When the People Who Create Jobs Can't Get a Call Back

When they don’t call you back,

A few days quickly turn into a week with no response, and when it does come, the response doesn’t address the initial question.

I’m frustrated, and that’s the purpose of this newsletter.

There has been a real shift over the last several years, and anyone trying to build something has felt it.  

Municipalities, banks, utilities, service providers — the people whose entire reason for employment is to respond to producers — have quietly decided responding is optional. 

A non-answer disguised as an answer. The “we’ll get back to you on that” that doesn’t happen until next week, or the return call that never comes. 

Here’s what every one of those people seems to have forgotten: 

Their job exists because people like us decided to produce something. 

The bank teller has a window because an entrepreneur needed somewhere to deposit payroll.  

The building official has a desk because someone decided to put up a structure that needed inspecting.

The cable rep has a script because a producer signed a commercial lease and needs new lines run.  

Pull the producers out of the picture, and the whole system falls flat. 

You’d think that would deserve a return call. Instead, we get the opposite.  

Somewhere along the way, the individuals whose paychecks depend on producers producing, decided that they were instead going to “protect the community” from us.  

“Protecting who, from what?”

The ones building the housing.  

The ones creating the jobs.  

The ones putting their capital at risk so the town has a tax base to fund their position in the first place.  

It’s as if they see themselves as the hero and we are the threat — and they don’t even do it cleanly. They do it with a sigh and a “well, technically.” With ten days of silence. 

It isn’t just condescending. It’s actually ironically stupid. 

Because if they ever actually succeeded — if the roadblocks finally worked and the producers stopped producing —  

the capital leaves,  

the projects die,  

the tax base shrinks,  

and funding for the very position that gave them the authority to obstruct stops.

They are sawing through the branch they’re sitting on, and somehow think they’re chopping firewood. 

This is what happens when common sense leaves the room. 

Common sense says the people creating the thing your job depends on are not your enemy.  

Common sense says obstruction is not a job well done.  

Common sense says when somebody walks in trying to build, the default posture is how do we get this done<> — not a ten days of silence followed by a non-answer

If your role exists because somebody else built something, the right response is to help them build the next one — starting with picking up the phone – 

To the producers — keep going. Keep filing and keep calling back for the third time. Your work is the reason any of it functions. 

To those that are supposed to help support and service the very community that employs you…. Use common sense, it’s FREE.