s the hurdle employers have to overcome. Would Ezzard trust someone straight off a C&G course to fix his plumbing, do electrical work, install a gas appliance or fix the brakes on his car without supervision? If he would he’s a fool.
@7:56AM – You make it sound as if the playing field is level. Caymanians with law degrees from the local law school are required to article before being called to the bar and becoming fully qualified. UK law degree holders however are not required to article and are hired by those very same big local law firms without a lot of practical experience. Local laws firms will often lock Caymanians out by not hiring them, preventing them from finishing articles and therefore becoming fully qualified. It is the same historic game of moving the goal posts for “others”.
Bear in mind that the degree from the local law school is a U.K., degree also. Any grade below a 2.1 is not much value here or in the U.K.
When I left for law school in the UK I was told it wouldn’t matter what grades I got because of all the pressure the government was putting on firms to hire Caymanians, because of how smart I was, and because of how connected and prominent my family was. When I came back a 2.1 was required and I didn’t have one, and all of a sudden that other stuff didn’t matter either. I’m still suffering for it 8 years later. That may be the way the world is supposed to work but if someone had told me get a 2.1 or don’t bother, I would have made sure to get it. I could have had a first if I’d set my mind to earning one. So you’re not wrong but it’s a sad state of affairs.
If you could have had a first if you had set your mind to it, but didn’t bother because you expected you didn’t need to, then I am not sure I would want to hire you irrespective of how potentially clever you are. The work ethic tells me all I need to know.
You are wrong.
To be ‘qualified’ as a lawyer anywhere you have to serve articles. No law firm here will hire someone from overseas who has not already served articles and gained several years experience.
Not true. The law firms here a filled with persons who did not complete articles. They were called to the bar and never did pupillage. The loophole has been closed but significant harm was caused to many.
Yeah. Right. That’s true. They hire them as a newly qualified in their foreign office. Have them practice Cayman law there without a practicing certificate for a few years, and then move them here.
That is not actually true. In order for expat lawyers to work here they have to have 3 years of post qualification experience. It is written in the law. In order to get a work permit for an expat lawyer, the job has to be advertised. The AG has to scrutinise the application before it is even approved by Immigration and the final hurdle is that the judicial department has to review every single piece of paper before an application can be listed for the person to be admitted and even then there is no guarantee that the Judge who is hearing the application will grant the application for admission. I have seen many lawyers who have been granted work permits refused admission to the Cayman Bar.
But raising the minimum wage would be the right thing to do. The minimum wage here is totally unrealistic and nobody can put anything away because one is simply surviving.
Increasing the minimum would result in costs increasing. So the minimum wage earner just ends up broke at a higher wage. Maybe worse as the job they have may disappear. The “secret” is education. Continually improving your abilities.
Little point of your government is allowing highly trained foreigners, with degrees they got for free without leaving home, to compete with you for all jobs at close to $6.00 an hour.
Tough luck with costs increasing. A lame excuse only.This is a hell of a wealthy island. The jobs will not / not disappear in Fosters, Kirks, Wendy’s, Burger King as the Caymanian people behind these ventures made very nice profits in 2019.
Mr Miller’s sentiments are misplaced. Would you let a brain surgeon operate on you right out of school without practice and practical training? An improperly wired house can kill someone including the tradesman working on it. Apprentices make very good money and it’s an investment in your own future. If Mr Miller’s plan comes to fruition none of these rookie trades will be able to get a job. I wouldn’t let one touch my house no matter where in the world they’re from.
Just my two cents.
9.23 I am sure Ezzard does not consider brain surgery a subject to be taught in a trade school. Try again
‘you tell them to go get a job at Burger King and get off their ass and the pride starts to kick in’
For me it’s not pride, it’s knowing 99.9% of the places like Burger King won’t have fellow Caymanians employed there with the most employees being either Jamaican or Honduran. Call me racist but i’d rather work alongside my own people than a bunch of foreigners who can barely speak English and have no knowledge or connection to our Caymanian traditions.
