A world full of solutions we refuse to accept

[Apples]

I appreciate you working to get educated!

Migrant workers and H-2A visa workers are different people.  Technically H-2A workers are migrant workers, but that's not what the term traditionally refers to.  "Migrant workers" are domestic seasonal migrant workers, who often move around for different harvest windows or other seasonal jobs.  They make up 1/4 of our harvest crew and 1/2 of our summer crew.  And the requirement for employers (not the workers) to use E-verify did mean many workers fled the state.  The same thing happened in Florida last year.  The reality on the ground, once the dust settles, is that most employers just don't use E-verify (or not on every single worker), cross their fingers to not be caught, and hire the people willing to do the job.  E-verify absolutely scares away domestic seasonal migrant workers, which is why we had more than usual here last summer once the law changed in Florida.  They left FL and came to us early.  A very high percentage of that population is not offering verifiable documents.  But scrutiny goes up on every. single. person. in that group, so even those here legally (I've helped several of our employees with their renewal paperwork for legal documents, so I can verify they exist) feel the skepticism and will leave to a place they don't worry they'll have to prove their legal standing all the time.

And undocumented workers, if they're from a country that could offer H-2A visas, gamble by going back to that country and hoping they could come back on an H-2A visa.  They have to have an employer who will add them to their list of workers to come, and then have absolutely no record of their time in the U.S. for the 10 years before they come on an H-2A visa.  If a person has never had a run-in with law enforcement (most commonly by getting pulled over or in an accident), there is a chance they can go back to Mexico (or wherever) and the next year come here on an H-2A visa.  But it's a chance, and once they're back in their home country it's difficult to get back here if you're denied a H-2A visa.  Finally, if a person has a family here they're very unlikely to take that route.

In the chart you shared, the gap between jobs certified and visas issued is mostly due to people getting turned down at the consulate.  We've had prospective workers turned down to a previous illegal presence in the United States, but also due to things like their birth certificate having a typo so it didn't match the rest of their paperwork (Ruiz turned into Luis), the consulate employee looked up our farm name and found one in a different state so denied everyone for a "fraudulent contract" until we could get that worked out (but by then several workers had backed out), and their name/parents names/town combo is really popular and the consulate couldn't verify who they were.  Then there's the chance that workers or employers change their plans at the last minute (smaller harvest, worker has a family health issue, etc.).

tl;dr:  So, E-verify  means nothing for an H-2A worker and employer, because they are absolutely going to pass that check.  Well, once the employer takes them to get a Social Security card lol.  And migrant workers who would run from E-verify may not want to take the chance of attempting to come on an H-2A visa.

To OP:  Your very fist point is funny to me.  You play with specific investments on the news and options, but are scared of putting more money in stocks.  The cognitive dissonance on that one I hope gives you perspective on how your initial list is difficult to solve, even if we're not accounting for wider social issues.

[LaineyAZ]

ChpBstrd,
I appreciate your thoughtful post.  It's not often we adults take time to step back and consider different areas of our daily lives. Your insights and potential next steps seem very reasonable and practical.  It's going to be helpful for many here.

Apples,
I also appreciate the information in your post.  There's such a knee-jerk reaction to any immigration-related news that it's refreshing to read how the laws actually work.  Like most Americans I'd like to see some options that are a fit for both the practical work needs and the humanitarian ones. 
Related to this, I know the medical field is begging for workers, especially LPNs and caretakers - that need is only going to increase as baby boomers age. 

[GuitarStv]

Apples - In 1986, uncapped H-2A visas were introduced for agricultural work.  Twenty-five years later (2011) a new law in Georgia required migrant workers use e-verify.  Migrant workers all fled the state, causing crops to rot in the fields.

It really pisses me off that the solution to crops rotting in the field is "just hire illegal workers" rather than "let's pay a fair wage for the job".

[Poundwise]

9) Too much unhealthy food: Confront the spouse about not bringing sweets or packaged snacks into the house, even though I love those things.

FYI, not buying treats will be hard for your spouse if you have children. YOU need to do something about your unhealthy eating, not her. You may be better off with an intermittent fasting approach... no eating before 11am, no eating after (for example) 7pm.  Just one choice to make, eat or don't eat, and in between these hours you can eat what you like within reason.  This method along with about 30 minutes of exercise 3-4 times a week is working well for my spouse and me.   

