Wendy’s woes

How’s this for backwards: I’m going to start this column with the closing, since it’s the most important part. Here goes:

Maybe we can make the market more efficient and help these Wendy’s workers. If anyone out there has a job opening appropriate for a Wendy’s crew member, go ahead and e-mail me the details–including your name, the business name, and phone number, so I know it’s legitimate. I doubt most Wendy’s workers were on-line, but Saipan is a cyber-savvy community and I’m sure these folks can manage to have a pal, or maybe the computer center at the Joeten library, fire me an e-mail with a very brief and simple “resume”–only a few lines are necessary.

If I can find even one person a job using this method, it will be worth it.

• • • • •

And now for the rest of the column…

I hosted a visitor from the U.S. mainland last week, a WWII veteran who shelled the northern part of Saipan from a destroyer during the big battle. During one of our drives along Beach road, we popped into Wendy’s for lunch, and my friend remarked on the spectacular view. He really envied us being able to have our burgers and fries in a place with lush jungle and our colorful lagoon outside of the windows.

Nobody–nobody at all–in the mainland has a view like that; not for a five buck lunch, not for a hundred dollar dinner.

And, of course, we don’t have it either. Not any more. Not from Wendy’s, at least. As the Tribune reported on Monday, the place closed down because of financial woes.

I’ll miss Wendy’s, and the employees will surely miss their jobs. Wendy’s was lunch central for me. Most of the workers were friendly folks, and I’d like to wish them some Biggie sized good luck and give them a double stacked “thanks” for the good service they provided us all.

Meanwhile, just down the road from Wendy’s, recall that Basic Construction Supply recently went under as well. The Eurotex garment factory has also turned belly up.

Gee, does anybody see a trend here? Seemingly not. So many folks are working in the public sector that they’re insulated–-for now–from the business sector’s woes. If the Commonwealth wants to prove that it can handle its own economy responsibly, it sure hasn’t proven it to anyone who knows about economics.

But certain folks won’t need to be pointy headed economists to understand the weight of our woes. The folks that are being launched from Wendy’s into the job market are going to have a tough row to hoe; aside from the lousy economy in general, they’ve got the holidays upon them, which doesn’t make for prime job hunting season.

As for prime writing, now that I led with my close, I’m pretty well snarled here. Nothing to do but end it now. Abruptly.