That mentality is a form of pride. Yes it’s sad that many of our people can’t work with other Caymanians, but to refuse a needed job on that premise is prideful.
Yes, you are racist. However, if it is your desire to work alongside your own people, have you considered being the first to apply for the job and then asking some of your own people to join you?
@ 4:41am You are a fine example of an entitled Caymanian idiot. Don’t act like the pay and labor type of work isn’t an eye sore for you. Don’t act like cashing out fellow Caymanians won’t bring shame upon you because you are so concerned about what they will think and say about you. Caymanians have typically shied away from these types of jobs for the same reasons I outlined. Just like the writer of this post said, it’s your mentality that holds you back. Continue to blame foreigners for taking up jobs your own people have no desire to do because of the salary and fear of ridicule. smfh
That is pride. Sometimes we need to buck up and work somewhere even if we don’t want to. And to your last point – more times than not you can work in an office environment with foreigners and I can guarantee those same Jamaican or Honduran nationals would know more about and have greater connection to our culture than the those in the office – it just depends on the PERSON. They would at least make the effort. I speak from experience in both environments. You can meet some of the nicest as well as some of the nastiest people from all walks of life and cultures. They don’t speak for the whole. I say this as a Caymanian who has also met some horrible Caymanians. We’re all human and every person is raised differently.
“it’s not pride”
Sounds like pride to me!
It’s not pride people. This person wants to work with others who speak English well, know Cayman, and are plugged in to its culture. He/she doesn’t want to have to assimilate to another country’s culture to work in his own. If you had more Caymanians working these jobs, even more Caymanians would work them, because they’d get to do the work together. I don’t see any pride or racism in that. You don’t have to make a negative value judgement about others to want to be with your own.
Oh deary me. Well, obviously it is pride and quite a heavy handful of racism to boot!
What do Caymanian traditions have to do with working the fries?
Yes, and Burger King which is a license to print money on Grand Cayman can afford a $10 an hour minimum wage. I know they can.
You’re right that math and science are not enough. Social programs to educate the misinformed and the disinterested that education is the key to improving one’s circumstances. Reprogramming young Caymanian males to understand that their masculinity is not measured by how many girls they can seduce and impregnate, or what car they drive, but instead by the value they place on self improvement through education and having the desire to become respectable, successful men. Our young girls need re-education as well. They need to hold themselves to a higher standard and not give their bodies to immature boys who see them as playthings and conquests.
Enough blaming the foreigners for our own shortcomings. Their needs to be a change in the social mentality. Focus on education and self improvement. Encouraging our children to strive for higher learning and not accepting anyone in their lives that does not hold themselves to the same high moral and educational standards.
Well said! We need trade schools as well for Caymanians to go to if they didn’t do so well in high school. Cifec or ucci is obviously a waste of time for those who have no interest in sitting down at a desk and writing all day.
At trade schools young Caymanians can learn how to build, or how to be a bank teller etc. Then once they graduate with a certificate from these schools they can go straight into that field.
Please cig, there’s so many things we can do to help young Caymanians make a life for themselves, there’s NO excuse!
https://www.inspirecaymantraining.com/
Congratulations, young sir, you have an attitude that will lift you far. Some of the biggest titans of industry started in minimum wage jobs. But they were determined to learn more, not just earn more.
In a rising economy, I urge you to learn what the incoming wealth will need. This, alongside your local knowledge, will make you valuable. There is little you can’t learn with access to the internet. Motivation to do so is the only entry requirement.
Fix the problem and crime will decline.
Clearly you missed the entire point of this article. Crime is not contingent on circumstances, crime is contingent on the mindset of the criminal.
As a 60+ year-old Caymanian with a college degree, I have to say how refreshing it is to find someone who has a better command of the English language than 9 out of 10 returning college graduates that I have interviewed or communicated with over the last 20 years.