[GuitarStv]

FYI, not buying treats will be hard for your spouse if you have children.

Why?

Not picking on you here . . . I just don't understand this (commonly held) assumption that children require garbage food at regular intervals.  Or the assumption that appears to be held by the school our son attends they will drop dead if they fail to eat some sort of sugary snack every two hours or so.

My son is in a class of 16, and his school has more than twice the physical activity scheduled during the week that mine did when I was growing up.  My son is one of only six children in the class who isn't obese. 

[nereo]

Apples - In 1986, uncapped H-2A visas were introduced for agricultural work.  Twenty-five years later (2011) a new law in Georgia required migrant workers use e-verify.  Migrant workers all fled the state, causing crops to rot in the fields.

It really pisses me off that the solution to crops rotting in the field is "just hire illegal workers" rather than "let's pay a fair wage for the job".

I've been thinking about this sound-bite retort ("[worker shortage would be solved if we] paid a fair wage for the job".  I think it's far more nuanced than that.

Considering farm work in particular, a key challenge is that you need a crap-ton of labor but for just a few weeks each year. Our modern society is built heavily upon this idea of "full-time employment" (meaning a job you do 40+ hours/week, year round).  Even if farms could offer a substantially higher wage (and more benign working conditions), the existing labor pool for that kind of work is tiny outside migrant workers.  Which our society actively works against because we want permanent community members and not transient workers.

Decades ago schools would just stop for a few weeks during the fall harvest and spring planting as kids were needed to join the workforce on their family's farm. But for good reasons we've curtailed how many hours you can work a pre-teen and set standards for school attendance.

It's similar to what communities experience that have seasonal, tourism-driven labor markets.  They are always scrapping for workers, because it's hard to find skilled, educated people who can stop their jobs and their lives for 10 weeks every year. So you wind up with a workforce that's heavily skewed towards young, transient, and often immigrant workers who aren't most people's first pick.

[GuitarStv]

Apples - In 1986, uncapped H-2A visas were introduced for agricultural work.  Twenty-five years later (2011) a new law in Georgia required migrant workers use e-verify.  Migrant workers all fled the state, causing crops to rot in the fields.

It really pisses me off that the solution to crops rotting in the field is "just hire illegal workers" rather than "let's pay a fair wage for the job".

I've been thinking about this sound-bite retort ("[worker shortage would be solved if we] paid a fair wage for the job".  I think it's far more nuanced than that.

Considering farm work in particular, a key challenge is that you need a crap-ton of labor but for just a few weeks each year. Our modern society is built heavily upon this idea of "full-time employment" (meaning a job you do 40+ hours/week, year round).  Even if farms could offer a substantially higher wage (and more benign working conditions), the existing labor pool for that kind of work is tiny outside migrant workers.  Which our society actively works against because we want permanent community members and not transient workers.

Decades ago schools would just stop for a few weeks during the fall harvest and spring planting as kids were needed to join the workforce on their family's farm. But for good reasons we've curtailed how many hours you can work a pre-teen and set standards for school attendance.

It's similar to what communities experience that have seasonal, tourism-driven labor markets.  They are always scrapping for workers, because it's hard to find skilled, educated people who can stop their jobs and their lives for 10 weeks every year. So you wind up with a workforce that's heavily skewed towards young, transient, and often immigrant workers who aren't most people's first pick.

Naaah, I don't buy that argument at all.

There are plenty of temporary work jobs where a fair wage is paid that don't need to hire illegal immigrants.  Most of the fishing industry in the East Coast of Canada is like this.  A lot of the work on oil refineries in Alberta is temporary work.  Or you could look at much of the farming done in Ontario . . . where we actually bring in temporary workers from South American countries all the time - all done legally.  (Not to say that it's perfect by any means - typically there's a setup where the farm owners will house and arrange for transportation for migrant workers, and then the temp workers don't speak the language or know much about Canadian laws - so we've had problems with farmers using this power disparity to treat workers very poorly in some cases.  But at least there's a legal recourse for the workers when this happens.)

[Apples]

Hey, hello, friendly ag employer again, and yes we grow a perishable crop!  GuitarStv, I'd love to have a hard number on what you'd consider a fair wage.  Usually the answer is whatever it takes to hire local people, and I'm sad to share the bad news that, well, that's usually nearly impossible.  This work is hard and takes a level of fitness many people don't have.  Plus a willingness to do blue collar type of labor, which again narrows the field.  Finally, yes we could start paying what the trades pay...and then likely go out of business, meanwhile still losing people constantly as they find year-round jobs.  That's an easy trope to fall back on, but our wages (due to being in the H-2A program) have gone up over 40% in the last 6 years.  Inflation was 24% over that time frame.  That's genuinely not sustainable.  The only places I know that hire local people get college students a few hours at a time or have a farm market and the local people work at the same pay rate but mostly indoors and fewer hours.  This wage increase has not led to local interest.

The first year we joined the H-2A program, our wages went up a dollar an hour, roughly a 8% raise.  Yes, that was a lot, and it does show the difference between the "going rate" for "illegal workers" (though everyone can hand me documents needed for the I-9 and I promise you they're not all illegal) and the government-backed program.  We now pay over $17/hour, and offer 45-50 hours of work per week, if the weather cooperates.  More hours in the harvest season.  When we pick apples piece rate, some workers take home *after paying taxes* over $1,000 a week.  They absolutely earn that money.  They earn that money whether they're here on an H-2A visa or as a domestic seasonal migrant worker, which we still hire both of.  Our H-2A workers sometimes come from more middle-class areas and jobs, and those guys need about a month to acclimate to being on their feet working quickly all day.  We've hired U.S. workers locally (we're required to with H-2A) and literally none of them have stayed for a second day of work.  I believe it's because they can make a few dollars less per hour at the local gas station and not work as hard (but that job requires knowing English and being able to do basic math - you'd be amazed how many people we employ that genuinely can't add).  Many don't show up and only applied to fulfill unemployment requirements. 

This year we pay over $17/hour, after annual increases anywhere from 50 cents to $1.  We've had employees leave to go get paid $19/hour under the table in a landscape crew seasonally.  Or $15/hour but indoors in a packing house.  Very few employees have left.  Nowadays roughly 50% of the growers in our county are in the H-2A program, so the wage rate that program requires is by and large the "going rate" for employment in our industry for all of us.  In states where overtime has been enacted, most growers hire more workers (usually H-2A because it's the most reliable way to suddenly increase your workforce, over the usual method of "yeah he's got 2 brothers, 3 cousins, and a nephew who can come next year") to stay under the threshold, because doing the math it's genuinely not worth it to pick apples at time and a half rate.  The profit margin is slim sometimes.  We also walked away from several blocks this year because the fruit quality was low enough that the marginal cost to harvest it was not going to be made up for with the sales price.

For the record, we grow the apples you buy at the grocery store and in your apple juice and apple sauce.  And you may or may not have noticed that apple prices are cheaper this year because the national crop was huge, so at times apples are being sold for less than the cost of production.  It's wild times out there.

If you want to see what the minimum rate is for H-2A employees in your state, see here:  https://flag.dol.gov/wage-data/adverse-effect-wage-rates     Those rates also apply to anyone else on the same farm doing the same work, and the DOL takes that very seriously.  So if we have any illegal workers, they're getting the same rate and also paying taxes.

Final caveat that some employers have done absolutely horrendous things, and when the DOL investigates you see the articles about it.  We all think they're despicable, to be clear.  But whole bunches of employers are out here following the rules*.  I think the best evidence for that is the returning H-2A and domestic seasonal migrant employees.  These people leave, and then choose to come back, every single year.  Would you return to your job every single year if it was terrible?  While their other options may not be great, they're not limited to just us.  And H-2A workers are tied to an employer while they're here, but the can certainly find a different contract for next year.  Domestic seasonal migrant workers are the most mobile people you'll ever meet - just up and leave without saying anything on a Wednesday morning and call 2 weeks later asking you to mail them their check, or alternatively you never hear from them again.  Half of them don't have cars, but they all have a cousin/friend/sibling within an hour or two who can pick them up.