Raise the friggin minimum wage Caymanians and find your humanity.
Perhaps I should expand on my 9 out of 10 interviewees. Not being employed by a top legal or financial company myself, I didn’t get to interview the cream of the crop of returning graduates. However, when someone applies for a job and tells me they have a BSc in Biology from Liberty University, and I see Liberty teaches a course that provides scientific evidence that the earth is only 6,000 years old, then I have to shake my head at how some people can waste four years of their life and thousands of other peoples dollars with so little to show for it.
So in conclusion, I do believe that far more that ten percent of our returning graduates received a great education, but far too many young Caymanians are still going to university/college for the sake of saying that they went there rather than to prepare them for anything useful in life.
After all of these years I can still paraphrase one of the things the commencement speaker said at my graduation almost 40 years ago: “An education isn’t the things that you have learned here, it’s what remains after you have forgotten everything that you were taught here”. So in that sense the young 21-year-old writer is far more educated than many who hold high office in Cayman.
“Stop encouraging “ass whoopings” and raising kids who grow up angry at the world.” THIS!!
‘Spare the rod and spoil the child’…..a bigger load of BS has rarely been written. If beating your kids is the only way to instill discipline then you have a huge problem. And ultimately a miniscule brain.
Very well said. I grew up not ulike you, and had quite a few unsavory jobs. When I didn’t have work, I fished. Your outlook and strength bill you as a person who will always keep climbing. You seem like an old soul. We need more young people like you. God bless you and keep you safe. You have sand and heart.
REspect
Very good and forthright article. I wish you well.
How so?
You have limited vocabulary. Back to school for you.
Beaumont, your comments always ring true.
Well done!
Excellent point of view!
You should run for the Legislative Assembly. You show more common sense than most of them, irrespective of your age.
Remember we have Elections, my dear. So you should vote for the 21 year old rather than tear down the people’s elected body and complain.
I would rather vote for this young man than jaded old has been’s like Mac or dumb as a bunch of rocks place holders we currently have. How much worse could it be? He has a clean record, isn’t in anyone’s pocket and actually seems to give a Sh*&. which is 100% more than you could say about most MLAs.
It amazes me that people will make comments like these but will still go and vote for the “Party” member they are obligated to vote for with no thought as to just how unfit for office that person is.
Oh dear! Running for the LA is not always the panacea you might think. Unless you are willing to say Aye Aye to everything the government ( which ever one) bench bring, if you dare to have a differing opinion you better keep it to yourself and tow their line or you will be excommunicated. I would suggest that this bright young person should avail himself/herself of part- time study at the community college, if not already doing so, to enhance his life.
Bravo kid. You’ll be going places. Others, not so much.
So let’s help the kid out a bit and raise the minimum wage.
Exactly!! I know a few Opposition MLAs who has been pleading and begging the Government to raise the minimum wage to no avail. This government is the prime culprit in keeping down wages because it benefit their rich friends and indirectly benefit them. Some of us want to be be able to share in the Cayman Pie, We don’t want to take away their riches we just want to be able to make a decent wage. Will someone help us!!
And ban its application to anything but entry level and domestic positions.
Yet another expert arm chair economist commenting on the usual low hanging political football. Yes, raise the minimum wage and the only affect will be to help increase the quality of life of those receiving the raise. What a great idea. No affect on the small business owner who now can’t afford to pay 10 employees and cuts the staff down to 8. Two more unemployed people now. Or simply go out of business. Or raise all their costs on to everyone else – both poor and rich alike now pay more. Please, please think a bit beyond the immediate feel-good impact. Its been proven again and again. Increase minimum wage and increase unemployment and costs on everyone.
Damn tough on the minimum wage. God help anyone who attempts to pull themselves up with the current minimum wage. The wage is a disgrace.
What ever the MINIMUM WAGE the expat. will still be the prefer!