*DOL will investigate us, and all employers, and find violations.  A neighbor farm was cited for unsafe housing conditions, and the press release went in the local paper, because an employee had a crock pot in his room rather than the communal kitchen and that's a fire hazard.  During our in-season housing inspections, we regularly have to take the aluminum off the smoke detectors - the employees cover them because their cooking in a lot of oils above that oil's smoke point.  If they visited us today, we have 8 newish apartments that don't have screen doors because the guys didn't want them (they have air conditioning, and new guys would leave the regular door hanging open since there was a screen door, letting all the cool air out), and they're responsible in taking care of their housing so we agreed.  That's 8 violations if DOL shows up.  If a lightbulb is out, that can be a $500 fine.  That's really happened to us.  Outside of housing, a local farm had 2 H-2A contracts, each for 5 months or a bit less.  There was a break on each side of the contract, so think Feb - June, then Aug - Dec.  The rules say you can't have a contract longer than 10 months. Employers have taken that to mean workers can't be here more than 10 months. DOL denied their next application, and put out a press release, because this employer didn't have 2 consecutive months of no temporary seasonal workers here.  Which isn't in any written rules.  So that farm reconfigured things to have people here for up to 10 consecutive months, and have 2 consecutive months of no one here.  In the meantime, they didn't have workers for 4 months of the busy season because of this problem.  Oy.  All the housing problems listed above apply no matter who you're employing - visa workers or domestic seasonal migrant workers, it's the same rules.

I just saw the Canadian example - yes, absolutely true.  And there are definitely undocumented workers on Canadian produce farms.  And the SAWP rate in Ontario is $16.71/hour.  So less than what we're paying.  Can we call that a fair wage?

[GuitarStv]

I'd consider a fair wage to be the wage that attracts the necessary people to do the work - and one that won't require that the people doing work are subsidized by the government to live (through welfare or social programs).
 It's obviously going to change/depend on location, economy, and workers.  To the best of my knowledge, between the wages and subsidized housing none of the immigrant workers in Ontario farms require government assistance, so yes it would quality as a fair wage.

[Apples]

Just so we're clear, undocumented/illegal workers generally do no use government-supported programs and were successfully recruited to do the job by virtue of them being there and doing it, so...

[GuitarStv]

Just so we're clear, undocumented/illegal workers generally do no use government-supported programs and were successfully recruited to do the job by virtue of them being there and doing it, so...

Illegal work should be immediately discounted by the illegal nature of the work.

[Apples]

Even if the person working next to them, doing the same job for the same pay, is legal?

[GuitarStv]

Even if the person working next to them, doing the same job for the same pay, is legal?

Yes.

[wenchsenior]

FYI, not buying treats will be hard for your spouse if you have children.

Why?

Not picking on you here . . . I just don't understand this (commonly held) assumption that children require garbage food at regular intervals.  Or the assumption that appears to be held by the school our son attends they will drop dead if they fail to eat some sort of sugary snack every two hours or so.

My son is in a class of 16, and his school has more than twice the physical activity scheduled during the week that mine did when I was growing up.  My son is one of only six children in the class who isn't obese.

I never understand this either. Who is the adult here?  I grew up in a house where sugary treats/desserts were unusual... sometimes/weekends etc.  Of course I WANTED sugary treats, but it wasn't like any huge mental harm was done by not having them around.

NOTE: In my late teens when became able to start eating without direct supervision/buy snacks, etc... my weight and health took a notable turn for the worse.

ETA: I also didn't understand basic nutrition until I was well into my twenties, and I suspect I would have not fallen into bad eating habits in my teens and early twenties if I had been educated about how unhealthy sugar and processed food was. Luckily, I liked unprocessed healthy food just fine, since I'd grown up mainly eating it. So making the switch back wasn't so tough once  I understood the harm I was doing to myself.

[MustacheAndaHalf]

Apples - This data-filled page shows three million total farmworkers, of which "20% harvested products".  Compared to a quarter million H-2A visas, there's a big gap.
https://www.ncfh.org/facts-about-agricultural-workers-fact-sheet.html

Farmworkers are both older and have more years of experience than I thought - it looks like a career to me.  They are paid more than I thought, but much less than nonfarm workers.
"the gap between farm and nonfarm wages is slowly shrinking, but still substantial."
https://www.ers.usda.gov/topics/farm-economy/farm-labor/#wages

The USDA estimates 40% of hired crop farmworkers are not authorized to work in the United States.  Currently, e-verify seems like too big a risk to U.S. crop production, so I'm opposed to it.
https://www.ers.usda.gov/topics/farm-economy/farm-labor/#legalstatus

[Poundwise]

FYI, not buying treats will be hard for your spouse if you have children.

Why?

Not picking on you here . . . I just don't understand this (commonly held) assumption that children require garbage food at regular intervals.  Or the assumption that appears to be held by the school our son attends they will drop dead if they fail to eat some sort of sugary snack every two hours or so.

My son is in a class of 16, and his school has more than twice the physical activity scheduled during the week that mine did when I was growing up.  My son is one of only six children in the class who isn't obese.

I never understand this either. Who is the adult here?  I grew up in a house where sugary treats/desserts were unusual... sometimes/weekends etc.  Of course I WANTED sugary treats, but it wasn't like any huge mental harm was done by not having them around.

The adult here is OP, who is responsible for what goes into his own mouth.  If he cedes responsibility for grocery shopping to his spouse, he can make a request that fewer snacks be purchased, but is it fair to "confront" her? My suggestion was that there may be a more effective way to control weight without affecting other people in the household.

Where did I say that kids have to be fed sugary snacks every two hours?  What I do know is that it's pleasant for kids to have a treat in their lunchboxes and handy, portable snacks, especially if schedules are busy. 

FWIW, we grew up with people who were denied junk food or sugar as children and still became obese or eating disordered adults. In our home, we have plenty of snacks and a home full of fit, athletic, and skinnier than average teens. We have a big fruit bowl that is completely consumed and refilled three times a week, but also usually have some sort of salty snack and some sort of sweet available. Maybe we're unusual because we live in a diverse area with great food, so every week I bring home a new surprise, whether it be key lime pies, bubble teas, or chicharrones. Our kids have zero complexes with food... they enjoy good food, eat till they're full, then stop.

 As my spouse and I fought middle age spread, we used to have trouble with eating all the kids' snacks at night and then having nothing yummy to send in the lunch boxes the next day. We experimented with buying no snacks but it didn't help, just made everyone crankier.  Frankly the only thing that has worked for us is portion control, exercise, and cutting out evening eating.

[Apples]

Yes, true!  The large gap is mostly because of your second point - this is a career for a lot of people.  I'm not replacing guys who have been working here for 15+ years with a brand new H-2A visa holder.  We turned to that program to fill a gap in our labor pool, as domestic seasonal migrant workers have been slowly dwindling.  (Many of our migrant workers will go work in construction or restaurants after they finish apple harvest, so I'm not even sure how well they're represented in the data.)  I will say that getting into the H-2A program as an employer is headache and a half, is expensive, puts you on a list of employers more likely to be inspected by DOL and your own state, and overall is thought of as a necessary evil because the people who come are awesome and reliable.  We started with getting 20 H-2A workers and 6 years later we're up to 45-50.  As our other labor pool dwindles, we increase our use of the H-2A program.  Other farms do the same.  But *starting* the program is a high hurdle to clear.  I think that's the second reason there's a large gap - the visa process is pretty open, it's just hellish to deal with.  As anyone who has gotten any visa can likely say the same.

And to your last point - well, thanks.  Ag employers are opposed to it for the same reason, especially because this is a career for many people and we've come to depend on their knowledge and experience (as you would in any job).  And I don't want to have to risk losing them - either because they are actually undocumented, or because they leave due to the extra scrutiny, as happened in FL. 

And I'm curious about that 20% that harvested products.  We have 30 people here in the summer and fall, so they do both preharvest tasks and harvest.  What category are they in?  Interesting.

I literally just now got a phone call from our state's Labor department because they're trying to put together a pamphlet encouraging farmers to use the H-2A program.  The person tasked with this said they thought that would be pretty easy - look up the requirements and put something together.  They just saw the first application (of 3...) is 36 pages, and several questions are vague - how would anyone know what answer they're looking for?!  I responded that, well, yes - it's cumbersome, difficult, with tight deadlines and opaque rulemaking, with constantly changing regulations you must keep up with.  She eventually asked if we even found all of this worth it.  I said yes, because the guys who come really are great, and it helps to have a reliable workforce.  But you have to really need that, or no one will jump into this process.  She was amazed *anyone* was doing it.

[ChpBstrd]

Apples - In 1986, uncapped H-2A visas were introduced for agricultural work.  Twenty-five years later (2011) a new law in Georgia required migrant workers use e-verify.  Migrant workers all fled the state, causing crops to rot in the fields.

It really pisses me off that the solution to crops rotting in the field is "just hire illegal workers" rather than "let's pay a fair wage for the job".

This is the "we refuse to accept" part comes in. We like our food to be cheap. Paying a prevailing wage for citizen farm workers (what? $45k per year, plus taxes, benefits, etc?) might mean $20 a pound for apples, or $5 per potato, or $40/lb chicken. Because we refuse to pay these prices, we created an "illegal immigration problem" because that is preferable to an "unaffordable food problem".

Accepting that we've made a tradeoff raises a question about whether we even have a problem. It may be politically unspeakable, but I suggest we don't have a problem. Instead we're enjoying the best possible world, where veggies are cheap for Americans and Mexican / Central American laborers have a relatively great opportunity to help their families. Adam Smith would call it the benefits of trade, not a problem.

[Apples]

I just checked - our year-round orchard crew members made $40k-$42k in 2023.

[Psychstache]

I think the best evidence for that is the returning H-2A and domestic seasonal migrant employees.  These people leave, and then choose to come back, every single year.  Would you return to your job every single year if it was terrible? 

I want to start off saying that your information and insight you have provided in this thread have been awesome and I appreciate it. That said, I think this was a weak point here. We have had countless threads on this forum of people talking about going into jobs that make them miserable working with people they hate, but they feel like it is their best earning option. So, yes I could see that people would come back to a terrible* job year after year if it was their best option for making money.

*not saying you have shared poor working conditions in your situation. Seems like you are doing a bang up job all things considered.

[Apples]

Thanks!  And you're right, people absolutely stay in bad jobs and return to them for lack of other options.  My main thought is they have 6-9 months before they return, which is a heck of a long time to find other options (the seasonal folks work just over 3 months up to 6 months).  But it's by no means proof of us being a good option.

And we're not special in the apple industry, to be clear.  This is the standard across farms.  *All* the worker standards gossip gets passed around at the local Mexican store (yes, really - owned by a Mexican family, caters to Mexican workers) about conditions at other places. 

[MustacheAndaHalf]

(Many of our migrant workers will go work in construction or restaurants after they finish apple harvest, so I'm not even sure how well they're represented in the data.)

From what I recall of that hundred-page report, all interviews are in person with a worker at their place of work.  On average, workers spent eleven weeks per year not working (averaging nine in the U.S. and two in Mexico).  The report mentioned other jobs that usually didn't work out, but focused on the reasons for leaving those jobs rather than the type of job.  The report gathers data throughout the year, and I believe includes people who are not currently working.

And I'm curious about that 20% that harvested products.  We have 30 people here in the summer and fall, so they do both preharvest tasks and harvest.  What category are they in?  Interesting.

I have the impression sometimes people will be surveyed during preharvest, other times during the harvest.  I assume they mark people as doing their current tasks - only a few percent said they have multiple jobs, so maybe that meant at the time they were surveyed.

I think that's the second reason there's a large gap - the visa process is pretty open, it's just hellish to deal with.  As anyone who has gotten any visa can likely say the same.

They just saw the first application (of 3...) is 36 pages, and several questions are vague - how would anyone know what answer they're looking for?!  I responded that, well, yes - it's cumbersome, difficult, with tight deadlines and opaque rulemaking, with constantly changing regulations you must keep up with.

Does the employer or farm worker fill out this long, complex application?

Maybe they should have high school freshman try to fill out their application as a test.  The average education of farm workers (from the survey) was ninth grade.  I guess it is not "cruel and unusual" punishment if the applicant isn't in the United States yet?  :P

[MustacheAndaHalf]

@ChpBstrd - In this thread you mention bottling up emotions, and I have noticed you almost never reply to me since I was mean to you on June 16 2023.  I'm sorry.  I apologize for being mean to you in my journal.  We have some overlapping interests, and I probably hurt you more than I realize - maybe more than you will reveal.  I felt ignored in my own journal. I expressed that frustration by telling you to stop posting in my journal, which was too harsh.  I'm fine with you continuing to ignore me, if that is what you want, but I also wanted to apologize for being mean to you.

[ChpBstrd]

@ChpBstrd - In this thread you mention bottling up emotions, and I have noticed you almost never reply to me since I was mean to you on June 16 2023.  I'm sorry.  I apologize for being mean to you in my journal.  We have some overlapping interests, and I probably hurt you more than I realize - maybe more than you will reveal.  I felt ignored in my own journal. I expressed that frustration by telling you to stop posting in my journal, which was too harsh.  I'm fine with you continuing to ignore me, if that is what you want, but I also wanted to apologize for being mean to you.

No problem @MustacheAndaHalf , and very courageous / impressive of you to note that connection and apologize for a comment you remembered - out of hundreds or thousands of other comments - from 8 months ago. No need to worry though. Honestly I had examined my actions, acquitted myself whether deservedly or not, and externalized the explanation for that interaction, which relieved me from worrying about it anymore or feeling butthurt. So I never replied again, respecting your wishes, but continue to follow the journal like a lurker because it's interesting.

You might be onto something though. My spouse will say A+B and then I will say C, going off on a tangent from what they said, and then they will feel ignored because I never acknowledged they said A+B before I going in the C direction. To me the connection is clear, but to the other person I've ignored their points and derailed their train of thought. It could be a consistent issue of mine, or a trait which causes irritation in certain personalities. In my mind, I'm engaging in a back and forth conversation by mentioning the tangents from what the other person said, but those connections are not always obvious and it is not always interpreted that way.

We live in a world full of people trying to find other people who think exactly the way they think. Yet I tend to seek out the people who use a different process than myself. For example, I tend to think in the abstract, which can risk becoming unmoored from reality. You, OTOH, have a talent for connecting detailed information with a thesis or using it to refute a thesis, and are therefore quite useful to someone with my vulnerability.

I need to be challenged, and I love losing a debate and having my own flaws in thinking handed to me on a platter, because they are quite hard to see otherwise. One doesn't get such opportunities from sycophants or mental clones of oneself. So feel free to point out the flaws in my reasoning anytime. I might push back, but the opposition is what I came for.

And of course, in the end it is an anonymous web forum. Pissing off the spouse and getting irritated at the spouse for getting pissed off is a different issue :)

[MustacheAndaHalf]

@ChpBstrd - In this thread you mention bottling up emotions, and I have noticed you almost never reply to me since I was mean to you on June 16 2023.  I'm sorry.  I apologize for being mean to you in my journal.  We have some overlapping interests, and I probably hurt you more than I realize - maybe more than you will reveal.  I felt ignored in my own journal. I expressed that frustration by telling you to stop posting in my journal, which was too harsh.  I'm fine with you continuing to ignore me, if that is what you want, but I also wanted to apologize for being mean to you.

No problem @MustacheAndaHalf , and very courageous / impressive of you to note that connection and apologize for a comment you remembered - out of hundreds or thousands of other comments - from 8 months ago. No need to worry though. Honestly I had examined my actions, acquitted myself whether deservedly or not, and externalized the explanation for that interaction, which relieved me from worrying about it anymore or feeling butthurt. So I never replied again, respecting your wishes, but continue to follow the journal like a lurker because it's interesting.

You might be onto something though. My spouse will say A+B and then I will say C, going off on a tangent from what they said, and then they will feel ignored because I never acknowledged they said A+B before I going in the C direction. To me the connection is clear, but to the other person I've ignored their points and derailed their train of thought. It could be a consistent issue of mine, or a trait which causes irritation in certain personalities. In my mind, I'm engaging in a back and forth conversation by mentioning the tangents from what the other person said, but those connections are not always obvious and it is not always interpreted that way.

We live in a world full of people trying to find other people who think exactly the way they think. Yet I tend to seek out the people who use a different process than myself. For example, I tend to think in the abstract, which can risk becoming unmoored from reality. You, OTOH, have a talent for connecting detailed information with a thesis or using it to refute a thesis, and are therefore quite useful to someone with my vulnerability.

I need to be challenged, and I love losing a debate and having my own flaws in thinking handed to me on a platter, because they are quite hard to see otherwise. One doesn't get such opportunities from sycophants or mental clones of oneself. So feel free to point out the flaws in my reasoning anytime. I might push back, but the opposition is what I came for.

And of course, in the end it is an anonymous web forum. Pissing off the spouse and getting irritated at the spouse for getting pissed off is a different issue :)

I'm glad you processed it well.  I hope going forward you feel comfortable replying to me when the opportunity presents itself.

When you tangent off topic, I interpret that as you wanting to inject your own ideas, to change the topic.  In general, when I bring up the tip of an iceberg, I expect the rest to be uncovered by comments and questions.  I view a change of topic as a lack of interest.  You mention thinking abstractly, so maybe you overgeneralize and people view that as a topic change?  (I bring up one specific iceberg, but you think we are discussing oceans and climate change).  If you skip ahead too often, I wonder if adding steps (half steps) and talking about those will help people follow you better.  Like talking about multiple icebergs, then the ocean in general, and then climate change in general.

You mentioned disagreeing with your spouse a couple times, which I hope means that is open for discussion:

5) Clashing with spouse: Stop bottling up frustrations and being passive-aggressive afterward. Instead, be assertive in arguing for my interests. Stop being afraid of arguing in front of the kid. They need to see functional disagreements and how they are resolved. There need to be more clashes, not fewer.

Would a halfway step be appropriate? As part of a marriage, you make decisions together.  Maybe that includes the decision to argue with your spouse more.  You want to un-bottle your emotions, which you could discuss with your wife before surprising her. Instead of starting by asserting yourself, you might take the halfway step of talking about asserting yourself.

I agree you change your mind when the facts change, and I like that about you.  Most people will agree with that in theory, but will behave quite differently in practice.  Part of my reason for challenging people is to expand the small number of people I meet online who can adapt to new information.  Fact checking results in far more irritation than changed opinions, so I do that far less often now.

[Apples]

To clarify, the employer fills out the long, difficult application.  The questions are not SAT-level, in fact the simplicity of the questions is often the problem.

Some examples:  Describe the housing that will be provided to employees.   -There's no guidelines on what level of response is necessary - do I need to list number of beds, or also number of toilets, sinks, showerheads, laundry facilities, etc.?  Do they need to know it's two sleeping rooms or is that too much?  And everyone learns from each other that you need a line to state the housing will meet local, state, and federal guidelines.  But again, that's not published anywhere.
Job Description:   -Similar problem to the above. Bonus problem if you put something on there that doesn't fall under the job code of an ag worker, you could be on the hook for higher wages than you were expecting.  So you go to O*NET to determine what can be in the job description.  But are the clear directions to do that?  No.  So newbies just write down what they'd like to have workers do, not realizing that putting in deer fencing along the edges of their orchards will somehow classify them as construction workers and now anyone on that contract or as  U.S. worker who does *any* job in the description (like most of the work is harvest or pruning) are subject to those higher wages the whole time.  Oops!  But it's allowed to repair deer fences as an ag worker.  Such nonsense. 
Provide the hours worked each day and week.   Ok, where do I put a caveat for weather?  If I write a certain number. can we go over it by a lot if there's good weather this week and a storm coming next week? 

Most farmers end up hiring an agent to handle it because their knowledge on how the state and federal governments deal with these things in an ongoing way matters a lot.  And that doesn't even get into nitty gritty details on driving responsibilities or a crew leader vs. crew supervisor. An agent costs several thousand dollars per contract.  I started doing our applications myself, but I needed a lot of input from fellow growers to answer the really simple questions in a way that would pass scrutiny.  But over the years the regulations have gotten more nit-picky, so we use an agent.  DOL's own interpretation of a certain rule changed in a pretty big way between last summer and fall, but as a grower I wouldn't know that - but the agent does.

[MustacheAndaHalf]

Apples - Maybe immigration needs a "grandfather clause", allowing existing unauthorized workers, but requiring new workers be authorized (H-2A visa, green card, citizen).  Over decades, a greater percent of workers would be authorized.  The trick is how to register farm workers with no documentation in a reliable way.

[Apples]

It really happened in the 1980's, and it's been discussed since:  https://www.cbsnews.com/news/many-immigrant-farmworkers-legalized-in-1986-went-on-to-prosper/

I don't think a similar bill will happen now.  No way would our Congress pass that.  However, I'd wager a large percentage of new ag field workers are entering the country legally as H-2A workers.  Some percentage of them then don't leave, becoming illegal immigrants.  Border data shows the illegal border crossings are mush less Mexicans than others from Central America.  Expanding H-2A in those countries would help this problem, and that's been a focus of the current administration.  It just takes a while.  Those countries can already have workers come on H-2A visas, but it's not as easy for employers to access them, generally speaking.  (Many employers already have recruitment networks in Mexico from their existing employees, the consulate process there is significantly faster)  We've certainly gotten most of our new seasonal workers as H-2A employees, and that trend seems consistent among my neighbors.